Welcome to 2015 NFBC baseball season. It's been a couple of years since I've done one of these chats. The growth of the DC's and the 12 team online championship has brought a ton of new players to the game over the over the last 2 seasons. I thought it would make sense to explain who I am to the new members before getting into the questions.
My name is Shawn Childs. I will be entering my 12th season in the NFBC. I was very fortunate to have success in my first season, when the game was at its purest. I sat down at the draft table with my cheat sheets with no idea how the player pool would be drafts or what was needed to win. In a way, I probably had an edge over many players as I had played in a mixed 16 team league in the previous couple of years. My failure in my home league in 2001 was probably a big reason why I fell short in my rookie season. I drafted Ryan Dempster (4.94 ERA and 1.356 whip) in 2001 after he struck out 2009 batter in 2000. His lack of control led me down the dirty path in ERA and whip, which led to me finishing about 4th that season after dominating the league in 2000 (146 out of 160 possible points).
As I headed to Vegas in year one, I remember two important thought in my game plan. First, I thought it was important to secure a couple of solid closers in the draft. I thought chasing saves in the free agent pool would be very expensive. My lack of understanding of how to manage my team to compete for an overall championship was a big downfall over the first 3 months of the year.
The second important thought was to avoid high walk pitchers that would invite huge whip risk. This one thought led to me missing on a couple of key starters from round 11 to 20.
I believe I drew the 10 hole (possibly 11) in my first draft and these were my first 7 picks:
1- Manny Ramirez (.308 with 108 runs, 43 HR's, and 130 RBI)
2- Randy Johnson (16-14 with a 2.60 ERA and 0.90 whip with 290 K's in 245.7 innings)
3-Derrek Lee (.278 with 90 runs, 32 HR's, 98 RBI, and 12 SB's)
4- Keith Foulke (5-3 with a 2.17 ERA and .094 whip with 32 SV's and 79 K's in 83 innings). I could have won the overall if I took Mariano Rivera instead. I remember debating the two. It was Foulke's first year in Boston after saving 43 games in 2003 with the A's. Rivera saved a career high 53 games with a 1.94 ERA). The homer in me was my downfall.
5-Johnny Damon (.304 with 123 runs, 20 HR's, 94 RBI, and 19 SB's)
6- Miguel Cabrera (.294 with 101 runs, 33 HR's, 112 RBI, and 5 SB's)
7-Jimmy Rollins (.289 with 119 runs, 14 HR's, 73 RBI, and 30 SB's).
My losing turn in the draft was the 12th and 13th round. I thought Francisco Rodriguez would steal the closing job for the Angels (4-1 with 1.82 ERA and 1.00 whip with 12 SV's and 123 K's in 84 innings). I pretty much pitched him as the 3rd reliever over the first month of the season. This is a losing strategy in a chase for an overall title. In the 13th, I took Rafael Soriano. I thought he was win a starting job after pitching well in that role at AAA in 2013 (4-3 with a 3.19 ERA with 63 K's in 62 innings (10 starts). He started the year in the bullpen. After 3 games, he was on the DL. A month later he was headed for TJ Surgery.
In the end, team fell one solid starter away from winning plus I never found speed on the wire late in the year.
Over the next couple of season, the game started to evolved where fantasy players had winning results and category targets.
As each season passed, the owner pool has improved plus fantasy players have ADP's and many draft results to formulate game plans. The player flow continues to change as well as the value of the available talent.
As a player, I had the most success as a balanced approach with a weakness for buying up the middle talent (2B, SS, and C). I've have lost many times by buying the hot 2B from the previous seasons - Rickie Weeks in 2011 (Hit .269 in 210 with 29 HR's, 83 RBI, and 11 SB's), Bill Hall in 2007 (Hit .270 in 2006 with 35 HR's, 85 RBI, and 8 SB's). and Ben Zobrist in 2010 (Hit .297 in 2009 with 27 HR's, 91 RBI, and 17 SB's). just to name a few. I've dreamt of finding the next Mike Piazza way too many times. I couple of years back I thought it was very important to draft a 75/75 core with your first 3 picks. I still believe in this, but the change of the player pool forces a winning team address the rising aces in the game. The goal is still the same, but it may take 5 picks now to secure your first 3 bats depending on your draft position and starting player.
I've always wanted to one of the best players in this game. I can't achieve that success without many failures to help me make better decisions in the future. Sometimes we just lose by being in the wrong seat at the wrong time. Other we get beat by game plan and injuries.
In a way, I approach the game of fantasy baseball like the game of chess. I sure everyone would like to win every game we play, but that isn't going happen at this level. The hope here is to break even in a bad season. When playing this game at home or on ESPN or Yahoo, many fantasy players would have the most success because their biggest asset with their ability to be the first to the computer when an injury created a possible winning move. The NFBC eats up that skill set. In order to be the best player in the game, you need to understand the quality of your opponents, understand draft flow, team structure, and free agency.
When playing against experience players, the value of certain important will change. Against less experience players, a top fantasy player will have more outs to finish their roster.
One of my biggest weakness is riding a player with a long resume into the ground.
Over the last 6 years, I've written a ton content on the NFBC with the hopes of helping others be better at the game. I've bounced around in couple of sites trying to find a long term partner. This year scout.com has given me the chance to place my content on site that is committed to developing premium content. Over the last 2 months, I've done the research for all 30 teams. I'm in the process of doing the projections for all batters with pitchers to follow shortly. I will put together a cheat sheet in a way that I will use in Vegas. I will release the AL and NL Auction prices prior to the LABR auctions in the first week in March. When I return, I will convert this results into 15 team mixed auction results.
In season, Scout.com has asked me maintain the ranking plus I'm planning on doing a closer report and waiver wire piece each. The direction of the waiver wire report will go in a couple of different directions depending on the audience. My skill set is ideally suited for the NFBC game. As the same time, I'd like to find a way to add something in the daily baseball space.
My goal isn't to be a player pusher or give a fantasy player an instant winner in their draft. I make just as many mistake as the next guy. I'm just hoping to get more right than wrong. In the player pool, we are really only looking for a players direction - up, down, or repeat.
The ultimate goal is to make you think to improve your decision making.
Here's the link to one team profile for the 2015 season:
http://fantasy.scout.com/story/1511232
http://fantasy.scout.com/story/1509640- ... -kit?s=532
They also gave me a promo link to sign up for the 9 months for $7.95. In essence, you get, for the price of a magazine, a full season of baseball with content from Dr. Roto and Tommy G for the daily games. In addition, you will have all the access to all the other sports as well.
Here's the link:
https://secure.scout.com/a.z?s=532&p=12
The link should last for about one half hour after this chat.
Thanks for your support...