2009 MLB fantasy baseball commissioner

So You wanna be the Commissioner of your 2009 Fantasy Baseball League

Here are some great tips for the 2009 MLB Fantasy Season. 

 

Maybe you’ve been playing fantasy baseball for a few seasons now. You watch as the season goes on, and think to yourself, “I could do a better job than this commissioner.” Perhaps it’s how he handles trade vetoes, or smack talk that goes beyond the bounds of propriety, or any of a dozen other things. In any event, you decide that you will run your own league next season. How do you prepare and what can you expect? Read on for advice.

 

1. Draft a comprehensive constitution. A detailed operating manual will be essential to have a (relatively) trouble-free league. Your constitution should address such items as:

 

1. roster size
2. hitting and pitching categories
3. type of league (roto, head-to-head, points, some other variation)
4. time limits for setting lineups
5. trade policy
6. keeper rules
7. penalties for league rule violations
8. entrance fees and prizes
9. process to admit new members/replace departing owners
10. means of amending the constitution, bylaws or rules

 

Your constitution or bylaws will be a valuable source of support when disputes among the members arise. While you don’t want the constitution to be overly lengthy, do attempt to cover every possible problem or issue you can envision arising. Don’t worry, if you encounter issues during the course of the season you never imagined. Take notes and amend the constitution next season to address these items. Tip: draft your constitution with a provision that allows you to amend the document without league approval (see ¶4 below).

 

2. Decide on your league’s settings. This was mentioned above, but it is important to pay particular attention to how the league will operate. Decide how many teams you will allow in the league, how many roster spots each team will need to draft, what positions comprise the active lineup, if you want to limit the number of players allowed at certain positions. You will need to pay close consideration to statistical categories that the players accumulate. Personally, I like 5×5 (runs, RBI, hr, average, stolen bases, wins, ERA, WHIP, K, saves) or 6×6 (add OPS or Slugging and Holds to the 5×5 categories) leagues, but to each his own. I’ve seen leagues with 20 categories of stats where fielding and negative hitting and pitching categories are used. Think about what sort of performance indicators are important to you and set up your stat categories accordingly.

 

3. Fill your league’s owner positions with active managers. Whether you decide on an 8 or 20 team league (or some other number), make sure you can fill the owner’s slots with active managers. It works out nicely if you can fill your league with friends that know will play out the entire season, but don’t be surprised if the last place teams lose interest after the All-Star break. If there is a financial incentive involved, you are less likely to suffer through apathetic ownership issues, but we all know winning is more fun than losing. If you have a prize structure, rewarding owners for winning a category will help to stimulate season-long interest. If you can’t find enough friends or acquaintances to fill all the owner positions, make sure your league’s host (Yahoo, ESPN, CBS, etc.) allows you to open your league up to the public. If you need to find additional owners, make use of the site’s message board as well as any other message boards available at fantasy resource sites you frequent. Avoid disappointing your league by having to reschedule your draft because you don’t have all the owner positions filled.

 

4. Always remember that it’s “your” league. Early on in any season, I let my owners know that my league is not a democracy., but rather a constitutional monarchy in the traditional sense. I make the final decisions, even if that decision is to open an issue up to a league wide vote. I may appoint a committee to review trades that seem suspicious, but generally the commissioner is empowered to make any and all decisions regarding league affairs, including dispute resolution between owners. Other leagues open every trade up to possible veto, where a certain number of negative votes will stop a trade from being completed. Democracy or monarchy, the decision is yours, but communicate your choice early on to avoid later turmoil.

 

5. Determine how disputes will be resolved. This goes hand in hand with how you’ve decided to run your league. Opening up any dispute to a league wide vote is fair, but only if all owners participate in the process. Having a commissioner’s final vote, or appointing a committee to oversee any differences of opinion works best in larger leagues, especially if there is a risk that the lower tier teams will have lost interest in participating in league matters at some point during the season.

 

6. Deal swiftly and harshly with collusion. Collusion is the biggest problem in fantasy leagues, outside of owner apathy. When two teams decide to work in concert to help one team at the expense of the other, collusion exists. Not only is this grossly unfair to the team losing the better player(s), it impairs league integrity and affects all other teams that are playing by the rules. Therefore, if collusion is suspected, it is essential that you investigate promptly, by contacting the two team managers with regard to their thought processes in entering the proposed trade. If you are not satisfied with the explanations, either ask the league’s remaining owners if they would veto the trade, appoint a committee to rule on the trade or disallow it if you’ve taken my advice and are running the league as a monarchy. If you allow unfair collusive trades to occur, you’ll soon be without any league participants at all. Be advised, I let stupid (in my opinion) trades go through all the time, because I understand not everyone values players the same way I do. Stupid trades and collusive trades are two different things. One hurts the unsuspecting owner, the other impairs league integrity.

