I (Ryan) consider myself somewhat of a budding fantasy baseball expert. So I thought I would write a post about how to construct a great fantasy team. First of all, this advice is strictly for keeper leagues. It's the only way to play fantasy baseball in my opinion. Daved and I are currently in a 20 team keeper league with 25 man rosters. That's a lot of players. You get 10 keepers each year. I won't list all of my keepers, but here are the best of my guys.
Chase Utley
Matt Kemp
Ryan Zimmerman
Matt Wieters
Tommy Hanson
Jake Peavy
Nate McLouth
Chipper Jones
I also have Jason Heyward. I consider this group of keepers pretty good for a league this size. My philosophy is to try and acquire 2-3 guys you can build your team around for 3-5 years. I think it's important to sprinkle in some veterans that are proven. Last year, that guy was Todd Helton. I also believe in developing prospects. Those guys last year were Tommy Hanson and Matt Wieters. This year, it's Jason Heyward. If you have a team that could legitimently compete for a championship, then you should only take a risk on 1 maybe two prospects, but they shouldn't be both starting for you. Jason Heyward is my one guy that I'm believing in this year. I think I have a team that could win it all this year so I need to fill my team out with proven talent.
However, if you've tried all year, but you then find yourself out of contention with no hope of making the playoffs, then it's time to look ahead to the next year. It's time to trade away your veterans for prospects. The type of veterans I'm referring to are guys like Todd Helton, Raul Ibanez, or Pedro Martinez. These kinds of players are still productive, but you'd rather trade them to a contending team for some of their young guys that aren't producing yet. For example, you could trade away Todd Helton for two young players that will get called up in September. They should be young guys who are respectable prospects. This is how our league functions. It's pretty realistic. Every year at our trading deadline, the losing teams dump their good players they don't need anymore in hopes of acquiring the next star that they can build their team around.
So, as I'm getting longwinded here, let me sum up my rules for building a successful fantasy baseball team.
1. Focus on building around 2-3 solid players for 3-5 years. The goal of trades is eventually do get those solid players.
2. Develop prospects, but don't lean heavily on them if you are a contender.
3.Once you are out of contention, look to th future, but not before you are out of contention.
There you have it. I know it's not exhaustive, but they have worked for me. In my next post, I'll be discussing how to tell which prospects are best to take risks on. Something I've had quite a bit of success with and Daved has not.
