Fantasy Baseball Draft Tips: 5 Pointers for Your War Room

The smell of freshly cut grass coupled with the crack of a ball hitting a bat can only signal one thing—it is indeed fantasy baseball draft season.

For the seasoned veterans out there, this advice may all seem like second nature. But a friendly reminder of a few key pointers to keep in mind come draft day should always be welcomed—after all, even veterans have to tune up their game in Spring ball.

As for the newbies, listen up. These tips will help determine whether you become the laughingstock of your league or develop into a promising young star among fantasy baseball connoisseurs.

Whichever category you fall under—or maybe somewhere in between—make sure to follow this outline to ensure that you have a successful draft.

Study, Study, Study

As popular as fantasy baseball is, there is a plethora of tools for you to utilize leading up to your draft, so take advantage of them.

Set aside a few hours one day, and cross reference the hard work that the “experts” have been so kind to share with us and come up with a strategy on how to tackle your draft and season.

The bottom line is that while there are a variety of tools at your disposal, you are the only expert on how you would like your team to look. However, a good team doesn’t simply fall in your lap, so you too must put in a little work in order to succeed.

Know Your Competition

For fantasy baseball newcomers, this is rather difficult. But for those of you in leagues with the same people on a yearly basis, this is actually just as important as your own personal strategy.

To know your opponent is to beat your opponent. Being familiar with their tendencies allows you to treat the draft like a game of chess, methodically making moves to set yourself up for success.

Knowing how your opposition will attack the draft and the season will make it easier for you to execute your own strategy. It will let you know whether or not to reach on a certain player, to start a run on a particular position or simply bait them into making a move they wouldn’t normally make.

The competition should be spending the same amount of time that you do in preparation for the draft, so there's no excuse not to put a couple of extra hours in to take a look at last year’s draft results, waiver wire moves, trades, and league stats and standings.

Execute Your Strategy

The culmination of all the studying and preparation that you have done will be using all of that information to create your very own blueprint, which should consist of anything from sleepers and busts to rankings and projections.

The groundwork means nothing if you don’t put it to use, so figure out how you want the framework of your team to look based on the best and easiest route to winning your league.

Having a plan in place, whether you succeed or not, is the best way to becoming a better fantasy owner. You can tweak it from year to year until you discover your own personal managing style.

Have a Backup Plan

We have all had a draft we'd like to have back—the one where we reached on players or certain positions just to fill the roster because the players we wanted were already gone.

The best way to prevent a bad draft is to have a backup plan in case your first strategy doesn't pan out on draft day.

Just because particular players have been drafted by other owners shouldn't negate all of the hard work you put into preparing for your draft. You wanted that player for a reason, so come up with an alternative to compensate.

This is crucial in the early rounds as you build the foundation of your team. You will have plenty of time to fill those needs later in the draft so don’t let it faze you as you keep your eye on the prize.

Use Downtime Effectively During Your Draft

Although having your blueprint and backup plan in place is vital to executing a great draft to fit your management style, we all know there is more work to be done inside the war room.

You can use the downtime by further bolstering your plan or picking the other owners’ brains to further capitalize on any tendencies they may have.

We all know how annoying it is to have had an owner sit idle for 10 minutes only to then take his/her entire allotted time on the clock. Don’t be that person.

Using downtime effectively will allow you to follow your plan of attack effectively, but could also open your eyes to something you may have missed leading up to the draft.

Adapt to what is happening around you so that your fantasy baseball draft can be the first step in crowning you the champion of your league.

Contact Jeremy at [e-mail], on Twitter @KCPopFlyBoy, and read more at popflyboys.com