UPL Wrap-Up: Where I Went Wrong

The UPL baseball season wrapped up earlier this month. Here are the final standings:

I went back and looked at what the standings were during the All-Star break and there wasn't much movement for the most part. Although, that's not to say that the season didn't have a dramatic finish. On the final day Phatsnapper managed to sneak past Hats for Bats to take the crown. I don't think we've ever had that happen on the last day in UPL Baseball before. (One year we did have a tie, though.)

Congratulations to Rupert (Phatsnapper) on his championship season! And I also should point out that both Pauly (Hats for Bats) and CJ (JimmyDix) both had remarkable turnaround seasons. Pauly's team played well enough to take the crown, but it just wasn't meant to be.

After my 6th place finish, I'm left trying to pick up the pieces. Going into this season, I listed most of my strategy for this keeper league. But there was one 800-pound gorilla in the room that I didn't want to talk about. I might as well talk about that now.

If you look at the history of warfare, armies have a tendency to fight the "previous war." Basically, military planners most carefully study the past war, what went wrong and what went right - and more importantly, what they could have done better. And so what happens is that when a new war breaks out, a seemingly solid strategy is to see how your current environment is similar to a past environment, then apply what was learned from that experience in order to best perform in the current war. It's not a bad strategy. In fact, it's probably a necessary component to any great strategy. But if you rely too much on what would have been a seemingly perfect strategy for the previous war, you can end up in big trouble.

In the UPL, we get to keep 18 players from season to season. For a team at the top of the pack, this sounds like a great deal. But it's really a double-edged sword. Things can change quite a bit from season to season, and in a non-keeper format you can change your roster swiftly with the times. When you have to keep 18 players, it can sort of feel like you're stuck in a quagmire.

Granted, my team had plenty of talent heading into this season. And I made some blunders along the way. But if I look at my top 4 picks from 2009, three of them heading into 2010 wouldn't have rated worthy of top 4 picks in my book (Carlos Beltran, Aramis Ramirez, Manny Ramirez) due to their problems with missing significant playing time the previous season. If we had done a complete re-draft, I think there would have been many opportunities to upgrade my team.

But I can't complain. I knew the rules ahead of time and made my own bed. Here are my top three regrets for this season, and they all boil down to not being aggressive enough:
1) Not getting more value for the #3 pick (in essentially the 19th round). I drafted Octavio Dotel to address my closer situation, but in hindsight, there was more league-wide demand for Aroldis Chapman than I realized. I had assumed that after Jason Heyward and Stephen Strasburg, there weren't any rookies who people were willing to trade away value to get. But I think I was wrong there. Had I drafted Chapman (or just  traded away the pick pre-draft), I could have probably gotten something better than Dotel.
2) Not addressing shortstop. I went into the year hoping that Jason Bartlett would have a .390 OBP with 30 steals. That would have been nice. But it didn't happen, and my backup plans for SS didn't work out either. At one point I thought about trying to trade for Troy Tulowitzki, and maybe I should have. But I kept thinking that a viable option at SS would just fall into my lap. It never happened.
3) Not fixing my starting rotation sooner. Part of this is bad luck. I mean, my starting pitchers were absolutely brutal the first month of the season. It's impossible to predict something like that. However, I could have done a better job of holding pitchers out of the lineup and searching the waiver wire for better short-term, and possibly long-term, solutions.

My goal was to win the league again this year, but at the very least I wanted to finish on the podium. So a 6th place finish is disappointing. The past 5 or so years I've been bouncing between first and middle of the pack. I still have a long way to go if I'm to field a contender year in and year out. The Chairman (O.N. Thugs) has made a habit of this, and really, so has C-Lauff (IamJabrone).

It was a fun season. Looking ahead to next year, I'll have to refine my strategy a bit. But then again, that part never ends.

The Vindictive Separatists

So, for the first time ever, I'm in two fantasy baseball leagues. I'm still playing in the UPL, and I've now added the CryBabies League into the mix.

Mr. Hayes (of Mush Heads' UPL fame) is the commissioner of the CryBabies League, which is a head-to-head format. There are only eight teams, so each team is loaded with talent. The most important thing is to make sure your team is hitting on all cylinders the last few weeks of the season.

The Mush Heads gave me a rude awakening in Week 1, drubbing me so badly across the categories that I found myself in last place. After Week 2, I climbed from 8th to 7th. So technically, even though I'm doing terrible in the UPL, I'm doing even worse in the CryBabies League. (Side note: I was a hypocrite and didn't take my own drafting advice, instead settling for an autodraft that saddled me with my top two picks being 3Bs: Alex Rodriguez and David Wright. I'll likely have to make a trade at some point.)

But the CryBabies League is fun. One thing I've noticed is that there's no shortage of entertaining team names, such as "Hemroids," "Apple Sucks," "tballchamps," and my personal favorite, "Steroid to Heaven."

In order to come up with my own team name, I went to Razzball's Fantasy Baseball Team Name Generator. I selected an "agitated adjective" for category 1, and then a "war term" for catgory 2. And voila! "Vindictive Separatists" was my randomly generated team name. Works for me.

I think it's OK to pick a team name by random. The problems come when you try to pick players at random. We'll see if I can dig myself out of the cellar by season's end.

