The secret to winning in fantasy baseball is to always look for opportunities to improve your team. This may seem obvious, but it’s amazing how many people just miss it.
Also, you should take advantage of opportunities to improve your team at the end of the season. Too many owners just pay attention to the draft, others just let their guys in, some lose interest in the end, and too many refuse to adjust strategy to fit the current realities of the fantasy baseball league they’re playing in. None of those owners will win on a regular basis because they haven’t gotten the memo that you need to work on improving your team from game one to game 162.
I will give you an example. I’m near the top of a league where I play most of the season. I manage several teams, so it’s not the one I pay the most attention to, but I’ve committed myself enough to recognize early on that several owners would hit the games started limit that you’ll find in most standard leagues. Although I was trending down in wins, I knew the other owners wouldn’t rack up wins once they hit this cap and that it would give me a chance to make some noise late in the season in the win bracket.
I started streaming on an occasional pitcher last month in response. What didn’t occur to me was that a couple of the other owners would see that they were maxing out and drop some quality pitchers as a result. He didn’t want to sacrifice hitting for pitching, but rather rely on pitching transmission. But here were some quality starting pitchers who were suddenly sitting in the free-agent pool. What an opportunity!
What did I do? I took the opportunity to make my team better and picked up those pitchers, that’s it!
While this example may not describe your experience perfectly, the principles still stand.
- Get in the early mindset that your goal is to improve your team by any means necessary.
- Play the long game while looking for opportunities, big or small.
- Take advantage of those opportunities, regardless of where they come in the season. This means staying committed to the end, taking advantage of an owner’s trash, which could be his treasure.
Keep your eyes open. One of the many fun aspects of broken-style fantasy baseball is that there are always opportunities, even late in the season.