Editor’s Note: This post was first published on March 31, 2015. We gave it a slight refresh to get it ready for the 2022 MLB Season!
My first fantasy draft was my Sophomore year of high school. It was an auction style draft. Each team was given a budget of $260 “dollars” to buy a team of players, with each player being auctioned off to the highest bidder in Jed Latkin’s basement.
I had done my homework. I had a large book with the players listed and ranked by position. I had set my sights on the studs I wanted. Kent Hrbek, Ryne Sandberg, Gary Gaetti, Barry Larkin, Ripken, Raffy Palmeiro, Clemens, Chuck Finley, and Dave Stewart were all highlighted and double-starred.
I had even read the bible on so-called “Rotisserie League Baseball,” by Dan Okrent, founder of fantasy and GM of the Okrent Fenokees.
And still I was overmatched. I have no recollection of the team I drafted, but it did not go well.
I was hooked nonetheless.
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Now I am in my 16th year or maybe 17th year of participating in the AJAX fantasy league.
Some background on AJAX from our esteemed former commissioner, Matt Herman, who used to make his pre-draft announcement thusly:
In March 1996, three friends at Dartmouth decided secede from the Hanover Rotisserie Baseball League “to create a more perfect rotisserie league, establish justice, promote the general interest in competition, provide for the common honoring of Dartmouth alumni
Brad Ausmus (catcher, Houston Astros) and Mark Johnson (first baseman/outfielder/pinch hitter, NY Mets), and secure the blessings of baseball to ourselves and our successors” to ordain and establish the Ausmus-Johnson Association of X-HRBLers aka AJAX.
Today marks the 20th annual AJAX fantasy baseball draft. Although some of the teams have changed, and the owners are flung across our great nation, draft day remains one of my favorite days of the year (even if I am way way less prepared that I was for the 1996 draft).
Thank you to all present and former owners who have shared in this annual right of passage.
In the beginning –before kids, and marriage, and home-ownership, and responsibility– I had some dominating years, won the league several time and finished in the money several more.
Back then, the name Zen Mayhem stood for something.
More recently, times have been tougher. With life’s encroaching responsibilities, like, oh say, raising kids, more work responsibilities, house, and other adulting pulls, by 2015 I felt myself hopelessly behind on knowing about the latest foreign player to come over or the new hot rookie pitching prospect.
Back before the 2015 season, I lamented not even knowing who Roughned Odor or Kennys Vargas were, until, after our 2015 draft, they occupied middle infield and utility slots on that year’s incarnation of Zen Mayhem. (As I wrote in 2015, “Let’s just say that if Vargas turns into David Ortiz, as some draft-nicks predict, I’ll be quite happy! It could happen!” Editor’s Note: It didn’t happen.)
I even took a few years off eventually. This year – with the hopeful return of baseball post-pandemic, I too am returning. To AJAX. The competition will be stiff. We even have a few new owners who eat-drink-sleep baseball, including my son, Jacob (Son of Zen!?).
So, here I am, ready to again share a little bit about what I’ve learned about fantasy baseball drafts.
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First off, make sure you tell your significant other and family about draft day, lest there be any confusion.
“It’s. Um. It’s our fantasy baseball draft. I told you all about this . . . I got Matsui!”
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Being able to properly execute a fantasy baseball draft requires a sharp mind, focus, and the ability to rapidly process information and take into account a series of variables and factors that may be combined in an infinite number of permutations.
Knowledge is power.
But you must also zig when they zag, zag when they zig, and reverse your reverse psychology. If all else fails, just grab the next guy on your handy-dandy cheat-sheet, or, you know, Chris Paddack
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Back in simpler times, when Fantasy Baseball scoring required tabulating the USA Today box-scores, knowledge of “regular people stats” like Batting Average, Wins, Earned Run Average, and Saves may have been sufficient.
Today – and for many years already – the word is sabremetrics. Never heard of Bill James? Surely you’ve at least seen MoneyBall?
That’s right. A shift of thinking was required. Today its all about WAR (wins above replacement), OPS (on base percentage + slugging percentage), ISOP (isolated power), and BABIP (batting average for balls in play), and FIP (fielding independent pitching).
Even if you still use the traditional categories, you’re going to have to get real comfortable with statistical thinking.
So. Fun.
SNL-No-Math from Dez on Vimeo.
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In a snake-type draft, taking the best available player is generally the best way to go, of course keeping in mind average draft position, positional scarcity, potential “keeper league” strategy, and a million other sabremetric things you don’t understand.
But whatever you do, don’t get too attached any one player.
Remember, there’s no crying in fantasy baseball!
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The draft is the beginning, not the end. From that point on, to be a competitive player, you will have to make deft waiver wire and free agent pickups and solid trades. (Sell high! Buy low! And so on and so forth!)
Have fun. Take it seriously. But not too seriously. And remember not to make any bets that you’re going to later regret.
Play ball! In fact, let’s play two.
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Photo Credit: ShutterStock