Post-draft thoughts

So the UPL just finished its 2010 fantasy baseball draft. Earlier I posted about some decisions I would need to make in this keeper league. And some of these decisions were made easier after the expansion draft, which saw me lose Billy Butler to the Milwaukee Whiffers. So after that and Joe Nathan's injury, here's who ended up making my 18 keepers:

C - Victor Martinez / Miguel Montero
1B - Ryan Howard / Pablo Sandoval / Victor Martinez
2B - Empty
SS - Jason Bartlett
3B - Aramis Ramirez / Pablo Sandoval / Chipper Jones
OF - Justin Upton
OF - Manny Ramirez
OF - Carlos Gonzalez / Michael Bourn / Chris Coghlan

SP - Dan Haren
SP - Javier Vazquez
SP - Wandy Rodriguez
SP - Edwin Jackson
RP - Brian Wilson
RP - Chad Qualls

Last year I had 4 closers going into the season, and that seems to be a good number in the UPL (which usually has about 12 teams). If I can find 5 reliable closers, then that's an even better number. At the bare minimum I want to have 3 closers, so that's another good reason to always have at least 4--if one goes down with an injury or gets demoted, at least you still have 3.

No doubt, the Joe Nathan injury is a huge loss for my team, especially if he would have gone on to have another 40+ save season with phenomenal peripheral stats. But here's the bright side: At least the injury happened before the draft, giving me an opportunity to plan around it.

As mentioned on the UPL blog, I actually beat the odds and won a lottery pick in this year's draft. While it was exciting at first to learn I had landed my 1.28% chance of moving up into one of the top 3 picks in the draft, after some time had passed I realized the true implications. Basically, there were only 2 "special" prospects available in this draft--Jason Heyward and Stephen Strasburg. If I could have drafted one of those two, then I would have either had a nice prospect with a relatively high chance of becoming an All-Star, or at the very least I had a piece that could likely be traded for a top 100 player immediately. The problem, of course, is that I ended up falling one slot short and ended up with the 3rd pick. And that was a bitter pill to swallow.

When we look back on this draft 5 years later, we might laugh at how highly we regarded Heyward and Strasburg. But what matters now is that these two guys are widely perceived as the next two Hall-of-Famers in the making. And really, JimmyDix has already cashed in on this perceived value by trading the #1 pick (which turned out to be Heyward) and Kendry Morales for an upgrade at 1B, Adrian Gonzalez, and a quality closer, Jose Valverde. It will be fun to look back on this trade a few years from now to see if one side got the better deal or not. 

Another thing that hurt my team was Coghlan losing his 2B eligibility. I guess this proves I don't follow the Marlins closely, because I thought he had played a little 2B last year and would keep his eligibility for this season (I know Dan Uggla is Florida's regular 2B, but I thought Coghlan might have stepped in at times). But I was wrong. And while Coghlan is a very nice player to have at 2B, his value at OF is considerably less. And it meant that going into this draft I didn't have any 2Bs.

So my team's holes were very clear: closer and 2B. And I felt the worst thing I could do in the draft would be to not at least try to shore up my team's ability to acquire saves. While I hated the idea of picking a low-end closer with the #3 pick that I had won in a lottery, it seemed as though I had no other choice. Sure I could have tried to trade the pick, but I think there was a huge drop in value from the #2 pick to the #3 pick. Perhaps others will disagree, but people weren't exactly banging on the door to pick third in this draft.

I studied the relievers available in this draft very closely. By my count, there were only 3 relievers who were very likely to be their team's long-terms closers on Opening Day: Octavio Dotel, Matt Capps, and Matt Lindstrom. Conventional wisdom had it that Jon Rauch would get the nod in Minnesota, but I also was hearing rumors that Francisco Liriano or someone else might get the job. I also liked Chris Perez, because he would likely be Indians closer at least well into May; and Franklin Morales was on my radar because he was slotted to be Huston Street's replacement through April. And I also had a close eye on Ryan Madson since he was going to be the Phillies closer to start the season. Sure, Brad Lidge is scheduled to return soon, but you never know. Plus Madson's peripherals are very nice to have.

At the top of my 2B wish list was Martin Prado. He's likely to bat at or near the top of the Braves' lineup, and by all accounts he's going to be a solid hitter for a 2B. I considered taking him with the third pick, but here's the other problem with drafting toward the top... it's a long wait until you get your second pick. In my case of drafting third out of 13 teams, I would have to wait 20 picks before my next chance would roll around. Also, it's important to not lose sight of the fact that this isn't really a traditional "first round" of the draft--with 18 keepers it's more like the 19th round. So if this were the 19th round, what would I value? And what would my opponents value?

In my world, I figured that those remaining closers would look good to at least a few teams with those 20 picks in between my first two picks. I could easily envision a scenario where I take the 2B I want at #3, Martin Prado, and then have my top 3 closer choices all go off the board before I have a chance at the #24 pick. So with Capps having elbow issues last year and some competition for his job this season in Washington, and with Lindstrom also coming off an injury-plagued year and potentially some competition with Brandon Lyon in Houston, I decided that I would take Octavio Dotel and his high-K rate in Pittsburgh where he has relatively little competition for the closer role. I know, it's not what I had envisioned when I "won" a lottery pick, but I feel it's what I had to do.

Unfortunately, and actually surprisingly, Martin Prado went off the board at #7 to Phatsnapper. I was hoping that Prado would fall to me at #24. While I think it was a good pick for Phatsnapper, I just thought Prado would have slipped a little further in the draft. Plus I would have guessed that Phatsnapper would have gone for a player with a little more upside. But then again, I do think there's plenty of upside with Prado--especially for a 2B.

