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Keys to Fantasy Sports Success |
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This is an article about how to be successful in fantasy sports. More articles of this type can be found at http://www.robinsports.com. |
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| Author: Robinsports.com |
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The single most important sentence in this entire article is about to be revealed: Take a few minutes to know and become comfortable with your specific league rules and settings BEFORE the draft and the start of the season. I know every single one of you has had that league in the past where you forget about the draft and your buddy calls you up to remind you a couple hours before the draft starts. Or worse yet, you forget the draft completely and end up with the dreaded auto-draft using the site’s preset rankings! Therefore, I can’t stress enough the importance of taking a look at the league scoring system and how many roster spots you will be working with. First of all, is it a head-to-head or rotisserie league? This can be of the utmost importance, because a “roto” league emphasizes a more well rounded approach; whereas, head-to-head leagues allow you the luxury of sacrificing a category or two while stacking up a few other categories. Next, identify your league’s point system. Are you in a football league that emphasizes touchdowns? Does your basketball league penalize you points for turnovers? Is WHIP included as one of your pitching categories in your baseball league? How many spots and which positions are in your starting lineup? For example, your football league may start two quarterbacks or your baseball league may have a DH/Utility slot. The better you understand the settings and rules, the more prepared you’ll be for the draft.
My motto for the draft is such: “You can lose the league in the draft, but you can’t win it.” Having a strategy going into the draft is also important. You must make sure that you incorporate the things that you learned about your league settings into your strategy as well. Now this doesn’t have to be some “weeklong, cramming for finals” type endeavor. Simply take an hour or so and spend some time reading a few articles with the experts’ opinions on the upcoming season (uh hum…Dank’s View…cough). Now that my throat’s nice and clear, let me continue. Orient yourself with who the rising stars are, which players are ready for breakout seasons, and those guys who might possibly fall flat on their faces. Also, try to find out which superstars are injured and how long they will be out for. I know that all of those guys out there that own Memphis Grizzlies center Pau Gasol know exactly what I’m talking about, but beware, for every Gasol owner there’s also somebody who held onto Phoenix Suns big man Amare Stoudemire last year and did not get as lucky. For those of you who don’t know quite what I’m getting at, let me explain. While Gasol came back earlier than expected and started putting up big numbers this season, Amare was injured for the entire season last year despite 2005 preseason reports that he would be back for the second half of the 2005-2006 season. Another crucial segment of your pre-draft preparation is evaluating the depth of talent at each position along with which positions are valued the most in your league. Let’s take football as an example. The running back position in most leagues is the most important position and a need that you must put high on your priority list. On the other hand, the tight end and kicking positions are two that are fairly deep and can be pushed to the bottom of your priority list and addressed in the late rounds of your draft. Also, if your lineup includes two starting quarterbacks, then you know that this is another position that must be high on the draft list because quarterback is a high scoring position in most fantasy leagues and the best quarterbacks are quite valuable (as all of this past year’s Drew Brees owners nod their heads in unison).
The intricacies of the draft are an entire article unto itself, so I’ll only emphasize a few key points. By the way, I’ve already told you that you can’t win your league with the draft alone. But, I’ve also told you that you can lose your league with a poor draft, so listen up! The first two rounds (and possibly the 3rd round as well) are all about taking the best player available. The truly elite superstars are sparse and irreplaceable. LaDainian Tomlinson, Albert Pujols, Steve Nash…these guys simply out-produce the other players at their positions by significant margins that are very difficult for your opponents to overcome. As the draft unfolds, you’ll want to start with the more shallow positions and the positions that are most necessary in your league, while still keeping an eye out for guys that you think are ready to have great seasons. You’ll want to address needs, but you’ll also want to take some fliers on some young players that could be ready for big seasons. A couple examples from the NBA are Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz and Luol Deng from the Chicago Bulls. The middle of the draft is where you might want to take a stab on a superstar that starts the season on the injured list. Warning! Be very careful with these selections, because I generally prefer to stay away from these guys and let somebody else take them. But, at least give the guys some consideration because the return of a healthy superstar can be just the boost that you need come playoff time. The only other point that I want to make about the draft is to give some thought to your final picks. The goal of the end of the draft is to find a player or two who turns out to be a major contributor for your team…finding the proverbial “diamonds in the rough.”
The true key to fantasy sports success lies in your early season acquisitions. It happens every year in every sport. Guys come out of nowhere to have great seasons and valuable fantasy contributions. Just to name a couple, the kind of guys I’m talking about are players like the NFL’s WR/TE Marques Colston from the Saints and the NBA’s SG Kevin Martin from the Sacramento Kings. These transactions can be difficult, as you have to decide which player to drop from the list of guys that you liked enough to draft a few days or weeks earlier. You also have to evaluate whether or not the “hot no name” will keep up his torrid pace and maintain his starting spot at the end of the season when you’re in the playoffs and need him most. You’ll have to pay attention to your league’s waiver wire pretty regularly and you’ll probably have to take a chance on a guy based upon how he plays in only a few games. This is another area where you can lean on some of the experts’ opinions, as we’ll have some great advice for you as far as predicting how guys will pan out. Again I’ll give myself another more blatant, shameless plug for checking out what I have to say in the Dank’s View section of our site. Read up on injured players and try to make a decision on whether your injured players are worth keeping and whether the injured players that your opponents have dropped are worth adding to your roster. My opinion is that there is always room on my bench for injured great players as long as they’ll be back before the league playoffs start. Again, I’ll emphasize that the early part of the season is the most important segment, so beat your opponents to the punch and take a few stabs at the hot players on the waiver wire.
As the season progresses, I’ll comment on a few other areas that can help you take your league’s crown. First of all, I’d warn you about making trades unless you truly feel that your team will be better at the end of the season. On the other side of that coin, early in the season is a chance for you to trade away a guy that has a fast start if you think that he may fizzle out by the end of the season. The goal is to win the league, so if you feel that you will get the better end of the deal over the long haul, then pull the trigger. The other topic that I now want to touch on once again is injuries. Roll with the punches. If one of your star players gets hurt, the season probably isn’t lost if you can find a quality new guy to plug in off of the waiver wire or through a trade. Also, watch for injuries to other stars around the league and at least give a thought to whether or not you want to pick up the back-ups that may step into the lineups and become instant fantasy producers (think Eagles QB Jeff Garcia filling in for Donovan McNabb this year). Injuries to players that are not on your team are opportunities for you to capitalize on your opponents’ misfortunes!
The last topic that I want to discuss is more specific to football leagues and head-to-head leagues in basketball and baseball. Make sure that you evaluate your weekly match ups. Take a look at who all of your players are playing against and put that information into your head while making personnel decisions. For leagues with teams playing multiple games during the week, teams playing the most games in a particular week make their players obviously more valuable, with the opposite also true for players on teams playing fewer games in a given week. Evaluate your opponent as well. Find out where his or her team strengths lie and try to determine how your two teams compare on a category-to-category basis. Use all of this information to figure out your optimal lineup each week and you’ll give yourself a leg up on the competition.
As you can see, fantasy sports is a multidimensional beast that takes quite a bit of skill to master. The final factor that you have no control over is luck. The best that you can do is to put yourself in position to win and hope that the unlucky injury bug doesn’t cripple your team. Follow my tips on preparation, make some solid acquisitions, and get a little lucky and I can guarantee you’ll be a successful fantasy sports competitor.
Get more sports information at: http://www.robinsports.com/news/danksview/articles/keys.php
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