Need Draft Strategy Help!

[littleranger]

This will mark the first time I have ever been in a fantasy h2h league. I have never done one in baseball or hockey. It is a fairly tradition league from my understanding.

1 Year H2H League
Stat Categories: R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, XBH, W, L, SV, K, ERA, WHIP

I am just wondering with my 10th overall pick in a 10 team league if I should honestly go for pitchers 1-2-3 and 4th round. That would probably amount to Johan Santana, Lincecum, Haren and Peavy.

I think it would be nice to have a consistant unreal pitching staff and then go for waiver wire bats. Is this realistic? Do I have my strategy backwards?

Thanks and karma for any to respond!

[mariotothehabs]

No way man!! It wouldn\'t be a bad idea to grab a good SP in one of those rounds but SPing is deep and there are gonna be guys available later or even after the draft that could help. The hitting positions are no where near as deep as SP so you need to make sure you get those guys early in your draft, then worry about deeper positions like SP. And don\'t grab RP\'s too early, there are always some surprises found in later rounds.

On a different note, the back to back picks are nice. I just did a 14 team draft (dynasty league) and the10 pick was Ian Kinsler. If he falls to you, jump. He plays very well at a very weak fantasy position. So if you can go back to back and maybe grab Lincecum after that, it wouldn\'t be bad. But focus more on batters in early rounds but don\'t completely ignore pitching. Good Luck!!

[jackalope]

I would not overload on SP\'s for the first four rounds. Not a chance.

I agree that you dont completely ignore pitching in a H2H league, but there are far too many decent SP\'s out there (esp. in a 10 team league) to go that heavy early on.

[littleranger]

Thanks guys! I now have lots of thinking to do.

[alexco33]

I\'m fairly new to this as well but from what I\'ve seen so far the positions with the weakest field to pick from are 2B, SS then 3B.

With both 2B and SS there are basically the \"big 3\" players

Second Base:

Chase Utley
Dustin Pedroia
Ian Kinsler

Short Stop

Hanley Ramirez
Jose B. Reyes
Jimmy Rollins

If your group is as new as you one of these guys might still be available and you should probably snap them up. There should still be good pitchers in the 4th/5th round if your draft is anything like mine.

Other advice I\'ve gotten is to leave catchers and relief pitchers to the latest rounds as your picks could be used on more valuable positions

[seoGuru]

I have actually used this type of strategy before to varying degrees of success. In a standard 5x5 league, if you can lock down all of the pitching cats by fielding a rotation of Lincecum, Santana, Haren, and Peavy, as well as a bullpen of Papelbon, Lidge, and BJ Ryan, you\'ve won 50% of the stats just about every week. All you\'d have to do is fill your roster with a bunch a speed demons like Tavares and Pierre to lock down steals and you\'ve got more than half the stats. This would result in you winning every week.

The problem with this is that pitchers are very inconsistent, and wins (and in your case, losses), are just as much team dependant as they are pitcher dependant. If you can\'t lock down all of the potcher stats, icluding wins, you\'re going to lose a lot of matchups since you will be getting smoked in thepower stats.

BAsically, this is a very high risk/high reward strategy that can be very fun to do if for no other reason than to screw with your fellow owners during the draft. However if you;re new to the game I\'d suggest going the more traditional route, as it is more forgiving, in my opinion.

[littleranger]

strider2k2 wrote:

I have actually used this type of strategy before to varying degrees of success. In a standard 5x5 league, if you can lock down all of the pitching cats by fielding a rotation of Lincecum, Santana, Haren, and Peavy, as well as a bullpen of Papelbon, Lidge, and BJ Ryan, you\'ve won 50% of the stats just about every week. All you\'d have to do is fill your roster with a bunch a speed demons like Tavares and Pierre to lock down steals and you\'ve got more than half the stats. This would result in you winning every week.

The problem with this is that pitchers are very inconsistent, and wins (and in your case, losses), are just as much team dependant as they are pitcher dependant. If you can\'t lock down all of the potcher stats, icluding wins, you\'re going to lose a lot of matchups since you will be getting smoked in thepower stats.

BAsically, this is a very high risk/high reward strategy that can be very fun to do if for no other reason than to screw with your fellow owners during the draft. However if you;re new to the game I\'d suggest going the more traditional route, as it is more forgiving, in my opinion.

Well this is my first time doing h2h I have been playing other types of leagues for years...

I don\'t think I would get smoked that bad in the power stats just due to guys on yahoos ranks:
-Peralta (SS) ranked 109, 104 runs, 89 rbis, 23 hr
-Derosa(2B,3B,LF,RF) 145 103-89-23
-Abreu (RF prolly LF too) 94 100-100-20
-Delgado (1B) 119 96-115-38
-Ibanez (LF) 122 85-110-23
-Mora (3B) 238 77-104-23
-Pena (1B) 101 76-102-31

Even Glaus,Reynolds,Giambi and Cantu have good numbers (even though they have garbage avgs)

After guys like that I can pick up Guzman, Polanco, Hudson, Winn, etc. for avg.

Is this plan too far-fetched?