But the bigger surprise to me is that all 20 of those picks went by without anyone taking a closer. I would have never predicted this outcome. Sure, I could see people being uncomfortable taking a low-end closer with their first pick of the draft, but by the time you're in the 2nd round (which is really the 20th), how can you not at least consider another closer? Even if you already have 3 good closers, I would think that there would be some good value in at least trying to find a fourth.

At #24, I already had decided that I needed to address 2B. And with Prado already off the board and my other top choices already kept by other teams (such as a guy like Rickie Weeks), I was forced to look in places I otherwise would have preferred to avoid. I went with Casey McGehee who is likely just a one-hit wonder from last year, but I had to take the chance. I had read up on him last week and he seemed likely to start the year as Milwaukee's 3B ahead of Mat Gamel, but his struggles recently (which I read after the draft) now have him in a dogfight for a job. McGehee might not be my solution at 2B, but there was one other interesting name on my 2B wish list that I thought maybe, just maybe, might fall to me later in the draft.

At #29, still no other closers had gone off the board, so I had to take a flier on Matt Capps. I think it's unlikely he can regain his form of 2 years ago, but for now he is set to be the closer for the Nationals in a pitcher friendly park. I'm not sure what all was wrong with his elbow last year, but here's hoping he can regain the magic. If so, then hey, I'll be happy with this pick. For now, he's my fourth closer and that was a major goal of mine going into this draft. I'm trying to claw my way back into contention for the saves lead.

Now it's time to wait another 20 picks... During this time a few other relievers finally started to go off the board. Hats for Bats took Brandon Lyon (as a Marlins fan, he probably has no faith left in Matt Lindstrom), IamJabrone took Chris Perez (as a Cubs fan, he probably has no faith left in Kerry Wood), and the Benver Droncos took Jon Rauch. Interestingly, during Hats' 2nd pick out of these 20, he took Matt Thornton--a great setup guy with nice peripherals who many expect to replace Bobby Jenks as the White Sox closer at some point this year.

At #50, I had a few options. But with my #3 rated pre-draft available closer, Matt Lindstrom, still on the board, and with the opportunity to go 3 for 3 in landing these closers, I couldn't pass. At the very least I would likely be denying one of my opponents an opportunity to add to their closer depth. (Due to a comment from Westy later in the draft, I learned that he was the opponent I was denying. Muahahaha!)

At #55, I was happy to see the Tigers' rookie 2B Scott Sizemore still available. I think someday he could be a solid hitter at 2B, although it's unlikely to be this season. Unfortunately, due to my desperation at this position, I had to take a flier on him. It might pay off this season, but only time will tell.

And now it's time to wait another 20 picks... If you look again at my 18 keepers listed above, you'll notice I only have one guy at SS--Jason Bartlett. I like to have at least two at each of the hitter positions, so I felt now was the time to address SS. I hadn't really read up on SS before the draft, but right now I was cruising the web to get the latest info. I quickly honed in on Ian Desmond, who I remembered reading about a while back as a top prospect who could be starting in Washington this season. Plus he had some quality MLB experience from last season--and best of all, he was still available in the draft. I also found info on San Diego's SS Everth Cabrera, who many people listed as a good late round sleeper. He was available as well, but Ian Desmond--in my view--had way more power and upside... and after Benver's pick at #75, Desmond would be mine at #76.

Too bad Benver reads up on baseball prospects, too, because with the 75th pick he stabbed me in the back and took Ian Desmond. It was another bitter pill for me to swallow. I ended up taking Cabrera, and for now I hope that my starting SS Bartlett can have another season where he's at the top of the Rays' lineup with a .390+ OBP, 90+ runs, and 28+ steals.
 
At #81, all of my top SP choices were gone. I thought Wade Davis would have been nice to land late, but he ended up going off the board in the second round (which is a good pick if you're looking for SP help). There were a few other SPs that would have been nice, but none of them were left. However, another reliever who was on my radar before the draft was surprisingly still available: Franklin Morales. While he'll likely be replaced by Huston Street a few weeks into the season, there's still a good chance he'll rack up 3 to 5 saves beforehand. Plus there's always the chance that Street has a setback or is ineffective upon his return. In the 7th round (really the 25th round), Morales seemed like the guy who could most help my team now. Yes, this means I'm likely entering the season with 6 closers, and no I don't consider that ideal. But there are worse predicaments for a fantasy baseball team. Plus the closer position is so volatile, it's hard to know where things will stand a month from now.

With my final pick at #102, I finally got my fifth SP with John Maine. He's still fairly young for a SP and (hopefully) developing. Plus if you look at his splits, he's been a decent pitcher at home (including last year in the new Citi Field). So he'll likely only pitch at home for my team.

So how would I rate my draft? Well, every year after the draft I think that I could have done better. Perhaps the grass always seems greener on the other side of the street. But my main goal was to add some closers to my roster to give my team a chance at being competitive in saves to start the season, and I feel that this was accomplished. I was disappointed that Prado didn't fall to me at #24, but if either Casey McGehee or Scott Sizemore steps up, it might be OK. Or maybe I'll need to swing a deal for a 2B.

And how do I feel about my team overall? Come on, are you serious? Everyone thinks their team is awesome in April.

Update I: Pauly of Hats for Bats has posted his take on the draft here.
Update II: The Chairman has analyzed the draft as well.

My strategy: Drafting players (Part 5 of 7)

This is the fifth in a seven-part series documenting my fantasy baseball strategy. Last time in part four we discussed pitcher evaluation. Now we'll examine how I approached the 2009 Urbana Premier League Baseball Draft and assembled the core of my championship team.

