Another Fantasy/Roto Baseball Web Site?

Well, yes. And no.

One of the best things about the Internet explosion the last few years is that there has been a plethora of Fantasy web sites providing information to players. In some ways it has made leagues far more competitive. The days of being one of the two or three owners who subscribed to Baseball America and plucking the next Alex Rodriguez out of low A-ball obscurity are gone. In fact, those days are ancient history. So not only are there plenty of web sites out there with opinions on Jacoby Ellsbury, these opinions are all fairly similar. It’s becoming harder and harder to get an advantage.

The expectation, therefore, would be that there would be more baseball web sites attempting to break from the pack. I’ve found that this isn’t so. Almost every fantasy baseball web site falls into a similar template of player news, player analysis and statistical analysis. This isn’t to say that these three elements are worthless. On the contrary, these are pillars of information that an owner won’t win without.

So what’s missing?

Specific analysis on fantasy baseball, that’s what. What strategies work and which ones don’t? How much of an impact will auction inflation have on your team and can you overcome it? If you have to pack it in and play for next year, what’s the best way to go about doing so?

These are just a few examples.

So why don’t most fantasy web sites cover this type of information?

I’m guessing that most free fantasy web sites are aimed at the casual fan. Typically, there are pages for baseball, basketball, football and hockey. These web sites are also aimed at non-Rotisserie players. Or, worse yet, these sites don’t even discuss any kind of strategy since they don’t want to risk alienating any of their readers.

So this blog is going to be an experiment in a serious discussion of Rotisserie Baseball. NL or AL only leagues, deep talent pools, experienced owners. You might be the best owner in your league, but there are at least 7-8 other owners who can give you a run for your money every year. My goal is to discuss strategy and tactics primarily, since no other free web site has more than a cursory discussion, if they even bother at all.

A final note: This blog is not intended to replace or supplant the excellent work done over at alexpatton.com. I continue to recommend Alex’s web site for the superb work he does with projections and analysis and have no plans to create a software program for predicitions or evaluations of previous year’s stats.