 

7. Communicate with your owners. Keep the lines of communication open at all times. If your league is populated with your friends, obviously you’ll be open to talking about league matters. Even if your league is filled with fantasy players from the general public, though, make certain your league mates can e-mail you with questions, comments and concerns at a minimum. I always make sure my e-mail address is available to the league participants at the beginning of the season and I try to obtain the other managers e-mail addresses prior to the draft. I then set up a group in my e-mail program for each league I run so I can send out announcements to the league.

 

8. Collect the entry fee as early as possible. You will want to collect any entrance fees prior to the draft. Once the draft is completed, a disgruntled owner will be unlikely to submit the fee if he feels his team doesn’t have a chance to compete. By collecting upfront, you have one less concern during the season such as berating a deadbeat owner into paying his agreed upon share. This is fair for all involved, especially if you’ve already set forth the winning prize structure in your constitution or rules.

 

9. Distribute prize money as soon as possible. This is another tip to keep from having disgruntled owners in your league. Once the final statistics for the season are issued by the host site of your league, send out an e-mail to all owners (a group e-mail that you set up per ¶7 above) setting forth the winners and their prize amounts. Then send out the prizes as soon thereafter as practical. Don’t keep your winners waiting; it makes them grumpy and distrustful. By distributing quickly, you make the winners want to come back to your league next year.

 

10. Get and stay organized. Do whatever it takes to keep your records in order. If an owner asks a question about league history (this season or past seasons), make it possible to locate the answer promptly. If you need to contact an owner, know where you’ve stored his contact information. Keep detailed records in the event of a computer crash or worse yet, a host site crash (those who played in ESPN’s free league in 2007 know what I’m referring to here). No one else is going to keep track of all the minutia involved with your league, it’s up to you. Make it easier on yourself and start out with a plan and adhere to it. If necessary, adjust to changing circumstances, but be diligent about record keeping.

11. “Illegitimi non Carborundum”. Whatever happens during the season, have fun. You play fantasy baseball for enjoyment. Don’t let your decision to take charge of your own league suck all the pleasure from the game. While the other owners can sometimes be a pain, and dealing with rule violators is unpleasant at best, remember the words above and never let them take away the charm of this great pastime.

Fantasy baseball writers like to feel special. They like to make bold predictions of players that will breakout so they can puff out their chest and tell a faceless community that they told you so. You won’t get that from The Jon. What you got here is a champ. The Jon gets results and trophies. With top three finishes for the past 5 seasons and a championship just this past year, The Jon doesn’t need bold predictions. Just results. So without further to do, here are the five most overrated players this season.

Carl Crawford: It’s a broken record. Check out this sight long enough and you will know the quasi-love-hate relationship The Jon has for Carl Crawford. The Jon loves to hate him and has been hating him for about a year. Everyone gushes over his five-tool potential. Umm, you need to hit more than 15 homers to be even considered to be a five-tooler.

Crawford had two hot months last season where he had more than 30 hits. In August he had 50 hits and unless your name is Ichiro, that is a freak performance. But one great month vaults Crawford in the top 10 of overall players?

As compared to Ichiro having at least 42 hits for four months? But Crawford’s steals!!! Big deal. Steals are one stat that can maybe lead to a run. Getting on base with a hit leads to batting average, on-base percentage, runs and … steals.

A five-tool player at least needs to have 100 runs or 100 RBI with a respectable number in either category. Crawford failed to break 100 in either. Get Vladimir Guerrero, Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Lee, Grady Sizemore, Curtis Granderson and yes, Ichiro before Crawford. he sucks.

Brandon Phillips: The Jon had this guy and I turned my season around because of him. The Jon traded him. A lot of mags has Phillips as the No. 2 second baseman behind Chase Utley. Phillips is solid, but let’s keep it in perspective. Don’t reach for him in the first two rounds. A manager will be fine with B.J. Upton, Robinson Cano, Placido Polanco and Freddy Sanchez. These guys all have longer track record than Phillips with the exception of Upton. Phillips has one good season. He can be the next Robinson Cano or the next Dan Uggla. The Jon hopes he is Cano. The world can always use a another good second baseman.

Jimmy Rollins: He has been fantasy baseball’s best kept secret. He could be had in the 10th round … until now. A lot of fantasy baseballers have the guy penciled in as the No. 1 overall shortstop after his 30 homers, 94 RBI and 41 stolen bases.

