Vol. II, Issue #1 - January 2014
 

** Do You Want to Create a Championship League Team? **

Who is this Article For?  This article is for anyone who is in a draft baseball league where you keep your players for year to year and are using the most current players (cards) that are available through Strat-o-matic. So for example, here in January of 2014, you are getting ready to play your league with the MLB players based upon the 2013 season. Although some of these strategies could work if you are going to use ballplayers that played in years before 2013, it might be difficult to find all of the data that I will be discussing in this article in some type of archives.

Also, I know for a fact, quite a few of our members are very advanced players who do a great job on their own to do a thorough study of the type of information I will be discussing in this article. So I suspect perhaps for these members there may not be anything new under the sun here for you that you don't already know about. However, in my experience, it is always best to read everything you can get your hands on in case there is a small gem you have not encountered yet. Therefore, you may still wish to double check the resources and ideas I am offering to make sure. Being a published writer, I know about the art of focusing intensely about the subject you are studying and go all out.
 

Therefore, my main goal here is to basically help those readers who are new to the game (beginners) or intermediate players with various strategies and suggestions which I use that may help them get their team ready to be in their league's post season and compete for their league championship.  And these strategies work either for a team who already has the "guns" to complete in the current or upcoming season of their league prior to your league's draft or if you want to build a solid team for the future.

Why am I Qualified to Write Such an Article?  Of course, any Strat manager's ultimate goal is to have a successful team and for some of us, we just seem to have more success than others. Why is this? Well, sometimes it has to do with luck but usually it is based on skill, knowledge and knowing how to work with all the data that is available to analyze your current team and then know what you have to do next to improve your club. But before I answer this questions, to my friends who know me well, I am not a person who needs to be prideful or wishes to gloat or boast about my success because I want other games to think I am more important than others (although I am sure at times due to being an Aries, a fire sign and having supreme confidence in myself, it might seem this way).

My goal is pure and simple, if this article can help just one, and I mean at least one of our members to enjoy their forth coming league season with a bit more success, then I have done my job. Because it can get very competitive in your league as not only you but others might wish to be the champion so much so that there can be a tendency to want to guard information that might help someone else win. I happened to have learned in my almost 59 years of life, the more you help others, the more you receive back from life and not necessarily directly from the people you helped. My life partner and I learned this quite convincingly last year when we struggled to keep our heads above the water and so many people (over 100) give us donations to continue the work we do to benefit our world (which I have done since 1983). I have had my grand moments of success and now it is time to help others. I believe this energy of openly sharing and helping others is what our newsletter is all about.

Within this issue, the Commish, Marc Wasserman (we call him Wass) in his column is describing to a degree the baseball league he is the commissioner for, the CBA. This is a very competitive league as Wass over the years (which I am a member of) has the nack for inviting some of the best managers there are. Every year there will be super good teams because of the skills and wisdom of the members. In 2004, when I returned to Strat via playing in some free leagues offered on-line via the Sporting News (it was using an early version of the on-line gaming engine now available to all of us with the new on-line gaming system SOM offers -- I plan to play in one such league in the near future and report about it) - this is what brought back my love of the Game.

Next I began to go on the Strat Fan Forum and few members recognized me (via my articles in the SOM Review and the conventions) including Wass who asked me to take over a team in the league for their 2005 season known as the Montreal Royals, who had not done very well of late.  So I agreed and now I am preparing for my 9th season in the CBA. In 2006, I changed the name to the Skokie Wolfmen I believe.

So without boasting but this is a matter of public record, here is a quick summary of my results -

2005 - I used the strategies I tried in the Sporting News, a good pitching defensive team and was able to be the wild card team for my conference (3 divisional winners and 1 wild card) - lost in the first round in the playoffs in 7 games after leading 3 games to 2.

2006 - I tied with another team in my division for the lead, lost in a playoff game so became the conference wildcard again. Lost in the first round of the playoffs in 7 games to the eventual league champion after being down 3 games to none - lost in a long extra inning game when Ichiro hit a HR off Nathan excellent relief card on a ball park HR. (Yes, I remember these things).

