Fantasy Baseball Help Needed!!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have been “drafted” into a fantasy baseball league. I don’t follow baseball at all. If I had to name a pitcher, I would say Rollie Fingers. But this league is a fundraiser, and I would like to support the cause.

I would appreciate any help to get me started. I need to have my picks made by tomorrow. Below are the guidelines. I can pick anyone I want, it doesn’t matter if someone else takes them.

I don’t expect to win this, knowing nothing of baseball, but I just don’t want my choices to be too riduculous. So for those who play in Fantasy Baseball leagues, who should I make sure I pick? I will be the only girl playing, so I would just love to at least finish ahead of a few of the guys. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Rules – Offense – Pick 17 players, and try and pick position players for at least 8 players (like below) – then you can stack the 9 others with bombers if you like.

A. Runs - for each run scored by your hitters, you get 1 point.
B. Singles = 1 point
C. Doubles = 2 points
D. Triples = 3 points
E. Home Runs - Each home run is worth 4 points. Note: You also get 2 points for runs scored + an RBI; so, in essence, an HR is really worth a total of 6 points
F. RBI’s - Each RBI is worth 1 point.
G. Stolen Bases - Each stolen base is worth 1 point.

Pitching categories – Pick 8 pitchers, making your roster a total of 25 players:

A. Wins - Each game won by your five pitcher is worth 10 points.
B. Loses - For each loss, 3 points will be subtracted.
C. Saves - Each save is worth 4 points.
D. Blown save - take away 2 points
E. Strikeouts - .50 points

Sample Team:

Offense:
Martinez (C, CLV)
Texiera (1B,TEX)
Kent (2B, LAD)
Arod (3B, NYY)
Furcal (SS, LAD)
Iciro (OF, SEA)
Sheff (OF, NYY)
Vladi (OF, LAAAAA)
Drew (OF, LA)
Beltran (OF, Mets)
Young (SS, TEX)
Lee (1B, WSox)
Tejada (SS, BALT)
Ortiz (1b, RSox)
Delgado (1B, Mets)
Wright, 3B, Mets)
Garciaparra (1B, LAD)

Pitchers
Johan (Min)
Pedro (Mets)
Johnson (NYY)
Penny (LAD)
Gagne (LAD)
Tomko (LAD)
Lowe (LAD)
Oswalt (HOU)

2

C - V. Martinez
1B - A. Pujols
2B - C. Utley
3B - A. Rodriguez
SS - M. Tejada
LF - M. Ramirez
CF - G. Sizemore
RF - Ichiro
D. Ortiz, V. Guerrero, M. Teixeira, M. Young, Mi. Cabrera, D. Wright, J. Bay, B. Abreu, C. Crawford

SP - J. Santana
SP - B. Colon
SP - C. Carpenter
SP - J. Peavy
SP - R. Oswalt
RP - M. Rivera
RP - B. Lidge
RP - F. Rodriguez

There’s a good chance that everyone else will have this same lineup, of course. Never really seen a fantasy league where everyone could pick the same players.

3

Odd league format. Woulda done the Doper one if I could have Java on my friggin laptop.

I’ll second the lineup given in the second post.

Can you change your players during the year?

4

Thanks so much for the response. The edge I think I will have is that the people playing in this league are from all around the country and are biased towards or against certain teams and players. Like the example given was the first person playing’s team.

The people in this league are mostly horseplayers, who know stats are important, but don’t necessarily lead to the winning horse in each race. Since I have no knowledge of baseball, I figured I would have to go with stats.

With horse racing, knowledge of trends, physical problems, etc, can enable a human to predict more winners than a computer. I imagine this will be the same way. So I was looking for a bit of human input, in case there was something important I would miss. Like picking a Barry Bonds type player who might look good to a computer, but people know he is having trouble lately, and might not want to take him. Or someone else that may be banned soon for steriods or something. Like I said, I don’t follow baseball, just hear headlines.

So I thank you for your list. I will feel much better submitting it knowing there are no glaring errors I made, not knowing what was going on in baseball. My fear was picking players everyone knew were injured, or about to be traded, or whatever it is that might make someone a bad choice.

Thanks again for taking the time to help!! Wish I could give you the Derby winner in exchange. But we are a couple weeks off from making those predictions. :slight_smile:

And on preview, I don’t think we do change players. I am guessing that would have been in the rules if it was allowed. But if we can make changes, I know where to turn to until I have a better understanding of how this all works.

5

That is what we’re here for, after all.

…yes, fantasy baseball opinions. That’s it.