Rollins is great, but not as a No. 1. Here’s Rollins secret for his numbers: He gets a lot of at-bats. He led MLB last season with 716. Last season he was fourth with 689. With that many at-bats, you are going to get the numbers. Here is the telling stat with Rollins: He has never hit .300 for an entire season.

Jose Reyes hit/at-bat ration last season? 191/681.

Hanley Ramirez? 212/639.

Rollins: 212/716.

What about those 30 homers? Hanley had 29 and he was hurt. Decide for yourself.

Yovani Gallardo: He is being ranked ahead of Roy Halladay, Fausto Carmona, Felix Hernandez, Javier Vazquez, John Smoltz, Carlos Zambrano, Chad Billingsley … you get the point.

Ummm, he’s a second-year starter … for Milwaukee.

No.

Daisuke Matsuzaka: 4.40 ERA. Gave up five or more earned runs in 9 starts. No gyroball pitch. Fukudome, Dice K.

Here are my top three. I wonder if yours are the same?

1. The first rule of all fantasy sports...homework is your friend. Always do your homework and never show up unprepared.

2. Pitchers are unreliable and inconsistent so draft hitters first. I routinely go 4-6 rounds without drafting any pitchers.

3. Do at least 3 mock drafts before your real draft. This will help you gage who is overvalued, undervalued, and who people are buzzing about.

Gotten a few people more than a bit overwhelmed by the differences between the ranks purely done by percentages of stats in the 5 roto categories. Seems that one thing that people might be forgetting is that every stat counts, so the more balanced someone is over the 5 categories, the better they are going to be for your team.

Well, so what I did was factor ADP into my rankings. The theory behind that is that my rankings were completely formula based towards ranking players in their order of individual roto contributions, not overall stats or positions. So, for example, catchers seem to be absuloutely pitiful in roto when you look at the stats. So the argument I’ve been presented is that since you need all positions, that I need to weight by position. My contention is that the players you will be able to draft by passing up guys like Mauer and Martin, are going to be way more valuable to your team than even the elite catchers. You’re better off waiting to grab someone line Bengie Molina at the end of the draft.

Well, so if it’s strategy you want, it’s strategy that you will get. So here is what you get when you take the 100% math based ranks and average them with ADP. It’s much more aligned to what you are used to looking at, and let me remind you, that although this method is completely untested, isn’t the whole point to take a Moneyball approach to drafting and see if you can’t figure out a way of doing things that helps to place more accurate value on players? That’s fine if you want to go with the standard Yahoo! rankings, but not me. Nope, I think that in order to be successful, you need a unique - really emphasizing the unique here people - strategy in order to win. Things like the LIMA plan are great… uless you’ve got another manager or two in the same draft trying the same thing. If that happens, you just fall into the trap again of targeting players and taking them before even you think they should go.

So in my humble - and typically incorrect opinion - if you want to win, you have to take risks. Well, this is a big risk… unless of course it works and then I’ll be rich.

Adjusted Ranks (Top 275)