2007 - With a record of 87-75, won my division, as it was weak division, made it to my first World Series and lost in six game. Starting this season I began to change my strategy to go into a hitters park with good power and enough pitching and defense to back it. I recall in the series we were tied and I had a ball park homer on Piazza card to 16 and missed it, this was game five.

2008 - Return to the World Series with the second best record in the league 96 victories I think and lost in the series in 7 games to a team which basically was a double team of Allstars. Close but no cigar.

2009 - Learned about Usage this year (as our league allows us to use the players to how they were used in real life) in the last week of the season sitting with 91 wins, I need to win one out 7 games to clinch the wild cad again and a 3rd chance to go to the series. I lost all the games and the run off game. This was the only year I have been in the CBA that I didn't make the playoffs.

2011 - (Took a year's vacation) - took over another team, he had good players and renamed the team to the Skokie Wolfmen again. Won 108 games, lost in the conference championship (to Wass who became our champion, now I was in the other conference). I attributed my lost because I was not at home as at this time as I was traveling doing public talks in the US Northeast to make a living.

2012 - Finally, with a 102 win season we not only won our conference to return to the World Series with a very balanced team, but we won the series itself in 5 games and was 12-2 in the playoffs.

2013 - (I plan to write a more comprehensive article in some future issue about this season as I had no right to be back in the world series) - I returned to the World Series with a 87-75 record as I created a good enough team by trading away several good young players to get there (based on the 2012 season). I traded Renton (WASH), Garcia (DET), Gardner (NYY), Cashner (SD), Peralta (MILW), Shaw (CLE) and Hendriks (MINN) plus my first and second round draft picks plus Tulowitzki (who was injured that year) but I received back: Hudson (ATL - fourth starter), Ramirez (MILW), Beltran (STL), Pierre (PHIL), Young Jr. (COL), Balfour (OAK) and Cabrera (CLE).  In any case, I went 8-2 in the playoffs to win my conference (because I was 7-0 in hitters parks) but in the series against a team with great starters (Verlander - F. Hernandez - Lohse) and good relief in a pitcher's park we lost in six games with being 0-3 in my opponents park and scoring only 1 run in the 3 games.

Also just to note, as you may recall from my report last year about my first Skype tournament with Purestrat where you draft a team, I finished tied for first 16-8 but lost in the shootout series to the team I was tied with, 3 games to 1, and then after going 3-0 on the team I faced in the playoffs lost in seven to the individual who eventually won the tournament.

So I feel, I have a sense how to build a team and if you build it, the playoffs will come!! Now lets move on some new strategies I started to execute last year for the 2013 CBA as I changed my system for building our team.
 

WOLFMAN'S STRATEGIES

(Note - in the CBA we are allowed to draft one uncarded player or a player who has never ever received a strat-o-matic baseball card in any season. Once you have such a player you can keep him however long you wish plus you can trade for other such players, but you can only draft one of this type of player for yourself. Of course, this is the way to build up your team with youth. Not every league however will allow such players to be drafted which if you league doesn't do this, you may want to discuss it as a future option, it changes how things work in the league. For example, the team who drafted Trout before he was Trout had the best record in their conference in the CBA last year. These uncarded players can be minor league players who haven't made the majors yet, foreign players who have never been in the majors before or college or high school players even.)

I will apologize upfront for this article being long, but its the writer in me wanting to be as complete as I possibly can. I believe if you take the time to go through the whole article you each should find some gems here! :-)

There are two key strategies I know to build a team in a draft baseball league where you keep the players from year to year:

Fast, only focus on the best cards you can get and make a lot of trades and forget about how the players are doing in the next season. Although since we always play a year behind, you can watch how your players are doing in the future which might bring about other options for trades, but this is outside the goals of this article. This approach is not very easy to do because you need to constantly send out announcement to your leagues you want to make trades; you need to virtually talk with every manager as you try to find a way to make the right trades to fill in your teams holes. Half the time when you send your personal emails, you don't get any response back. But you can't worry about if you are bothering the other members, they are GMs, and know they will be contacted.

