Fantasy Baseball: Free Agent Strategy

If your fantasy leagues have waiver wire/free agent addition restrictions like all my leagues do, there is a strategy I like to attend to, and I’ll give you the reasoning. Most of my league-mates make fun of me for picking up an infinite amount of players as soon as possible and only having 5/10 additions allowed left by the season’s end. In a standard 12 team 5×5 Rotisserie League, we started off with 100 waiver moves allowed. This turned into 75, 60, and then 50. So I’ll focus on 50 free agency moves allowed. I think a good strategy is to use 75% (~37 free agents) of your waiver limit (if needed of course) in the first 2 months (even during or after the first month) of the season. I think you get a fantastic idea of how players are doing and what players have become and will stay hot ala Carlos Quentin and Nate McLouth (for ¾ of the season at least) in 2008. Most likely you won’t need to spend 75% of your free agent additions by this time, but I say don’t be scared wasting many of your additions by this point. Obviously, you should save 10-15% (~5-7 additions) of your waiver additions for the end of the season contingent on what statistics you may need, and this still allows you 10-15% (~5-7 additions) when you have certain player/positions go to the DL. If you think about it, most players that readily help a team won’t be there by season’s end other than top prospects called up to help a team (David Price in 2008) – I never said waste your waiver order on all these free agents. Make sure if you drafted last and you have the number 1 waiver spot, you save that for when a David Price-Type player in 2009 does become available (Tommy Hanson of the Braves if he lands a Starting/Closing Role) or an Evan Longoria-Type position player (Matt Wieters/Catcher from the O’s if he somehow is still available on your waiver-wire) becomes available.

By using this strategy, you could have added free agents Mark Reynolds/3b, Carlos Quentin/of, Nate Mclouth/of, Alexei Ramirez/mi, and Evan Longoria/3b in 2008. Once a few starters get some innings under their belts and you’re hopefully looking at their whip and k/bb ratio, you could have landed Cliff Lee, Edinson Volquez, Kevin Slowey, and Scott Baker, or even Liriano by season’s end if you were quick enough. These guys helped in almost every pitching category. There’s still 2/3 category pitchers you could have had like Jamie Moyer (wins-16, era, whip) and Mile Pelfrey (wins-13, era) as well.

Here is the following team that could have been drafted either very late or not at all and some potential 2009 breakout candidates per position:

The 2008 All Fantasy Undrafted/Late-Drafted Fantasy Team (& 2009 Potentials):

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