1. Álex Rodríguez

2. Albert Pujols

3. David Wright

4. Hanley Ramírez

5. Matt Holliday

6. Miguel Cabrera

7. José Reyes

8. Chase Utley

9. Ryan Howard

10. Johan Santana

11. Jimmy Rollins

12. David Ortiz

13. Prince Fielder

14. Jake Peavy

15. Ryan Braun

16. Vladimir Guerrero

17. Grady Sizemore

18. Carl Crawford

19. Alfonso Soriano

20. Carlos Lee

21. Mark Teixeira

22. Carlos Beltrán

23. Lance Berkman

24. Jonathan Papelbon

25. Magglio Ordóñez

26. Brandon Webb

27. Ichiro Suzuki

28. J.J. Putz

29. C.C. Sabathia

30. Álex Ríos

31. Josh Beckett

32. Brandon Phillips

33. B.J. Upton

34. Erik Bedard

35. Joe Nathan

36. Aramis Ramírez

37. Justin Morneau

38. John Lackey

39. Derrek Lee

40. Derek Jeter

41. Curtis Granderson

42. Nick Markakis

43. Travis Hafner

44. Manny Ramírez

45. Cole Hamels

46. Francisco Rodríguez

47. Dan Haren

48. Adam Dunn

49. Garrett Atkins

50. Justin Verlander

51. Chipper Jones

52. Bobby Abreu

53. Takashi Saito

54. Scott Kazmir

55. Torii Hunter

56. Robinson Canó

57. Víctor Martínez

58. Aaron Harang

59. Carlos Peña

60. Mariano Rivera

61. Miguel Tejada

62. Brian Roberts

63. Troy Tulowitzki

64. Chone Figgins

65. Russell Martin

66. Carlos Zambrano

67. Carlos Guillén

68. Eric Byrnes

69. Roy Oswalt

70. Paul Konerko

71. Félix Hernández

72. John Smoltz

73. Hunter Pence

74. Adrián González

75. Corey Hart

76. Chris Young

77. Michael Young

78. Roy Halladay

79. Billy Wagner

80. Chris Young

81. José Valverde

82. Vernon Wells

83. Javier Vázquez

84. Ryan Zimmerman

85. Bobby Jenks

86. Daisuke Matsuzaka

87. Ian Kinsler

88. Hideki Matsui

89. Jason Bay

90. Brad Hawpe

91. Huston Street

92. Jeff Francoeur

93. Kelvim Escobar

94. Fausto Carmona

95. Andruw Jones

96. Joe Mauer

97. James Shields

98. Francisco Cordero

99. Nick Swisher

100. Dan Uggla

101. Adrián Béltre

102. Rafael Soriano

103. Gary Sheffield

104. Todd Helton

105. Delmon Young

106. Brett Myers

107. Matt Cain

108. Rich Hill

109. Rafael Furcal

110. Tim Lincecum

111. Jim Thome

112. Trevor Hoffman

113. Juan Pierre

114. Jermaine Dye

115. Yovani Gallardo

116. Brian McCann

117. Mike Lowell

118. Rickie Weeks

119. Ben Sheets

120. Brad Lidge

121. A.J. Burnett

122. Manny Corpas

123. Howie Kendrick

124. Brad Penny

125. Johnny Damon

126. John Maine

127. Matt Capps

128. Raúl Ibañez

129. Édgar Rentería

130. Jorge Posada

131. Ted Lilly

132. Shane Victorino

133. Francisco Liriano

134. Jered Weaver

135. Matt Kemp

136. Joakim Soria

137. Orlando Cabrera

138. Jason Isringhausen

139. Chad Billingsley

140. Pat Burrell

141. Aaron Rowand

142. Ken Griffey Jr.

143. Alex Gordon

144. Chad Cordero

145. Pedro Martínez

146. Plácido Polanco

147. Carlos Delgado

148. Ian Snell

149. James Loney

150. Kevin Youkilis

151. Tim Hudson

152. Michael Cuddyer

153. Chien-Ming Wang

154. Jeremy Bonderman

155. Joba Chamberlain

156. Jeremy Hermida

157. Dustin Pedroia

158. Jeff Francis

159. Kelly Johnson

160. Kosuke Fukudome

161. J.J. Hardy

162. Josh Fields

163. Adam Wainwright

164. Derek Lowe

165. Josh Willingham

166. Jacoby Ellsbury

167. Joe Blanton

168. Edwin Encarnación

169. Josh Hamilton

170. Jonathan Broxton

171. Ryan Garko

172. Troy Percival

173. Jhonny Peralta

174. Jeff Kent

175. Khalil Greene

176. Oliver Pérez

177. Hank Blalock

178. Dustin McGowan

179. Bronson Arroyo

180. Phil Hughes

181. Carlos Mármol

182. Adam LaRoche

183. Kenji Johjima

184. Willy Taveras

185. José Guillén

186. B.J. Ryan

187. Andy Pettitte

188. J.D. Drew

189. Orlando Hudson

190. Frank Thomas

191. Clay Buchholz

192. Dontrelle Willis

193. Gary Matthews Jr.

194. Troy Glaus

195. Rafael Betancourt

196. Tom Gorzelanny

197. Eric Gagne

198. Kevin Gregg

199. Stephen Drew

200. Barry Zito

201. Melky Cabrera

202. Joey Votto

203. Gil Meche

204. Aaron Hill

205. Zack Greinke

206. Rich Harden

207. Joe Borowski

208. Julio Lugo

209. Felipe López

210. Ty Wigginton

211. Kevin Kouzmanoff

212. Tony Peña

213. Jeremy Accardo

214. Randy Johnson

215. Brian Wilson

216. Mark Buehrle

