HELP fantasy baseball experts!?

In the first couple rounds, just take the best players available. I disagree heavily with the first answer, because no one really knows who the clear cut best pitchers will be this year(aside form Johan Santana) If you have a chance at him at the 2nd pick or beyond you should scoop him, he's the only sure thing in pitching this year. i'd wait till about at least the 3rd to take a pitcher.

Don't be fooled by the pitching stats, go for your hitters as normal. This format supports high avg hitters that will have 190 to 200 hits. Here is a quick comparison in this format of Pujols and Reyes. In this format Pujols scored 1405 and Reyes 1438. Compare that to Johan Santana who scored 1101 - take your hitters first.

Crawford and Reyes are good first round picks. Utley as usual will provide an advantage over all 2B. Also in this format, Michael Young and Ichiro should move up on your charts as potential 200 hit threats. Pitchers like Harang and Sabathia that will likely be left in the game longer because of the lack of a good bullpen can get you closer to SHO's.

K's are heavily rewarded so stay away from guys like Kenny Rogers who win a lot of games with no K's. Take your chances late that you can get Chris Young, Olsen and Myers.

WOW! This format looks really interesting. I did some study for ya and found the figures. Enormous was close, but I think flawed by not including negatives for errors. Turns out that this format is almost exactly like normal but with hitters being a DEFINITE favorite on points. ALl things figured out, Reyes would have scored 1366, Pujols 1336, and Johan 1101. That's a HUGE difference, and you should draft hitters normally, FAR above pitching.

However, the real trick is not in who is scoring the most but in value per pick. For example, Pujols scored 1336, and fellow first rounder Grady Sizemore only scored 1183. Why? Way more whiffs and way fewer RBIs mainly. As another comparison, while Sizemore is usually a first rounder, Ichiro goes later on- maybe several rounds later. Ichiro scored 1163- only 20 points behind Sizemore! Ichiro had almost double the hits and double the steals.

It's hard to compare apples like Pujols and oranges like Reyes though. TOTALLY different players. Let's compare equally. Pujols got 1336 while a later round guy Teixeira got 1034. Now, average that difference over the whole season. Reyes got 1366 and one of the next best SS's Rollins got 1263. Interesting....However, Utley at 2B got 1208 (he whiffs a lot too) and the next 2B drafted Brian Roberts got a mere 899!!

What I am saying is that this system magnifies the differences in player production. Do you draft Carl Crawford or Chase Utley?? Hard choice normally, and this format makes that real- Utley at 1208 and Crawford at 1205. However, once you consider the drop off WITHIN the same positions, the choice becomes clear. The drop off between Utley and the next best guy Roberts is 300 points or so, to get that kind of drop off at 1B, you have to go all the way from Pujols to Teixeira.

Pitching is even worse. Comparing Santana to the next best pitcher- Carpenter- shows a HUGE 250 point difference. However, Carpenter isn't a strikeout pitcher and Santana is...let's try Peavy. Peavy went 11-14 which sucked for him. But his Ks made up for it. Peavy scored 909 while Carpenter scored only 855. Carpenter went 15-8...

The thing here is the "K". Kenny Rogers went 17-8, bt with only 99 Ks...he scored a mere 499. He had more wins than Carpenter, FAR more than Peavy, but scored 350 points less!! Dave Bush went 12-11 but had 166 Ks...he scored 746.

What I'm saying is draft the pitchers that get you the strikeouts. To make this clear, look at Fuentes- closer for Colorado- who got 515 points while notching 30 saves. Meanwhile Joel Zumaya nothced only 1 save, but scored 431 on basically nothing but Ks. Draft for strikeouts.

Now I don't know whether your league is head-to-head, roto, or based solely on points. However, I would seriously consider "punting" saves altogether. I would then make REALLY sure to draft the absolute best position player available at the time- considering the talent drop off. The difference between Utley and Crawford might be negligible, but the difference between Utley and Roberts is HUGE!

Now, I suggest you do some study of your own. Go to ESPN and check their fantasy baseball page. They will have a "player info" search option at the lower right hand side. Type in the last name of the guy you want, and he'll come up. Click his name and you get his stats for last year and his vitals. Click on the stats link under his picture (beside profile) and you get everything. Simply plug his stats into your league formula and you have what you need.

I REALLY like this format and I believe I'll be hunting down a similar league...especially now that I've researched it! Thanks!

Hope this helps...

Normaly I would go for power hitters early in the draft. In your case big strikeout pitchers are very valueable as are guys who hit for good avg. Power hitters really arent that big of a deal for your league set-up. A guy who hits 35 doubles and 15 hr's is just as good as a 30 hr guy. So unless you have the 1st pick and can grab Pujols, then guys like Reyes, Utley, Santana would be who I'd target in the 1st round. Actually Reyes might be the best overall option considering SB's are worth 5 pts. He should have 200 hits, 20 Hr, 120 Runs and 40-50 SB.

Early, take Power because there are only so many 40 hr guys and a hr gives you 12 pts. Also hitters are safer early picks and you can ALWAYS find pitching during the year on the wire if neccesary. Rememeber Last Year? (Weaver, Liriano, Papelbon, Verlander, etc..) For Pitchers, Grab high strikeout, high IP pitchers(because they get more wins) from good teams starting in round seven or so. Guys like Lackey, Smoltz, Petite, and Sabbathia should be great. Guys like Kazmir and Wang are trouble because they either dont win(Kaz) or dont K people(wang). Also, the lack of a Batting average catagory really hurts Ichiro, and Joe Mauer, for example, and helps players like Giamibi, Dunn, and Andrew Jones.

I am telling you. Go for front line pitching right away. If I were you I would take all top starters and closers with your first 6 picks no matter what the ratings say. You can then pick up middle of the road sluggers and be fine on offense. Relievers especially because you get 7 points for a save. If you pick up a couple of 40-45 save guys you will get their save and K's. Don't panic and pick some big home run guy early. There are plenty of hitters out there.

Yes good hitters, but look to fill those positions that are normally weak,ie, shortstops,third base,second base and first base.Remember there are a lot of outfielders who put up similar numbers, but there are not a lot of quality infielders at those positions I mentioned.It looks like there`s more emphasis on hitting in your league, so I would take 1st a top infielder like ex: Reyes shortstop Mets and then come back and take ethier another top line infielder such Haffner 1st base.You must remember that if you don`t have the top 5 to 6 players at say ex:second base, you might consider going after a top out fielder.

With your stat categories, focus on top strikeout pitchers on the better teams and good pitchers on the top teams - avoid good WHIP/ERA guys because you aren't losing any points for hits, runs or walks.

For position players, focus on power, and try to get as many DH's as possible since you will be losing points for errors - Piazza can C for you, Vidro at 2B, and spend an early pick on Ortiz, his stock goes up in this format.

Take a batter with high HR and RBI. Figuring a solo homer will get you 1-HR,1-RBI, and 1-R thats 12 points. also, get pitchers later with high K's 3rd round or higher.Wait on closers.

I would say for at least the first 4 rounds, TAKE HITTERS.

Pujols, Reyes, Howard, Soriano, ARod...

There are plenty of QUALITY pitchers out there to fall back on...

Wow DIDNT realize K's and SB's are VALUED SO HIGH...