Fantasy baseball is a marathon that begins with offseason prep leading up to a March draft and concludes with playoff matchups throughout September. For more than half the calendar year, you’re preparing to make a deep run and, ultimately, win a championship.
Now that drafts have concluded and the regular season is underway, not only does every week count, every day counts. A lack of attention to your fantasy team can come back to bite you in August when you’re fighting for a playoff spot.
Here are my tips for fantasy baseball success. These will help you as you seek your league’s prize money and bragging rights with your friends.
1. Take advantage of available data.
Baseball Savant is your friend. There, you can find loads of useful Statcast information, from batted ball data to pitch efficiency and everything in between. These can be great indicators not only as to why a player’s performance has been good or bad, but of future positive or negative regression.
Utilize this data before making significant roster moves. For example, if a hitter seems to be having a poor month and you’re considering moving on from him, take a dive into his profile to determine why he is struggling. Perhaps it can be attributed to bad luck. Maybe he is making solid contact on balls in play but isn’t being rewarded, which would indicate that his results are likely to improve. Or maybe he is swinging and missing at too many pitches inside the strike zone or chasing too many balls out of the zone, which could mean he isn’t quite locked in at the plate.
This can also be a helpful tool on the trade market. You don’t want to “buy low” or “sell high” on players purely for the sake of doing so. Buy low on players with strong underlying data and sell high on those whose good performance appears unsustainable.
2. Do not neglect the waiver wire, even if you love your current roster.
There will always be players on the market who will improve your team and there will always be players on your team who are expendable. The key to fantasy baseball success is taking advantage of this fact by remaining active on the waiver wire and in free agency.
Every season, there are a handful of “league winners” who were waiver claims or free-agent additions in April or May. These can be players who excel in a specific category or more well-rounded players who seemingly come out of nowhere to make an impact. These can be players who seize an opportunity created by an injury or late bloomers who finally click. If you let these players remain available for too long, another owner will take a chance on them and reap the benefits.
Similarly, there will likely be owners in your league who will cut ties with a decent player far too early due to a poor start to the season. If you notice that a ninth-round draft pick was dropped in late April because he started slow, there is a solid chance that owner made a mistake. Take a look at the data, evaluate your team’s needs and strongly consider placing a claim on that player. If you don’t, someone else will, and you might be missing out.
Remaining active on the waiver wire is also important on days when many teams do not play a game. It’s likely that the majority of your league’s scoring categories are counting stats (home runs, stolen bases, strikeouts, wins/quality starts, etc.), meaning weekly matchups can be won or lost on Mondays and Thursdays when several teams around the league have days off.
Don’t be afraid to stream a player or two who can fill an unoccupied slot on your roster. This strategy is especially important on Thursdays, when you will have a better idea which categories could use a boost that week. If your league does not incorporate weekly matchups, this is less important during the course of the season, as every team will eventually play 162 games.
3. Sign up for lineup alerts.
This was included last year, but I want to reiterate its importance. It has been my experience that every time I fail to notice that a player is out of the lineup on a given day when I have an eligible replacement on my bench, that reserve puts together a great performance. Usually a pair of hits, a home run, maybe a stolen base.
Hyperbole aside, this is a mistake made often across a six-month season, and one that can add up by the time September rolls around. It is nearly impossible to be available all day every day to ensure that your starters are in, but lineup alerts, which will notify you when a player is out of the lineup, can help combat this issue.
Whether you get these through Twitter or your preferred fantasy baseball site, they are vital. A commitment as long as that for fantasy baseball highlights the importance of these small details that add up throughout the duration of the season.
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