Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks: What to Expect This Offseason
By Bill Pivetz
Hopefully, by the time the Sunday games are over, you’ll be celebrating like Clayton Kershaw in the picture above with your fantasy championship. If not, grab a bottle of champagne and celebrate anyway. It’s been a great baseball season.
There were a lot of prospects who made their debut, no-hitters, multi-home run games, and on the flip side, slumps, blowouts and injuries. But with the fantasy baseball season complete, what do you do now? Obviously, continue to read Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks. Just because the season is over doesn’t mean we stop writing. There will be plenty of write about during the cold months, so here’s what you should expect from Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks.
We will continue writing about the news on players being shut down or waiver wire pickups over the weekend.
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Next, I will most likely give a recap on the Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks fantasy league. I will talk about the championship game, my consolation matchup (Spoiler: I didn’t win) and where I think I went wrong throughout the season.
The third topic we will be discussing are strategies that either work or don’t work based on your type of league. Whether it’s targeting starting pitchers early and waiting for speed or going “zero closers,” we’ll write about which ones are worth pursuing next season.
No. 4 will be position rankings. There are nine positions to evaluate (SP, CL, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF and DH). The rankings we make in November and December will likely not be the same once Spring Training rolls around. Regardless, fantasy owners love to see where a player ranks and how late they can wait on a certain position or if they need to jump on it early.
Branching off of that, there will be team rankings. There are 30 teams with five starting pitchers (150 pitchers), nine to 10 hitters (270-300 hitters) and two or three bullpen guys (60-90 relievers). Knowing where a certain player ranks within his team is worth knowing leading up to your draft. If a player ranks last among its team’s hitters, you will likely not draft him, especially in standard 10-team leagues.
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Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks will rank 150 starting pitchers, 60 relief pitchers, 30 at each infield position, 100 outfielders and 10 designated hitters. Where will your 2015 MVP ranks heading into next year?
In the early months of 2016, we will begin to take part in mock drafts. Mock drafts are a great way to see where players are being taken, when a run on a certain position and to try out different strategies.
Finally, most of our time will be spent writing 2016 projections for most players. I wrote about Kyle Schwarber and his early 2016 projections last month. With around 300 players drafted and 50-75 more added throughout the season, there will be close to 400 players to write about from now until the end of March. While this somewhat ties into the position rankings, these articles will dig deeper into the individual players, how they performed this season and what to expect from them in 2016.
You should also see reaction articles if and when trades or free-agent signings take place. There was a lot of news in the offseason, one of them being Nelson Cruz joining the Seattle Mariners.
Overall, even with the 2015 baseball season in the books, Fantasy Baseball Crackerjacks will be looking ahead to 2016 with our rankings and projections. Keep us bookmarked so you can check back each and everyday to keep up to date throughout the winter.