I tend to be wary of general draft advice. After all, draft strategies should vary greatly from league to league. An 8-team league is going to have a vastly different draft from a 16-team league. Also, much depends on the type of managers in your league. If most guys in your league live in Chicago, then you have to expect a high number of Cubs/Sox players will go off the board earlier than they really should. Whereas MLB players on other teams around the country might be hidden gems who fall further in the draft than they should. Each league tends to have its own biases and blind spots.

I can only speak to my own experience. I've never participated in an auction draft, so that's not what this post is about. In the UPL where I play, up until this season we've always had a basic snake draft with all MLB players available. Now 2010 will be the first time we have just a small 8-round draft to fill in our keeper teams. However, here I'll focus on the traditional snake draft for a 12-team league, which is what we had in the UPL for 2009.

The basic principles that I apply to drafting players are the same ones already laid out in the first four posts of this series:

• Focus on winning now. Don't get caught up on players who might be good in the 2nd half of this season or next season. Try to get the guys who will produce right away.
• Build a balanced team. If possible, have multiple players available at each position in order to foster competition and maximize roster flexibility.
• Pick high-OBP power hitters early. Predicting which players will perform the best is hard, but hitters with a track record for high OBP and power numbers tend to be the most reliable bets.
• Target pitchers with low WHIPs and high Ks. Drafting pitchers is risky by nature, so here you can afford to take more risks by drafting them in later rounds.

Now let's see if I took my own advice. Here are the picks of my team, the '90 Reds, from the 2009 UPL Draft:

Round 1 - Ryan Howard, 1B (8th pick overall)
Round 2 - Carlos Beltran, OF (17)
Round 3 - Manny Ramirez, OF (32)
Round 4 - Aramis Ramirez, 3B (41)

What do all four of these players have in common? They're all hitters who had put up big-time numbers for at least the past three seasons (2006, 2007, 2008). Beltran, Manny, and A-Ram all typically go .400/.500 (OBP/SLG), and Howard has simply been the most reliable power guy since 2006. Yes, Howard's OBP isn't as high as I like, but he's been so consistent in a championship-caliber Philly lineup that I just couldn't pass on him. I have no regrets taking Howard over Fielder or Braun, mainly because Howard has been doing it for longer.

Sure, Beltran and A-Ram both got hurt, and Manny got suspended for 50 games, but these were still good picks. After all, when those guys were in the lineup, they produced. That's so much better than having a guy in the lineup who doesn't get the job done.

2010 Outlook: I'd keep Howard rated about the same. But yeah, you have to downgrade Beltran, Manny, and A-Ram based on their disappointing results last season.

Round 5 - Dan Haren, SP (56)

Season after season Haren has low WHIPs and high Ks. Plus he's had a relatively clean medical history. Somewhat early in the draft I like to get at least one bona fide ace starting pitcher to anchor my staff. I was a little surprised that Haren was still available at #56, so I was happy to take him.

2010 Outlook: I'd keep Haren rated about the same heading into 2010 as he was for 2009.

Round 6 - Victor Martinez, C, 1B (65)

V-Mart was my favorite pick of the draft. Why? Because no other pick showcased my strategy better than this one. I admittedly struggled when I was on the clock here, mainly because I was also considering Adam Dunn. The way I saw it, my choice was between the best hitter available (Adam Dunn, who you can pencil in for .400/.500 and 40 homers every season) or the guy who could best balance out my team (Victor Martinez, who also goes .400/.500 with decent power at a scarce position, catcher, plus he has 1B eligibility and thus could backup Howard in an emergency).

Like V-Mart, Dunn also had dual eligibility (OF/1B) and could have backed up Howard. But I already had 2 OFs, and having V-Mart at catcher would have been amazing value if he could stay healthy and go .400/.500. Not only is V-Mart a better hitter than almost every other catcher in the league, but I had read that his manager (for the Indians) was going to make sure his bat was in the lineup every day, even when he wasn't catching (most catchers take at least 1 game off per week). In V-Mart, I saw a way for my team to potentially dominate the position of catcher both in terms of quality and quantity, so I snatched him. Fortunately, he stayed healthy and, as I had hoped, proved to be a key difference for my team.

2010 Outlook: Since V-Mart actually stayed healthy last year, his rating goes up for 2010. But don't look for his overall numbers to be better in 2010 than they were in 2009. 

Round 7 - Joe Nathan, RP (80)

Nathan was 34 going into last season, and some people would have stayed away from him in a keeper league. (Maybe worried that he'd hurt his elbow and miss the season with Tommy John surgery or something.) But I just saw a guy who was among the best in the business. He had a relatively clean medical history, and since I also like to get at least one bona fide elite closer relatively early in the draft, I went for Nathan. Fortunately, he went on to have a career year in 2009 with 47 saves.

2010 Outlook: Okay, so I guess all those people who were worried about Nathan's age can gloat now. He's out for the year with that Tommy John surgery. But this is another pick that I'm not going to second guess.

The core

I was really happy with my first seven picks. I had five hitters who, if healthy, were great bets to produce at or near .900 OPS levels. Four of my five hitters were coming off at least three straight great seasons. And with Victor Martinez, I had potentially found an elite player at a scarce position, C, who could also serve as an emergency backup for my top pick Ryan Howard at 1B if he went down with an injury.

Also in those top seven picks I managed to take an ace SP, Dan Haren, and an All-Star closer, Joe Nathan. By this point, many of my opponents had a head start with pitchers, but my plan was to try to catch up in pitching either through the latter part of the draft or through free agency. For now, I was happy to stock up on top hitters.

