Managing Your Fantasy Baseball Team
When should I consider trading one of the players on my fantasy baseball team?
I think you should consider trading a player for a number of reasons. One is: is he an injury risk? Is there an injury on the horizon? This is sort of questionable morals; it's up to you basically. But if you think that you've dodged the bullet for a while on an injury prone guy, maybe it's time to get rid of him. Another one is basically just selling high or buying low. I love buying low. You know, superstars who haven't started off well. It's a long season in fantasy baseball. If they've had a really bad first month or two, go ahead and go after them. Try to sell one of your players that's playing well for a superstar with an established level of performance but not playing quite as well. The other thing you want to do is look if you have a ton of home runs; if you are winning home runs by so much and you are way ahead of everyone, maybe trade one of your home run hitters to help you in another category.
What are 'September call-ups' and how do they affect fantasy baseball?
September call-ups are starting September 1st in the major baseball leagues. Teams can expand their rosters of 40 players and they can call up 14 more players to their roster. This is usually going to be rookies or some questionable veterans. It doesn't have a huge effect on fantasy baseball leagues; you just want to see if it affects the playing time of some of your players. Some of the rookies will start playing in September, if they are on a bad team. Those are the guys you want to look for: hot prospects that are future stars coming up on bad teams and then all of a sudden they are going to be in the starting line-up. There will be a handful of players like that every September that you want to go after when managing a fantasy baseball team.
What are some basic administrative tasks that I need to stay on top of for my fantasy baseball team to succeed?
The key job of any fantasy baseball manager is just making sure their line-up is full of healthy players. It sounds simple, but believe me, it is not. There are so many injuries throughout the year, your player will miss a week, two weeks, two months - you just have to make sure that your roster and your line-up are totally full of guys that are actually in the line-up, playing every day; you don't want any guys that are hurt or spent. That's rule number one. On top of that, if you really want to do a great job at managing a fantasy baseball team, you want to check your waivers every week or every day, if you have time to, and just make sure to pick up any available free agents that would help your team. The last thing is trades: staying active in the trade market, seeing if you can improve your team in any way.
What are some tips that I can utilize to win my fantasy baseball league?
Information is king, so knowing more than the other fantasy baseball owners is important, but I think strategy really comes into play. You have to look at the areas you're strong at. You have to maximize your points, because you score points by coming in first, second or third in home runs, runs, and RBI. You have to look at the categories you're struggling with and maximize your points within each category. That means trading a lot of the time, that means selling high and buying low when you're trading players. That means, at the end of the season especially, if you've got enough home runs, you can back off home runs and look for some other categories.
What does it mean to 'punt' a category in fantasy baseball?
You don't want to punt a category unless you really have to, but basically it means that you give up on a category, like saves, for example. There are two categories that it's not too bad to punt, and they are saves and stolen bases. That's because those categories are set apart from the rest of the fantasy baseball categories. They're really on their own. If you're doing poorly in saves at the end of the year, if trading one closer isn't going to hurt your point total in saves, then go ahead, punt saves, get rid of it. It's the same thing if you have a speedster, but you're really struggling in stolen bases. You might as well trade that stolen base guy and beef up your other categories.