I have found that most people don't like to do this way and nor are they willing or have the time to do so. The last champion of the CBA watched closely what I did for our 2012 season, and he duplicated this approach and he won it. He probably would not have been the invincible team he was without the trades he made (Verlander, Beltre and Rodney were three of the players he traded for). I will not be speaking about this strategy here, but I have shown in the e-book I created last year in great detail how I totally focused upon this strategy and everything I went through (again a total sharing of my strategies to help others). This e-book is listed before in some extra resources if you might want to examine and get your copy. Or ...

Build Your Team with Good Young Players over Time and a Championship will Come -- this is what I want to focus upon for this article because I believe most of our members who have struggled to have a winning season, this is the strategy that can help the most if they are willing to put time into it as a real MLB GM would do and make a thorough study of the information that is available about the baseball players on many levels (majors, minors, college and high school, etc...).

Last year for the 2013 CBA season I created so many excel spreadsheets to handle the large amount of data I was gathering as for the first time I was paying attention to the young players coming up. I discovered a tremendous wealth of information that is online about these so-called rookie players (prospects) as well as future projections on how some of the veteran players and rookie players might perform in the coming season. It took many hours of work to put it into the right form so I would be able to do a thorough study of every available player in our draft a few weeks before the draft began. Imagine being a MLB GM, you have the money and resources to hire a whole team of people to make this information available to you, but we are only one person (maybe two if you have a co-manager) to do the same thing.  

It is my intention in this article to offer all the locations of information I found so far. Many of these on-line sources I had never heard of before or knew they existed but from the help I receive from a few of the members in the CBA, they told me about them. You never know what you can find if you use "Google Search"!  But dear members there is a ton of information out there if you know where to look.

My belief is, and this is the strategy I am using for the 2014 CBA season is if I can make a team that has a good balance of veteran players (which I already have) with younger players that could be very good MLB players or future stars in a year or so, than rather than fighting each year via trades to fill all my holes or via our draft, I might have several years where the basic team is already strong and set and all I have to do is get complimentary players.  Players like with 100-200 at bats but against certain type of pitchers are very good, some extra speed, more defense or find some good relievers (which in every draft is the one commodity that always exists) to strengthen my staff.

So before I go into the places of information, to check if you already know them, and to provide you with a new 2014 predictions spreadsheet (which we are offering by donation) let's look at the 2014 Skokie Wolfmen and the challenges we face.  For our league we has a 35 man roster but before our draft we cut down to 24 players.

Key Injured or Restricted Players in 2013 -- 1B Teixiera (NYY); SS - D. Jeter (NYY); 3B A. Ramirez (MIL); Relief - M. Adams (PHIL), Blackley (50 Inns - gone to Japan); S. Marshall (CIN, we released);
Starter: Friers (MIL - limited, we released); Pestano (CLE - limited); lost to injuries and dropped or gone to Japan: G. Floyd (CHW, now ATL); Ian Stewart (CHI, new team, not used); B. LaHair (CHC, Japan) ...
Declined Seasons - 2B Barney (CHC); CF B. J. Upton (ATL), Vogelsong (SF, we traded)

So you see many key players for the Wolfmen in 2013 declined and how easy it is to see your whole team go in another direction where once part of the top teams to one of the worse teams. So we are hoping to draft (we have 12 picks at the moment) almost all young players who are aged 27 or less if we can or a veteran or two who was injured that might come back. Plus we can pick one uncarded player too, one we hope will be a force in the 2014 MLB season.

