Fantasy Baseball > Fantasy Advice > How to Win a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League
How to Win in a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League
Yahoo Fantasy Baseball Leagues are full of dummies, but they're also full of experienced fantasy baseball geeks just like you... and like us. In a standard Yahoo league, you need to remember that you're dealing mostly with math, albeit simple math. The easiest way to win in a Yahoo public league is to draft a ton of pitchers.
Drafting a Lot of Pitchers
This doesn't mean you have to draft pitchers first, ahead of offensive players, but it does mean you have to draft as many quality pitchers as you can. Again, you don't (necessarily) need Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer to win your league - although they wouldn't hurt - but you do need to draft quality, consistent pitchers as well as a few up-and-comers who will be easy enough to find in the late rounds, if not on the waiver wires a few weeks or months into the season.
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How Many Relievers do I Draft vs. How Many Starters?
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Keep your competition in mind: most fantasy owners draft 3-4 closers, tops, just to try to compete in the Saves category. Now, you don't necessarily have to compete in Saves to win, but we recommend drafting at least three Closers, possibly four.
But, don't get greedy for Saves on draft day. Seriously, if Fernando Rodney is the only "Closer" left on the board when you're looking for another reliever, just let him go. Draft a setup reliever, like an Andrew Miller or a Dellin Betances. Draft a guy who will help in more than one category. Remember: Saves, while it's the sexy reliever stat, is still just one pitching category. During the first 2 weeks, find an un-drafted guy who is suddenly getting Saves. it happens every year: two guys battle for the Closer role until one of them inevitably gets rocked in the first couple weeks of the season and loses out to the other guy. Scour the waiver wires the first two weeks and find someone solid. He'll be there. Play the Numbers Game with your Pitchers |
Drafting a bunch of kickass relievers, like Dellin Betances, may be your main key to dominating your Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League.
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Yahoo's standard scoring system uses Total Strikeouts as a category. So, using simple math, you just play the numbers: Start as many Starting Pitchers as you can every day and leave your relievers in with them.
Once you get toward the end of the season - especially in Rotisserie Leagues - you'll want to scour the waiver wires and pick up just about anyone scheduled for a start that day, so long as his ERA is under 4.50. Doing this at the end of the year will allow you to amass an insurmountable number of strikeouts, and you'll probably get a decent number of Wins in there, too. Think about it: if you have 10-15 starts in a week vs. your competitor's 6-10, your chance of getting more Wins (let alone more Strikeouts) is pretty high, even if you have a few scrubs thrown in the mix throughout the week. Look for a couple of half-assed pitchers who have easy matchups and throw them in your starting lineup in the playoffs or in the finals. Just overwhelm your opponents with sheer numbers.
Once you get toward the end of the season - especially in Rotisserie Leagues - you'll want to scour the waiver wires and pick up just about anyone scheduled for a start that day, so long as his ERA is under 4.50. Doing this at the end of the year will allow you to amass an insurmountable number of strikeouts, and you'll probably get a decent number of Wins in there, too. Think about it: if you have 10-15 starts in a week vs. your competitor's 6-10, your chance of getting more Wins (let alone more Strikeouts) is pretty high, even if you have a few scrubs thrown in the mix throughout the week. Look for a couple of half-assed pitchers who have easy matchups and throw them in your starting lineup in the playoffs or in the finals. Just overwhelm your opponents with sheer numbers.
How Many Offensive Players Do I Draft?
Simple: Nine. That's right: nine. If your league is set up for 9 offensive starters every week, you keep 9 offensive players on your roster. That's it. No more than that. The rest of your roster should be all pitchers. This does two things:
1. It allows you to keep rotating a ton of pitchers in and out of your lineup every day to overwhelm your opponent with pitching stats as we mentioned above.
2. It takes the annoying-as-hell guess-work out of who to sit and who to start every day. No more benching a guy just in time for him to go 4 for 5 with 2 HR, 6 RBI and a stolen base, only to see your starter go 0 for 4 with three strikeouts.
Following the strategy above has worked for us over and over. And until the nerds at Yahoo Fantasy Baseball take our advice and switch total strikeouts to Strikeouts per Nine Innings (K/9), we'll keep on using their rules to crush our opponents.
1. It allows you to keep rotating a ton of pitchers in and out of your lineup every day to overwhelm your opponent with pitching stats as we mentioned above.
2. It takes the annoying-as-hell guess-work out of who to sit and who to start every day. No more benching a guy just in time for him to go 4 for 5 with 2 HR, 6 RBI and a stolen base, only to see your starter go 0 for 4 with three strikeouts.
Following the strategy above has worked for us over and over. And until the nerds at Yahoo Fantasy Baseball take our advice and switch total strikeouts to Strikeouts per Nine Innings (K/9), we'll keep on using their rules to crush our opponents.