For anyone interested in my picks from Rounds 8 to 24, I've posted them in the comments below. I didn't always take my own advice, but for the most part there was a method to my madness. Perhaps I can learn more from my mistakes than from my successes.

Now that the draft is over, it's time to let the games begin. In part six we'll look at making roster moves during the season.

My strategy: Pitcher evaluation (Part 4 of 7)

This is the fourth in a seven-part series documenting my fantasy baseball strategy. Part three discussed how I evaluate hitters. Now we'll flip the script and look at pitchers.

Last spring, Edwin Jackson likely went undrafted in every fantasy league outside of Detroit. But on April 7, 2009, he tossed 7.1 strong innings of one-run ball in his first start for the Tigers. Suddenly he was on many fantasy baseball managers' radars as someone who was worth considering for a roster spot. However, if you were in the Urbana Premier League (UPL), Edwin Jackson was already long gone.

So what's my secret? Do I really have a special method for evaluating pitchers, or did I just get lucky last year with Dan Haren, Javier Vazquez, Wandy Rodriguez, Edwin Jackson, Joe Nathan, Brian Wilson, Dan Qualls, and J.P. Howell? Well, I've always admitted that luck is a significant part of fantasy baseball. But when we're talking about accumulating stats over a 6-month period, I also think you need to put yourself in position to be lucky.

As mentioned in my keeper theory post, it's easier to predict how players will perform this season than next season. Something similar can be said when comparing hitters to pitchers. While it's difficult to predict how hitters will perform in any given season, it's even tougher to predict pitchers. 

But picking pitchers is still 50% of roto baseball, so we need to have a strategy for it. In the UPL where I play, there are six pitching categories: W, L, K, S, ERA, and WHIP. Below is how I study the categories when evaluating a pitcher. 

Walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP)

When I study a pitcher's stats, I begin with WHIP. A pitcher is supposed to make it hard for batters to even reach base, and WHIP is the best measure we have in this department. Really, my WHIP strategy isn't complicated. I tend to look for guys who I think can have a season WHIP of 1.20 or less. 

Strikeouts (K)

After WHIP, I look at strikeouts per nine innings (K/9). My thought here is that a pitcher with a high K/9 can be more than good. He can be dominant. After all, when you strike out a batter, the batter has no chance of reaching base (barring a swing at a pass ball or wild pitch). But even a weak grounder to the pitcher gives the batter a chance.

One thing to keep in mind is that pitchers with high K/9 ratios tend to throw more pitches and suffer more wear and tear. Just think how each strikeout requires at least three pitches, whereas a groundout could happen on the first pitch. However, I don't worry about this too much unless a pitcher has already shown some significant history of injuries. (For example, I wouldn't be too interested in Ben Sheets or Rich Harden at this point. But if either of them were converted to a closer, like Kerry Wood, then that could be a different story.)

In terms of K/9 ratio, I like to see at least 8 K's per 9 innings for a pitcher. Anything less than 7K/9 usually gets me thinking about a replacement.

Saves (S)

I place a high value on saves, mainly because this stat is not quite as difficult to predict as some of the others. If you know that a pitcher is the established closer for a team, then presumably if he stays healthy he'll rack up some saves.

By now it should be self-evident why I also value dominant setup men. First off, they can help out with WHIP and K's. Second, they're potentially in line to become a closer and hence pick up saves as well.

Earned run average (ERA)

Honestly, if a pitcher has a low WHIP, then I'm not too concerned about his ERA. The only exception is if I notice that the pitcher gives up a high number of home runs. In that case, a pitcher could have a low WHIP and still sustain a high ERA, which would be troubling in the long run.

Wins and losses (W/L)

Do you want to know a dirty little secret about the UPL? Wins and losses are garbage categories. This is true for any league that counts W's and L's instead of quality starts (QS).

I find W and L so hard to predict that I've taken to ignoring them. They're basically just luck. I would have argued for getting rid of these categories, but then I realized that the middle of the UPL Baseball scoreboard is kind of a fun place to have a roulette wheel.

Some people get caught up in whether a pitcher is on a good team or not. Part of the thinking here is that if a pitcher is on a good team then he'll pick up more wins, or if he's on a bad team he'll pick up more L's. I try to avoid that thinking. I'm more focused on whether the pitcher has a low WHIP, high K/9, and then perhaps if he's in a hitter-friendly park or not. Whether his team is slated to win 60 or 100 games doesn't really concern me too much.

American League vs. National League

Yes, I tend to favor NL starting pitchers over AL starting pitchers. If everything else is equal, then I have to believe that NL starters getting a weak-hitting pitcher at the plate once every nine at-bats instead of a talented DH makes a difference over the course of a season. However, this isn't a primary consideration.

I also pay attention to the division that a starting pitcher plays in. Will he being going up against elite offenses on a regular basis, or is he in a division with relatively weak offenses and pitcher-friendly parks? Again, this is only a minor consideration; and it's not a factor when thinking about closers.

About that Edwin Jackson pickup

After last season's UPL draft in March 2009, I got curious about the waiver wire and which players had gone undrafted. In doing some research, I came across a controversial article written by Michael Salfino. In it, he compared a 24-year-old Edwin Jackson to a 24-year-old Bob Gibson. He then went on to say that Edwin Jackson might come out of relative obscurity to have a breakout year similar to the way Cliff Lee did in 2008 or Esteban Loaiza in 2003.