CHECK THE 100 TOP PROSPECTS: - each year on www.mlb.com they have a list under the Fantasy menu option for the top 100 prospects (called Prospect Watch). These are players who either only played for a short time in the majors (which means they get a card) or it is suspected in 2014 they may come to the majors. It is unclear on the current list if any of these players will become such a success in their first season as Mike Trout (LAA), or Bryce Harper (WASH) or Jose Fernandez (MIA) - but there is a chance there will be one or two and if you can get such a player it will help you tremendously. I know for a fact in the CBA 2014 draft Puig is going to be drafted first so there is a chance too that a foreign player who never played in the majors (like Tanaka {Japan, pitcher} or Abreu {Cuba, 1B}) can also be key players to look for if your league allows you to pick them - sort like Russell Wilson, the Seattle Quarterback was drafted by a major league team, he might decide one season like Michael Jordan did and go for two sports. If so, he could be a future star on your team. (Speaking of the Seahawks, since we live in Seattle know go Seahawks this Sunday as we become part of the 12th man!!)

Here is a list of the top 100 Prospects (either named at the end of 2013 or the new list by Callis and Mayo on MLB.com) that have cards in the new set:

Xander Bogaerts (SS, 3B, Bos); Taijuan Walker (RHP, Sea); Nick Castellanos (3B, DET);
Travis d'Arnaud (C, NYM); Kevin Gausman (RHP, Bal); Jackie Bradley (OF, Bos);
Yordano Ventura (RHP, KC); Billy Hamilton (OF, Cin); Allen Webster (RHP, Bos);
Kolten Wong (2B, STL); Jake Marisnick (OF, Mia); Michael Choice (OF, Tex); Chris Owings (SS, Ari);
Trevor Bauer (RHP, Cle); Matt Davison (3B, CHW); Jimmy Nelson (RHP, Mil);
Christian Bethancourt (C, Atl)

If you use Microsoft Excel to store all your data to prepare for your draft, here is what I do. For the players I have a strong interest to acquire, I highlight them using a background color - also aspects of a players performance which excel, I usually put it in red, as this color catches the human eye more than any other color. I copy all this information and statistics into an excel spreadsheet (or whatever spreadsheet program use) including their age, which MLB team they are on or who's organization they are in, what position they play and make my color codes so when it is time to do my final analysis all I have to do is pay attention to the players who are color coded (like I have coded as an example what I call the top prospects with cards in a certain color and the code in red R100).

The top prospect data presented only shows their 2013 performance in the minors or majors if they played some. Another resource I will discuss below (this book is reviewed in this issue, click here to read the review) is the Bill James Handbook, also has a report on every player who appeared in the majors, it gives their full season stats in the majors but only shows the player's minor stats for 2013. However, and I didn't know this till a member of the CBA told me, there is a site with all the stats on the Minor League teams where if you want to know how a so-called rookie or prospect did, you can find out - check this out at: http://www.milb.com (MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL Website)

But again if you can draft key rookies or prospects (who haven't earned their strat card yet, look at all the 100 players on MLB.com and get one or two of these if you can - we have 24 teams in our league so everyone can get one of these type of players but some of the top 100 were picked last year and even though they haven't received a card yet, those teams have control of them.

If you want to be successful, you have to really take on the role of a true GM and scout and read about these players, get as much info as you can. I watched in the CBA a few teams who are very good at getting these young players before they are Stars and most of those teams eventually are powers to contend with in our league eventually.

ROOKIE REVIEW by STRATOGISTS.COM -- there is a link at the end of this article if you have not already got your copy (over 100 of our members did get it so far) - but the Stratogists rank over 200 players who were not available in our 2013 season but will be in 2014 with an analysis of their capabilities and future outlook. They have these players listed from  a rating of "A" (highest) ranking to "E" (the lowest).  I used the Rookie Review last year and 3 or 4 of the players I drafted in the CBA came via their recommendations. As I stated before, having these young players, who all of them I eventually traded, gave me the chance to get veterans players I needed to strengthen my team and take us back to the CBA World Series.