217. Freddy Sánchez

218. Mike Cameron

219. Todd Jones

220. Moisés Alou

221. Kevin Slowey

222. Billy Butler

223. Evan Longoria

224. Shaun Marcum

225. Conor Jackson

226. Bob Howry

227. Yunel Escobar

228. Garret Anderson

229. Bill Hall

230. Richie Sexson

231. Mark Teahen

232. Matt Garza

233. Greg Maddux

234. Austin Kearns

235. Rick Ankiel

236. Jarrod Saltalamacchia

237. Iván Rodríguez

238. Geovany Soto

239. Hiroki Kuroda

240. Bengie Molina

241. Justin Upton

242. Coco Crisp

243. Chris Duncan

244. Akinori Iwamura

245. C.J. Wilson

246. Casey Kotchman

247. Michael Bourn

248. Jack Cust

249. Kazuo Matsui

250. Rocco Baldelli

251. Jason Giambi

252. David DeJesús

253. Mark Ellis

254. Mark Reynolds

255. Kerry Wood

256. Lastings Milledge

257. Ubaldo Jiménez

258. Aubrey Huff

259. Jon Garland

260. Casey Blake

261. Lyle Overbay

262. Jason Varitek

263. Jeremy Guthrie

264. A.J. Pierzynski

265. Ramón Hernández

266. Randy Winn

267. Dave Bush

268. Chris Carpenter

269. Scott Baker

270. Wily Mo Peña

271. Milton Bradley

272. Chuck James

273. Ryan Theriot

274. Eric Chávez

275. Adam Jones

Realistically, this is going to be a better approach for me anyway because then I am much less likely to be forced into drafting players multiple rounds before my counterparts might. So this - or something very close to it - will be the final rankings I will test out in a randomly assigned competitive roto league this year.

During the FSTA’s Winter Conference, the Fantasy Sports Writers Association hosted its 2007 Fantasy Writers of the Year Awards, with the awards being announced by ESPN’s Matthew Berry. These awards recognize fine writing in the fantasy industry. Winners were selected by a panel of professional writers, not working in the fantasy industry, with no knowledge of the author. The nominees and winners are:

Fantasy Racing Writer of the Year - Christopher Harris (ESPN)

Other Nominees: Natalie Anthony (Football Diehards), Mark Taylor (RotoWire)

Fantasy Golf Writer of the Year - Ross Devonport (CBS)

Other Nominees: David Ferris (Rotowire), Christian Peterson (Fanball)

Fantasy Hockey Writer of the Year - Janet Eagleson (RotoWire)

Other Nominees: Sean Allen (ESPN), Evan Reynar (FantasyHockey.com)

Fantasy Basketball Writer of the Year - André Snellings (RotoWire)

Other Nominees: Guy Lake (ESPN), Brian McKitish (ESPN)

Best Humor Article - John Paulson (Bullz-Eye)

Other Nominees: Christopher Liss (RotoWire), Scott Pianowski and Mike Salfino (RotoWire)

Best Fantasy Baseball Print Publication - RotoWire

Other Nominees: None

Best Fantasy Baseball Article in Major Media - Christopher Harris (ESPN)

Other Nominees: Chris Bahr (The Sporting News), Tristan Cockcroft (ESPN)

Best Fantasy Baseball Article in Print - Will Carroll (RotoWire)

Other Nominees: Stephania Bell (ESPN), David Gonos (CBSSports.com)

Best Fantasy Baseball Article on the Web - Pete Becker (ESPN)

Other Nominees: Tristan Cockcroft (ESPN), Gus Papadopoulos (RotoWire)

Best Fantasy Baseball Series - Eric Karabell (ESPN)

Other Nominees: Jeff Erickson (RotoWire), Derek VanRiper (RotoWire)

Fantasy Baseball Writer of the Year - Jeff Erickson (RotoWire)

Other Nominees: Brad Evans (Yahoo!), Tristan Cockcroft (ESPN)

Best Fantasy Football Print Publication - RotoWire

Other Nominees: None

Best Fantasy Football Article in Major Media - Vinny Iyer (The Sporting News)

Other Nominees: Jamey Eisenberg (CBSSports.com), Gregg Rosenthal (RotoWorld)

Best Fantasy Football Artick in Print - Joe Levit (Fantasy Football Cheatsheets)

Other Nominees: Joe Hebert (Fantasy Football Draftbook), Mike Salfino (RotoWire)

Best Fantasy Football on the Web - Jason Powell (Fanball)

Other Nominees: Nate Ravitz (ESPN), Greg Bebezas (Fantasy Football Times)

Best Fantasy Football Series - John Rakowski (Sports Grumblings)

Other Nominees: Jamey Eisenberg (CBSSports.com), Christopher Harris (ESPN)

Fantasy Football Writer of the Year - Gregg Rosenthal (RotoWorld)

Other Nominees: Jamey Eisenberg (CBSSports.com), John Tuvey (Fanball)

There you have it.