Even now, people would look at you weird if you mentioned Edwin Jackson in the same sentence as Bob Gibson. Heck, even comparing Jackson to Cliff Lee would put you on shaky ground in most fantasy baseball circles. But can you imagine if I had gone around telling people back in March 2009 that I had read some article comparing Edwin Jackson to Bob Gibson, so now I'm going to pick him up because I think he'll have a breakout year? Yeah, I would have been mocked to say the least. Troy Patterson over at Roto Savants could give you a taste of the criticism I would have received.

But here's what the critics missed. Salfino's article wasn't trying to say that Edwin Jackson will be as good as Bob Gibson or Cliff Lee (although admittedly the Yahoo article title was a bit misleading). The article was simply reminding readers that Edwin Jackson is still young and talented. Its main message: There's still hope for Jackson to develop into a much better pitcher.

Furthermore, when I looked at Jackson's numbers for myself back in March 2009, I noticed that his WHIP from 2006 to 2008 was 1.84, 1.76, and 1.51. Those numbers were bad, but they were steadily going in the right direction. So I took a flier on him before the season even started, not in hopes that he would be Bob Gibson or Cliff Lee, but in hopes that he'd be a solid fantasy starter for my team in 2009.

Looking back on what Edwin Jackson did in 2009, for the first half he was an All-Star and then in the second half he tailed off. Overall, I'd say he was simply a solid fantasy starter for my team. That's all I wanted.

Closing time and final thoughts

Of course you want pitchers with low WHIP and high K/9. Everyone does. But where I differ is that I don't go after the "brand name" pitchers. That's because, compared to hitters, it's very tough to predict which pitchers will really perform the best from year to year, especially when you factor in injuries.

The key for me isn't so much where I focus, but where I don't. I tend to ignore W/L, quality of team, and the big names. This frees me up to focus on WHIP, K, and who I think is really ready to perform now--whether he's a steady veteran or a blooming prospect.

So far in this series we've discussed my keeper theory, my framework for accumulating points, and how I evaluate hitters and pitchers. I'd say we're ready to draft. That's next time in part five.

My strategy: Keeper theory (Part 1 of 7)

Welcome to the first in a seven-part series chronicling my fantasy baseball strategy as it applied to the 2009 UPL season. The primary purpose of this series is to document my current thoughts about how I approach the game of fantasy baseball. Along the way we'll look at some real-life examples of challenges my team faced in the 2009 season, and why I did what I did each step of the way.

Last October the UPL wrapped up its 9th season--and first as a keeper league. Naturally, going into the season I wanted to have a successful strategy, but I especially wanted to adapt well to this new format because the last time the UPL switched formats (in 2003, going from point accumulation to 6x6 roto) I struggled for 3 or 4 years trying to implement a solid strategy. Given that history, and the fact that I hadn't won the UPL championship outright in 8 years, I was very motivated to do well in 2009.

Part of the allure that people have with a keeper league, aside from the fact that it's more realistic, is that you can do more than just win a championship--you can build a dynasty. On the flip side, if you screw something up then it could cost you for years to come. So from that standpoint there's a little more thrill involved in a keeper league.

Like everyone else in the UPL, as the inaugural baseball keeper season approached in 2009 I had high hopes of fielding a team that would not only be competitive in 2009 but also for 2010 and beyond. So how would I implement a new strategy that enabled my team to be competitive now, yet still plan for the future? This was the fun new challenge of the keeper league. The rules of the game had changed, and with these new complexities, our strategies had to adapt. As I recall, there was quite a bit of talk regarding how we'd need to alter our approach to this new problem.

But after giving it some thought, I soon came to a very different conclusion. In fact, I nearly blogged about my new views regarding a keeper league strategy before the 2009 season started. However, two things kept me from doing so: 1) I didn't think anyone would believe me and 2) Why give away my strategy?

Well, there was also a third reason. If in fact my general approach to the 2009 season was better than my opponents, shouldn't it become apparent after 2 or 3 months? I mean, I'd look really silly if I wrote a long post in March about how my strategy was better than my opponents, only to find myself mired in 17th place come July. Now this doesn't mean I'd have to win the championship in order to prove that my strategy was solid, but at the very least I'd have to field a competitive team before anyone would take my keeper theory seriously.

So what was my keeper theory? Earlier in this post I asked the question, "...how would I implement a new strategy that enabled my team to be competitive now, yet still plan for the future?" And it's true that my initial thoughts about a keeper league centered around this question. However, I started to run into problems when I tried to settle on a logical way to alter my previous season's (2008) strategy for the 2009 keeper league. Starting in 2006 I had learned to focus more on players with high-OBP's and strong track records of performance over multiple years. In 2007, I like to think that I improved upon that strategy with my willingness to draft older players, so long as they had a strong (and recent) track record of performance. In 2008, I had the same basic strategy, although I did deviate from it in a few key ways and it cost me. So for 2009, would I cook up a new strategy or would I be better off trying to get closer to the 2007 strategy that carried me to a UPL co-championship?

In every UPL baseball season prior to 2009, we all had the same simple goal: win now. Everyone clearly understood that you needed to acquire the players who would perform the best this season. But with the introduction of a keeper league where you can keep many players from year to year, suddenly the reward system expanded. Not only was there there a reward for acquiring the best players of this season, there was also a potential reward for picking the best players of next season or beyond.