READ EACH DAY THE ARTICLES TALKING ABOUT VETERANS AND PROSPECTS:
The two best places I find to do this is via the MLB.com site which everyone knows as the Major League Baseball website. I have noticed they have brought on board a number of very good independent writers who are sharing articles and blogs daily which are constantly discussing different player's statuses: if they are injured or were injured last year, why certain prospects could be factors to help their teams in 2014 and more. MLBTRADERUMORS.com is another site I have discovered which although its original focus was to discuss the trading of players and status of free agents, it also has many articles discussing different players and their future in the Major Leagues. I look at these two sites daily, especially right now!

Then we have on our On-Line Strat and MLB Resource page, there are listings of other organizations such as Baseball America (Jim Callis), Baseball Prospectus (Joe Hamrahi, this group also has released a great book called "Baseball Prospectus 2014" with their own commentaries and projections on over 2100 players - I have solicited for a review copy which if we get it will report about it in February) and the Holy of Holies, Baseball Info Solution run by John Dewan which is the author (or helping company) for the Bill James Handbooks. Baseball Info Solution has internal computers which store every conceivable look and stats linked to every game of baseball played each season. So as you can imagine the Bill James Handbook 2014 is a great book filled with everything you can think of (note: to see our review of this book click here). So this handbook leads me into the next category, Future Projections.

FUTURE PROJECTION RESOURCES -- With all the statistics that is being kept on every player in the major and minor leagues and even how they did in College and High School, there are a number of systems that have come out which you can find on the internet that offer various projections how the players will do in the future: Bill James in his new book for 2014 has seven pages listing hitters and seven pages listing pitchers which includes all the key players and a few prospects or rookies who he believes will play a key role for his team.

Now, I have created a special spreadsheet using five other such systems I found on the internet and have put all the predictions around each player of consequence that could be drafted in the CBA into this sheet. I am offering this spreadsheet to our members by donation. The file includes the spreadsheet with a word document that gives the exact sources where I found everything so if the players you are thinking to draft aren't included (because its based on the CBA's available list) you can find them. If you don't want to get the Bill James book, he sells two versions of his projections as spreadsheets - one when his book came out last November and an updated version at the end of February, see his book review how to contact BIS who sells the spreadsheets on-line.

Now to put all this information into a spreadsheet (converting from the web and color coding) takes time which is why I start collecting the data in December. Our draft is usually held the end of February or early March and I always order the printed players cards with the computer game so I can have those players I am considering to draft in front of me and in a sorted order. Usually for each pick I will have three or four players plus I will check their future projections on the spreadsheets I have done.

(Extra Note: - at some point on MLB.com (probably under the Fantasy Menu) they will come out with their own player predictions - major league players with some of the young players they believe will become full time players in 2014 - at the presenting of this issue of our newsletter this presentation is not available yet but could be ready in February or early March.)

FINAL INGREDIENT -- We are fortunate in the CBA that we have Doug B., who is in charge of keeping track of two things - which players are on which team and which players are available for the draft. He makes us a very exact spreadsheet that also shows the stats of each player in 2013 and their fielding ratings in SOM. Of course this spreadsheet also ensures that each league member has the same information so they won't be drafting players who are not available.

Thus, I use this league spreadsheet to start from and begin to find data, as I can, especially for the predictions, of all the players who could be available for our 2014 draft - the younger ones and for a few of the veterans who might help a bit with the 2014 Wolfmen's season. Even if I overdo this, and have tons of stats on the non-carded players, these sheets will help me become acquainted with potential super rookies for the 2015 season  too. So hopefully in your league you have a person like Doug B. who is creating a sheet of the status of the players who are on teams and available for the draft.

