It’s great to write here as a Fantasy Sports Counselor and I hope to help you with your fantasy baseball leagues. My first couple of articles will be about strategies and ideas for the draft. It is a good idea to have some strategies in place when you begin your fantasy baseball draft. Remember that it is a marathon and not a sprint.
First and Third Basemen- These two positions are very similar in the draft because some of the best fantasy picks play either 1B or 3B. You will see that many 1B and 3B go very early in the draft, such as Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Cabrera, Ryan Howard, David Wright, and more. The crucial strategy for this position is simple: you have to get them early. You need to watch out for those great 1B and 3B early in the draft and take them because it is tough to get someone good at those positions in later rounds. However, don’t panic if you miss drafting one of these players early, because you can pull a trick out of your sleeve late, but it is important to have a dominant player in one of these two positions. Some examples of middle of the draft (around 5th to 8th round) players who could be good at these positions are Adrian Gonzalez, Adam Dunn, and Chipper Jones (even though he is a risk). Some examples of late round (around 9th and later) players who could be good at these positions are Aubrey Huff, Carlos Delgado, Mark DeRosa, Hank Blalock, Paul Konerko, and Adrian Beltre.
Second Baseman and Shortstop- These two positions also pair up in draft strategy. With 2B and SS there are only a couple of greats, including Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, Ian Kinsler, and Chase Utley. With the exception of Hanley Ramirez, these players don’t really have the actual value that they are typically given in the draft. I recommend you do not take any of those top players besides Ramirez. You will have the opportunity for a couple of late steals at this position. I would strongly suggest going for one of the great sleepers. Some players who would be both great to pick around the 5th to 8th rounds are Alexei Ramirez, Rafael Furcal, and Dan Uggla. These players will definitely produce for your team. Uggla is a must draft because he is one of the only good 2B late in the draft. For later rounds, you should go for players like Mark DeRosa, Stephen Drew, and Miguel Tejada. Tejada is one of the best steals of the draft because of how much potential he has and I would urge you to wait for him if you don’t get a top SS.
Outfielders- OFs are very tricky because they are massively abundant throughout the draft. You can get a great OF any time from the first three rounds to very late in the draft. The key is to try to balance your OF picks. For example, take two great OFs earlier and then two medium OFs with high potential later. The good ones at the beginning are obvious, but the later picks who could have a lot of upside potential are a little trickier. The first type of late OF picks are the Speedsters, like Coco Crisp, Juan Pierre, Willy Taveras, and Michael Bourn. The second type of late OF picks are the Sluggers, such as Pat Burrell, Rick Ankiel, Milton Bradley, and maybe even Ken Griffey, Jr. Another strategy with OFs is to get the 30-30 players. These are the players who could have 30 home runs and 30 steals such as Alfonso Soriano, Torii Hunter, Chris Young, or Matt Kemp, if he can get a little more power.
Stay tuned for the next post when I review some other position strategies for your fantasy baseball draft. Check out some more of Michael's help at http://www.bestfantasysportshelp.com/index.html.
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1 comment:
Great article Michael!
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