And this is where a formerly complex problem became rather simple for me. It's already very difficult to speculate on which players will perform the best this season. As we gaze further into the future, it becomes even tougher to predict which players will be the best in the years ahead. (For example, if you had to make predictions today, would you be able to better guess the 2010 All-Star team or the 2011 All-Star team?) For me, this part of the equation was settled: My best guesses will be guesses about this season.

Fortunately, the first part of my equation dovetails nicely with the second part. If indeed you dream of fielding a team that's highly competitive for 5 straight years, doesn't the journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step? How can you have a great team for 5 straight years without first having one great team? So here again my strategy became obvious to me: Go all in for this season.

By now it should be apparent what my keeper theory was for the 2009 UPL Baseball season: Don't change anything.

It's kinda funny. For years all of us in the UPL honed our fantasy baseball skills to become better and better at acquiring the best MLB players of today.  But when the rules were changed in 2009 to allow us to speculate on something far more difficult, picking the best MLB players of the future, most UPL managers felt some need to alter their strategy away from having a laser focus on picking the best players of today. Imagine my delight when one of my top opponents signaled a retreat from his previous strategy by looking more closely at age.

 Now, for those of you with a good memory, you might recall my post from last March 19 when I wrote, "This year it's a keeper league, so that alters the strategy--and raises the stakes." Some might argue that this is proof that I was planning to alter my strategy for the keeper league. But I ask you: Is psychological warfare not allowed in fantasy baseball? Is it morally wrong to lull my opponents to sleep by praising their drafts as better than mine? Is there an unspoken rule against predicting a newcomer to the league will finish in the top 3, when really I just want to put the league's target on his back instead of mine?

And besides, if you're looking for clues about my keeper theory from what I wrote last March 19, you'd get a better sense of it from the opening lyrics of the song in that post:

Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted--One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

From the beginning I planned to play as aggressively as possible, just like in years past, in pursuit of the championship at season's end. So don't count me among those surprised that my team came out and tore the roof off like two dogs caged. That was kinda my goal.

Stay tuned for part two of this exciting series next week when I explore the finer details of point accumulation. And, in a shocking plot twist, we'll discover that the Chairman has more in common with Rup than he ever dreamt possible.

Decisions, decisions...

And so it begins.

The 10th season of UPL Baseball is upon us. This is our second year as a keeper league, and thus the first time we need to decide which players to keep.

The UPL allows 18 keepers. First, let's take a look at my roster as it currently stands:

Hitters leftover from 2009
Jason Bartlett
Michael Bourn
Billy Butler
Chris Coghlan
Carlos Gonzalez
Ryan Howard
Chipper Jones
Victor Martinez
Miguel Montero
Cliff Pennington
Aramis Ramirez
Manny Ramirez
Pablo Sandoval
Justin Upton 

Pitchers leftover from 2009
Homer Bailey
Juan Gutierrez
Dan Haren
J.P. Howell
Edwin Jackson
Chris Narveson
Chad Qualls
Wandy Rodriquez
Javier Vazquez
Brian Wilson

So how do you go about keeping 18? Do you go with a 50/50 split between hitters and pitchers? Or maybe 10 hitters and 8 pitchers? I'm actually leaning toward keeping 11 hitters and 7 pitchers, although I'm not sure about all the specifics yet.

In the UPL, we have hitting slots for eight fielding positions (all except pitcher) plus two utility slots. So that makes ten total starting slots for hitters. Let's go down my team's starting slots for hitting and see which top players I'd like to keep at each position:

C - Victor Martinez
1B - Ryan Howard
2B - ???
SS - Jason Bartlett
3B - Aramis Ramirez
OF - Manny Ramirez
OF - Justin Upton
OF - Carlos Gonzalez
Util - Pablo Sandoval
Util - Michael Bourn

So there are 9 hitters who I very likely see myself keeping. Now let's look at the pitchers who I currently plan to keep:

SP - Dan Haren
SP - Javier Vazquez
SP - Edwin Jackson
SP - Wandy Rodriguez

RP - Joe Nathan
RP - Brian Wilson

Okay, so there are 6 pitchers who I'll likely keep.

I've listed 15 players to keep, so I still have 3 openings. This means that Chipper Jones, Billy Butler, Chris Coghlan, and Miguel Montero (apparently I like alliteration) will be fighting for the last two hitter spots. And Chad Qualls and J.P. Howell will battle it out for the final pitching spot. (This likely will go to Qualls since I think he's slated to close and Howell isn't. But Juan Gutierrez could also get consideration here if it looks like he'll close instead of Qualls.)

In any case, at least I've started to think this through.

Draft postmortem

So we had the UPL draft yesterday. It was fun as usual, but it was also a reminder of how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

For starters, I showed up to spring training out of shape. Every year I say to myself, "Two weeks before the draft I'm going to start preparing." But what really happens is that my preparation is minimal until I wake up early on draft day and read what I can. I'm kind of like Shaquille O'Neal in the sense that I just play myself into shape. It's probably not until the middle of May that I have a solid grasp of who's who on each team, which farm systems have the top prospects, and how that all applies to the fantasy baseball decisions I should have been making the first six weeks of the season. By that time I've either caught lightning in a bottle and my team is a force to reckon with, or I'm mired in 7th place and posting poor imitations of Weird Al songs on the message board.