LET'S RECAP: -- So we have all these spreadsheets and views on the available players - I would recommend to first:

-- See which positions you are weak at and make a list, from your favorite to least favorite available play that if you could draft that position right now, who would you take and what round in your draft (the earliest) that you would want to draft this position

-- See which of the rookies or prospects, making another list, are the players you really would like to have (recognizing every other team may feel similarly) and are the most important. For example in the CBA, we draft in reverse order of our finish and I have the #16 position out of 24. So I have to gage and look at the teams before me, who will they pick so I have an idea who might be available when my pick comes. Last year I traded Beltre which brought me a 1st and 2nd round draft pick that I was able to get young pitchers but I wanted to draft Middlebrooks as a prospect for 3B - the team right before me took him so I chose Wade Miley.

if you have these lists using all of the data you have collected, with the cards also in front of you, when it is time for your pick to come, you will then find it easy to make your choice from a few players.

I know each league has its own way to do their drafts - some do it via emails, some utilize one of the on-line drafting system that work through the internet and others might use a chat room where everyone is present. In the CBA in the first 5 rounds, there will only be 1 minute to make your pick, so you have to be prepared.

Another thing I also do is go on MLB.com and make into a spreadsheet the active rosters of each MLB club so I can also see which prospects and rookies will be playing during the exhibition season. getting a look from their club with a few who might make the team for opening day.

Also don't forget the 2013 Baseball Ratings data (available via an excel spreadsheet or printed book) - if you get the downloadable MS excel file - this gives you the opportunity to sort the hitters and pitchers data by best performance (who has the highest chance for homers or on-base for hitters and best pitching cards for relievers and starters including the lefty-righty factor).  Using all the different systems mentioned in this article, I believe can prepare you very well for your draft and to pick up the proper players to build a very good team. It is kind of like what we saw in the movie "Money Ball" when the actor portraying Peter Brand (Jonathan Hill) talks to Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) which players to sign based on all these statistical views -- can you see yourself as being the Billy Beane of your SOM Baseball team?

Then last but not least, hopefully you have some time to study the cards (or computer image) of the players in the 2013 set. You may want to pay attention to the new players who have cards for the first time to see what trends these players may have in the future. If they already have speed, or are they a powerful hitter. Are they a good fielder in the field? What type of pitcher are they (starter or reliever).

I normally make my list of who I hope to draft a week before the draft. I have found in the past, as the needs of each team are different, about 50% of the players I would like to have, that I will be able to draft them (that is if I don't give all my early draft picks away). In the CBA we are allowed to trade future picks (which this trade is not executed until after the first pick of the current draft, so 2015 picks can be done in a gentlemen's agreement) - and this is how I am able to get back some of the early picks I traded away before. But for the 2014 CBA draft, since this is the first year I really want to fully focus upon rebuilding my team (I really have no choice) and to get as much youth on it as I can (but young players who I believe strongly in that could have a great potential) I probably will not trade any of the 2015 picks.

So dear members, it really up to you how much effort you want to put in to have a successful team and to come to know all the players who are available that could possibly join your team. If you go the fast way, going with the best cards you can add to your squad might bring the best success for this year but hurt you and frustrate you for years to come afterward. Or you may want to take my approach and get the best young players to create a solid dynasty.  The choice is yours. The key is to enjoy the experience and the sharing of comrade with the other members in your league and one day get into your league's World Series. There can only be one winner each year, why can't it be you?

Well I hope this article has either provided some new insights on building a team with young players
for the future or that you have uncovered some new sources of player's information that can help you as well. The more time you give for planning how to build your team the more success you will see. Follow your intuition also, sometimes there is a gem of a young player no one else sees, either because they had only 3 ABs in 2013 or pitched only 2 or 3 innings, that you can pick up in the late rounds. Or a good player who was injured in 2013 so he has a nothing card but comes back strong in 2014.

If anyone has any questions about these strategies feel free to contact me via my USBN email at:
wolfman@ultimatestratbaseball.com. Below you will find various resources we offer linked to the newsletter which will expand greatly upon the information covered in this article.

I wish each of success in 2014, enjoy playing with your teams,

Wolfman Shapiro
(see below the various resources that are available to help you with your league playing and building
of your team - thanks)