Fantasy Baseball

It's that time of the year. Fantasy baseball drafts are starting up, and I need to get my draft board in order. Yup, I put a draft board together for my fantasy baseball drafts (yes, I do more than one league) every year. For the last 5 years, I've won at least one league I've been in, and think that putting a board together gives me an advantage. Does it really? Who knows, but I'm certainly not changing my system now.

Let me backtrack for a second. I started playing fantasy baseball in the 5th grade. I remember it being the 5th grade because my best friend's dad was in a league and a group (6) of us decided we wanted to be cool like his dad and put a league together. This was before the advent of all the fantasy sports websites on the internet, so we had to do stats once a week from Baseball Weekly on a spreadsheet in the computer lab. Our math teacher thought this was a great way to learn about math, so he would let us out of class to work on it. Ever since then, I've been hooked.

There have been reports that fantasy football costs workplaces nearly $200 million in productivity (as of 2005). Fantasy baseball is far more time consuming. You need to update your roster every day in the leagues I'm in (though some make you set a line-up once a week and roll with it) as opposed to only once a week for football. You also have more players on your roster (typically 23 as compared to 12-15 for football), and have to keep a track on guys being called up to jump on them (thanks Ryan Braun). In fantasy football you can usually ride one or two good players every week to a win (I.e. Tom Brady last year or LdT the year before), but fantasy baseball requires you to put together a much more well rounded team.

So why do I spend so much time on fantasy baseball? I find it challenging and fun. It satisfies the urge to gamble, and its a fun way to interact with my friends all over the country. The draft is a prime example of game theory. You have to look at the rosters of your opponents and figure out if you can let a guy slide to the next round or two to take him instead of using the current pick.

So the 15 (or 50) or so hours that it will take me to read (I've already ordered the Baseball Prospectus 2008 from Amazon) everything I need to know about different rotations and rosters to put the  board together is fun for me. Hopefully I'll be able to continue my streak one more year and win enough to pay for another vacation with the fiance. While the "League of Dorks" (as my fiance says, courtesy of the Sports Gal) may be time consuming, I enjoy getting to be GM for a season.

(Any sleepers, websites to read, or other suggestions will be greatly appreciated.)