In other draft news, Westy and Benver were no-shows again. (And they both were the first to complain about their teams on the message board--again.) Phatsnapper told us how many fantasy leagues he's in--again. ISSC drafted the entire Red Sox roster--again. JimmyDix nearly drafted the entire White Sox roster (and will likely trade for "the ones who got away")--again. C-Lauff took Albert Pujols with his first pick--again. Whenever someone with either unproven talent or a culturally diverse name (or both) was picked, Roland never missed the opportunity to ask, "Who the hell is that?"--again. And I had about half of my picks openly questioned or even mocked--again.

To that last point, that's actually one of my favorite aspects of fantasy baseball. In the real world, it's rather difficult to get honest feedback from people. But in an online draft room or message board about a game, well, people just let it fly; and in that context, I'm all about honest feedback, putdowns, and outright taunting.

Getting back to how I prepare the morning of the draft, I do come up with some lists for each position, but they're not long. In fact, I usually only have a few names of players that "I like" at each position. And by "like," I'm referring to whether or not the value they provide matches up with the round I can draft them in. (For example, last year I scratched Albert Pujols from my 1B choices. Although, I'm not sure which was dumber: Scratching Pujols from my list or reminding you that I did.)

Admittedly, this year was tougher for me to come up with my player rankings. That could be because there were seemingly more injuries to star players, or it could be that the more I learn about fantasy baseball the more I don't know.

I picked 8th in the first round and could have gone in a few different directions. I think Ryan Braun was the highest Y!-rated player still on the board, but I went with Ryan Howard. Before the draft I noticed that Howard's 48 jacks last season cleared the field by 8--and he would be returning this season to a similar situation (same championship-caliber team minus the inconsistent Pat Burrell). Furthermore, I had read that Howard came into spring training in better shape than usual and is focused on getting off to a fast April start (which he hasn't done the past two seasons). This, of course, doesn't mean he'll get off to a fast April start. Heck, it doesn't even mean he'll do as well as last year. But at the end of the day, he's had a great track record for power numbers the past three seasons, and he's a proven winner. I do recognize that his numbers have been dropping and his OBP was relatively low last season, but hey, that's why he's not a top 5 pick.

Rather than give my reasoning for each pick, I'll just show my team here:

C Victor Martinez (1B)
1B Ryan Howard
2B Mike Aviles (SS)
3B Aramis Ramirez
SS Stephen Drew
OF Carlos Beltran
OF Manny Ramirez
OF Justin Upton
Util Milton Bradley
Util Conor Jackson (1B, OF)

SP Dan Haren
SP Javier Vazquez
SP Ryan Dempster
SP Joe Saunders

RP Joe Nathan
RP Brian Wilson
RP Chad Qualls
RP Troy Percival

BN Pablo Sandoval (C, 3B, OF)
BN Ian Stewart (2B, 3B)

Note: Rajai Davis, Eric Byrnes, Wandy Rodriguez, and Dana Eveland have been excluded from the above list in order to make my draft look less sucky.)

Some years I feel pretty good after the draft. If I've accumulated nearly all of my targeted players and have seemingly built a team without any glaring weaknesses, then I'm happy. I don't think I've ever had a draft where I haven't second-guessed a pick immediately afterward, but I have had drafts where I felt that I did really well.

This year it was a mixed bag for me. On offense, I think we've got a great shot at putting up competitive power numbers. But my team is lacking in speed, and the past few champions have been very competitive in steals. I'm less happy with my pitching, but it might turn out okay. I could have done much worse than Haren as my #1 starter and Nathan as my #1 closer. But after those two guys, things get dicey. Maybe I should have reached for Matt Capps and Joakim Soria--especially Soria in a keeper league. Should I have taken Roy Oswalt instead of Vazquez? In hindsight, probably. But Vazquez will have more K's and who knows how he'll do in a new environment. (Plus I'm just now learning that Oswalt has been much healthier the past five seasons than I had realized.)

A few final comments on my team. I do think that I've drafted enough to be dangerous. If my team gets off to a hot start (and let's face it, any team could get off to a hot start), then more options will become available to me in the way of trades and/or knowing what I need to grab from the waiver wire. I also like the versatility of my team. For the infield, I have at least two players with eligibility at each position (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS). And with Victor Martinez as my catcher, he'll actually be playing a lot at 1B and DH. So not only will that mean he should tire out less, but his manager has gone on record saying he'll find a way to get Martinez in the lineup every day. (Here's hoping that come September I won't be -30 games at catcher.)

So who do I think had the best draft? Well, after reviewing the tape, I was startled to see the batting lineup of the Black Sox. My best chance at outdoing his offensive production might be to buy him off. But the Black Sox seemed less fortunate on the pitching side. As such, I've got to go with the Thugs. On paper, his team looks the best heading into this season. His starting pitching and bullpen are loaded, and it looks like he'll have enough on offense.

Let the games begin.

The calm before the storm

When I wake up the morning of the fantasy baseball draft, I feel like a kid on Christmas Day ready to rip into all of his presents. Sure, I have some ideas as to what I might get, but there also will be a few surprises along the way.

As I type this post I already feel the adrenaline starting to simmer. Once the draft starts on Saturday morning, I'll have a good adrenaline rush going and the time will fly by.

This year it's a keeper league, so that alters the strategy--and raises the stakes. This draft will be our most important one yet.

As a blogger, most people on the Internet only know me for the words I write. They don't know what I look like or how I act in "real life." This year I've decided to start changing that by posting videos where I share some of my innermost thoughts. As such, today I got together with a few friends who helped me make an amateur music video. It's based on a song that I wrote last night when I couldn't sleep. In this song I express my raw emotions for this upcoming draft. I know this video is not much, but it's the best my friends and I could do on such short notice. I hope you like it...