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Smart Elsewhere #1 – Do You Know Where Your Players Bat in the Lineup?

Welcome to the maiden post in the “Smart Elsewhere” series.  In post number one, ESPN’s Tristan H. Cockcroft discusses the “Fantasy value of lineup positions” (follow Tristan on Twitter).  This is an incredibly insightful article about the benefit of loading your team with players that bat in the top four spots of the batting order.

It includes great statistics about the additional plate appearances players higher in the batting order receive, the great production drop off (in runs and RBI) that occurs the further down the line up a player bats, the effect of playing for a good offensive team, and how to think about the value of players who changed teams or positions in the lineup from last year.

Do you know where your players bat in the lineup?


Introducing “Smart Elsewhere”

The best thing you can do to become a smarter fantasy baseball player is pretty straightforward.  You need to read.  Read a lot.  Read articles from a lot of different sources.  And luckily, there are a lot of great writers and analysts out there.

I am going to begin a recurring series of posts, entitled Smart Elsewhere, in which I link to smart fantasy baseball articles written by others.  They may be current articles.  Or they may be old but still helpful at making you a better fantasy baseball player.

If you come across an article you think others can benefit from, mention it to @smartfantasybb on Twitter.  And if you’re not already, make sure to follow Smart Fantasy Baseball on Twitter by clicking on the button below.

Thanks for the follow and be smart.

The SFBB Twitter Lists

The SFBB Twitter Lists

Where were you the night of April 27th, 2012?

I won’t soon forget getting off the couch that night, letting my dog out, and checking Twitter while I waited for her to come back inside.  News had hit Twitter that Mike Trout was being called up (you may remember that Bryce Harper was called up just hours before Trout).

I quickly went to all my league sites and picked up Trout and Harper in any leagues in which they were still available.

The point of this story is that Twitter helped me win two of my leagues in 2012.  It’s a great tool for alerting you to important fantasy events (injuries, call ups, closer changes) and aggregating fantasy news and articles from around the web.

The web is full of A TON of great and free fantasy baseball content and Twitter is an invaluable tool for helping you locate that information.

Getting Started

If you need a primer on Twitter, Brien Bonneville over at thefakebaseball.com has a great introduction and some tips for new users.  As a technology lover, I especially like the suggestion to download and use a Twitter dashboard like TweetDeck.  Twitter’s interface is a little clunky.  Using a dashboard allows you to more efficiently access different features in Twitter, arrange and follow multiple streams, and access multiple Twitter accounts at once.

Who To Follow

For the last couple years, David Gonos has put out his list of 99 Fantasy Baseball Twitter Accounts You Should Follow.  There are probably thousands of fantasy baseball Twitter accounts out there and Gonos has done a great job of isolating some of the best.  You’ll see names like Matthew Berry, Jason Collette, Mike Gianella, Tristan Cockroft, and Ron Shandler on his top 99.

SFBB Tip – Twitter Lists

In my opinion, one of the most underutilized features on Twitter is “Lists”.  A Twitter “List” allows you to group and organize Twitter users.  You can subscribe to lists created by other Twitter users and others can subscribe to your own lists.  When you then visit a list, the Tweets from everyone in the list are displayed.

Subscribing to a list is different than following someone.  This is nice because you can easily segregate people you follow for personal reasons from others by using lists.  For example, if you subscribe to one of the lists below, you won’t have MLB injury news cluttering up your Twitter stream.  When you’re ready to do some fantasy baseball reading, you can then view the appropriate list.

Instead of you having to seek out fantasy baseball experts to follow, I’ve created created several Smart Fantasy Baseball Twitter lists you can follow.  You can see all the SFBB lists here, or visit the individual lists with the links below:

How To Subscribe To a List

  1. After clicking on one of the links above, locate and click on the “Subscribe” button in the top left corner of the page.
    TwitterList1
  2. Keep in mind that lists you have subscribed to do not hit your Twitter feed.  To view the contents of a list, after logging into Twitter, click on the “View my profile page” link.
    TwitterList062913
  3. Then click on the “Lists>” link, in the top left corner, to see all lists you are subscribed to.
    TwitterList3
  4. On the ensuing page you will see all of your lists.  The title of each list will be displayed along with who created it.
    TwitterList4
  5. Once you click to view a list, all the Tweets from members added to the list will appear in a feed for you to read.
    TwitterList5
  6. If you do make the jump to using a Twitter Dashboard, like Tweetdeck, you can add followed lists to the Dashboard and have them easily available (and avoid having to jump through these hoops above).
    TwitterList6

Who’s Missing?

Who are your favorite Twitter follows?  Is there anyone missing from the lists that you think should be added?  I don’t intend for the lists to be all encompassing, and I put a preference on quality over quantity.  There are also some fantasy baseball experts that don’t tweet much about fantasy baseball, so I excluded them (Gonos’ list of 99 had some that I left off my lists for that reason).

Stay Smart.  And thanks for reading.

Downloadable Tool - Calculate What It Takes To Win Your League

Downloadable Tool – Calculate What It Takes To Win Your League

I’ve developed a much more refined tool to help calculate the number of rotisserie points it will take to win your league, as well as the statistics necessary in each category to achieve a certain place.

You can download the file here:  What It Takes To Win Calculator.xlsx

You must have Microsoft Excel 2007 or greater to use the calculator.  To use the calculator:

  1. After downloading the file, fill out the information requested on the “Answer These Questions First” tab (genius naming convention, I know).
    Answer These Questions First
  2. The questions can be answered using the drop down menus provided.
    Drop Down Menus
  3. Then proceed to complete all of the yellow hitter and pitcher stat tabs.
    Complete Hitter and Pitcher Tabs
  4. Follow the bold red instructions on each tab.  Also be on the look out for warnings for areas saying “DO NOT ENTER DATA BELOW”.  These are just warnings to ensure formulas work correctly and to prevent you from entering unnecessary data.
  5. Follow Instructions on Each TabAfter you’ve completed all the data entry into the yellow tabs, return to the “Results” tab to see the stats necessary to win your league.
    Results Tab
  6. The end result should be printer friendly, if you’d like to print it out for future reference.  Click on the image below for a larger view of the finished results.
    Printer Friendly Results

Features

The tool can accommodate the following:

  • Up to 15 teams
  • Up to 10 years of historical standings and statistics data
  • Up to 6×6 rotisserie categories (6 hitting, 6 pitching)
  • Hitting categories of BA, R, HR, RBI, SB, OBP, H, BB
  • Pitching categories of W, K, SV, ERA, WHIP, QS

Suggestions or Ideas for Improvement?

Please shoot me a comment and let me know what you think.  Let me know if you’d like to see any additional features or categories added.

As always, make smart choices.