How to Select the Best Players for a Fantasy Baseball Draft

Baseball has long been considered America's pastime. Today, playing fantasy baseball has become a significant part of that pastime for many fans of the game. Selecting the best players for a fantasy baseball draft is not always the easiest thing to do. Selections made by other fantasy baseball teams, injuries and league rules all factor into the decision-making process. Having a system in place to select the best MLB players for your fantasy team can help you beat your competition and win your league.

Instructions

    • 1

      Review your league rules. Many fantasy leagues have different league rules and place greater significance on one stat over another. Ensure that you understand which statistics your league factors into its scoring system. This will ultimately determine which players you should pick in your draft. It does no good to pick a pitcher who puts the ball in play often if most of your league scoring is based on statistics like strikeouts, where getting the batter out at the plate is more important than just getting the batter out.

    • 2

      Create a list of the top 10 players at each position. To do this, consult the various online fantasy game hosts like MLB.com, Yahoo and ESPN.com. See which players they have ranked and what they are projecting them to do in the upcoming year. Compare those numbers with each player's statistics from the previous season. The numbers will either indicate that the so-called experts expect the player to be better or to drop off from the previous year's performance. Read all of the analysis provided on each site to determine which players should be ranked in your top 10.

    • 3

      Decide which positions you will draft first and stick with your plan. You may have to adapt if someone takes your top choices, but having some type of predetermined plan in place will help you stick to your research rather than make an emotional decision if someone steals a coveted player. Herija C. Green of KFFL.com suggests taking top-tier hitters first over pitchers because of injury potential for pitchers. Green also suggests that hitters provide other advantages, such as more consistency from one year to the next, and less dependence upon other teammates for their success.

    • 4

      Grab superstar starting pitchers when they are available. Though you may concentrate on top-notch hitters, it helps to have that one superstar pitcher who you can count on to go out there and mow the batters down about 80 percent of the time. Stay away from closers and relief pitchers until the later rounds. Every team has at least one closer and in most leagues you can draft at least one or two of them for your bullpen.