Today's Fantasy Rx

Please refer to Friday's column for reference on draft prep and materials and yesterday's column for suggestions regarding the non-baseball logistics involved in fantasy drafts.

Prior to posting our projections, we wanted to spend one more article examining draft strategies, specifically the difference between strategy and valuation, which remains a popular topic in our discussions with readers and fellow fantasy owners.

Despite the complexities of the bidding process when compared to the relative simplicity of simply choosing a player in each round of a straight draft, we firmly believe auction leagues are significantly easier than straight drafts. Fundamentally, if you want to own a player, particularly in the early bidding when every owner possesses significant cap room, you buy the player. You don't have to worry about someone stealing the player you want before you planned to pick him. Now, perhaps "stealing" is too strong a word, yet losing a player, particularly if the owner selecting immediately in front of you takes your targeted pick, makes you feel like a robbery victim.

You don't need to worry about that problem in auctions. A few simple suggestions should guide you through the auction process.

1. As discussed on Friday, prepare a few lists for your draft: one paper with the values for all the players available in the draft, one paper with a complete depth chart of the players available, and a couple sheets to chart who each owner rosters and what they pay for each player.

2. Bid early and often, staying involved in both the auction process and the draft chatter regardless of your targeted players. We frequently see a couple of bargains slide past leagues full of hesitant owners at the beginning of drafts. Many owners don't value stars as highly as we do due to the possibility of injury. However, if a player has managed 500+ at-bats over the last few seasons and isn't fighting a potential season-ending injury like Albert Pujols or Luis Gonzalez, we see no reason not to pay full price at the beginning of the draft for them. Examples include ARod, Soriano, Ichiro, Helton, Renteria, and Pierre.

3. While we likely will see nearly a dozen new closers in the majors by the end of the year, we similarly see no reason not to pay for Gagne, Smoltz, Wagner, Rivera, and Foulke, with Guardado and Rhodes just behind the five elite ninth-inning pitchers. Usually two closers end up as bargains in auctions, one at the start and one in the middle. Generally, you can't find anything but speculative save sources later in drafts since two or three teams always will overpay for the last couple of established closers.

4. When bidding on any player reaches $6, $16, $26, or $36, if you want the player in question, consider jumping the respective bid to $9, $19, $29, or $39. Psychological principles increase the reluctance of owners to rollover the bidding to $10, $20, $30, and $40, giving you at least a slightly better chance of securing the player. You probably should wait until the bid ends in a 7 rather than a 6, especially if you're bidding against only one other owner, however we've employed this strategy successfully, closing out bidding at bids that ended in $9 and $0.

5. As an offshoot of the previous strategy, while I love bidding up players, exercise caution when price enforcing, especially when bids approach the 9/0 split. Also, don't price-enforce within 90% of your value on any specific player, and exceeding 75% for anyone save established performers is a bad idea. We've seen many otherwise impressive drafts go to waste when bidding abruptly stops, leaving owners with players they never wanted at prices they couldn't afford given their strategies.

6. Leaving money on the table, especially $5 or more, is a terrible result in any auction. If draft inflation leaves you feeling you should overspend by a couple of bucks to secure specific players to fill both category and position needs, I see no reason not to do so on one or two players in each auction. However, don't exceed your values by more than a couple bucks since you'll always find some bargains in the middle and later rounds.

7. Rostering a couple players at one dollar in keeper leagues always is a good idea, especially younger players who could emerge as a great bargains given more playing time.

For both auction and draft leagues, please remember that position scarcity is a precept of strategy, not one of player valuation. A home run by a catcher and a home run by any other player truly are equally valuable to your team. While we see the value of spending $15-20 to draft a couple of solid catchers in most leagues, you should acquire Kendall & Estrada or LeCroy & Santiago for those troubles, not merely one of those players and a decent backup backstop.

Acquiring your players via a draft, regardless of whether your league employs a rotation or snake draft, presents another set of problems. I hope the following suggestions will benefit your team:

1. Position runs are inevitable. While starting a run on closers or an infield position puts you at an advantage, also recognize that all such runs, even those involving starting pitchers or outfielders, are finite. For a position like shortstop after the first couple of rounds, you may have six players valued respectively at $15, $13, $9, $9, $8, and $5. Rostering either of the first two choices is the preferred option, however if a run starts four picks before your selection, you won't have the opportunity. Settling for a $9 or even $8 player isn't an ideal outcome for your team, but choosing one in the middle of a run still can be a good idea if the alternative is ending up with a significantly worse player.

2. Starting pitching is the most plentiful position available in any league, however outfielders, particularly in AL 12-team leagues, are more valuable than you might expect. Owners have 36 spots for 28 starting cornermen, and an identical total for middle infielders. However, you also only have 42 starting outfielders available to fill 50 slots. If even three outfielders are stuck in platoons, your league now chooses from the same percentage of starting players as your infield positions.

3. While we don't advise anyone to ignore pitching completely, particularly if you see an intriguing starter slipping down the board, you don't need to worry about qualifying for your league's IP minimum until after the 10th round. Hopefully you'll own at least one closer and seven starting position players by that point, leaving you the flexibility to address IP as you address other needs without overt worrying about your standing in the more competitive offensive categories, not to mention saves.

4. Always draft for value over the first few rounds of a draft as you can address specific positions in later rounds. Of course, if a middle infielder is valued within a couple of bucks of an outfielder or first baseman, take the middle infielder, however if the difference isn't less than $5, take the player projected to earn more.

I could list a hundred other draft guidelines, but please at least consider these suggestions as you approach your pre-season drafts.

Today's Fantasy Rx: While we believe that the ideas expressed here over the last three days will increase your competitiveness in fantasy baseball drafts, remember to never get so involved in running a team or winning a league, even those with significant monetary pots, that this game becomes drudgery.