Posts tagged rankings

Fantasy Baseball: 2013 Staff Rankings

By on March 22, 2013
This entry is filed under Fantasy Baseball, Rankings and tagged , , , , , , , , , , . | 2 Comments

Trout? Cabrera? Braun? Who's number 1? (and is there even a wrong answer?)

Trout? Cabrera? Braun? Who’s number 1? (and is there even a wrong answer?)

Those of you (aka the smart ones) who bought the FantasyTrade411 Draft Guide have had our rankings for over a month now, but for those of you who didn’t (there’s still time!)…it’s finally rankings time!

 

The 2013 Fantasy Baseball season is about to begin and I know a lot of you have drafts over the next week or so. To help you with your draft, we’ve compiled our FantasyTrade411 Staff Rankings with the help of our friends over at FantasyPros. For the past couple weeks, T, Tony, Cliffy, and I have been putting a fine-tooth comb through our rankings and have finally combined them all into one nice little chart for you below. You can go back to FantasyPros and see each of our individual rankings if you trust one of us more than the other, but the rankings below are a nice safe average of the four of us.

 

I hope these rankings give you a nice guideline for your draft, but I highly urge you to make these rankings your own. There’s a 100% guarantee that these rankings won’t be completely correct so if you like Johnny Cueto over Mat Latos (for example)…by all means, put Cueto above Latos. The rankings below (and really any other fantasy analysts’ rankings) are our best guess based on all the research we’ve done and will give you a great guideline if you want to use them exactly as we give them to you, but fantasy baseball is all about making it your own and I guarantee you’ll have a lot more fun if you tweak these to your own personal tastes.

 

And one last time…go check out the draft guide!!

2013 Fantasy Baseball Rankings powered by FantasyPros

 




 

Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide Preview: Daily Fantasy Baseball Blueprint

By on March 14, 2013
This entry is filed under Fantasy Baseball and tagged , , , , , , , , .

As most of you have seen on Twitter, we released the 2013 FantasyTrade411 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide right before Valentine’s day. The positive response has been absolutely overwhelming (and humbling), but I’ve also had some folks understandably ask for a preview of the guide before they spend their well-earned $9.99. Don’t worry…I don’t blame you. I waffle before I make a purchase all the time.

 

To help you make your decision (and hopefully sway you to the dark side), I’m going to start releasing a quick preview of each piece that we have in the draft guide over the next few weeks. We have a full list of what’s in the guide over on the site, but today’s preview is an awesome piece by Ethan Haskell of RotoGrinders called, “The Daily Fantasy Baseball Blueprint”.

 

We have a great deal with that we’re offering through FanDuel, so it’s only fitting that we have an article on how to play daily games. Daily Fantasy Baseball is one of the harder daily games to play in my opinion and RotoGrinders is one of the (if not the best) sites out there for daily fantasy strategy and news.  I was honored they were willing to contribute to the guide and one of my favorite RotoGrinders, Ethan Haskell did a great job with this article. Here’s a quick screenshot of  Ethan and RotoGrinders’ “Daily Fantasy Baseball Blueprint”‘ article (and there is another page and a half of this article to go along with the preview below):
 
Screen Shot 2013-02-23 at 11.40.49 AM

 

I hope you enjoyed that quick preview, and again…there are three and a half more pages of that article in the draft guide, along with 137 more pages that you can read about here. And if you’ve ever wanted to try daily gaming, we’re also offering a special deal for first-time FanDuel customers that gives you $10 free on FanDuel along with the purchase of the draft guide!

 
 

Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide Preview: “10 Things We Can Learn From 2012″

By on March 5, 2013
This entry is filed under Fantasy Baseball and tagged , , , , , .

As most of you have seen on Twitter, we released the 2013 FantasyTrade411 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide right before Valentine’s day. The positive response has been absolutely overwhelming (and humbling), but I’ve also had some folks understandably ask for a preview of the guide before they spend their well-earned $9.99. Don’t worry…I don’t blame you. I waffle before I make a purchase all the time.

 

To help you make your decision(and hopefully sway you to the dark side), I’m going to start releasing a quick preview of each piece that we have in the draft guide over the next few weeks. We have a full list of what’s in the guide over on the site, but today’s preview is an awesome piece by our own Joe Costello called, “10 Things We Can Learn From 2012″.

 

It can be a painful, but looking back at my previous fantasy baseball season can be an extremely helpful exercise. I can always learn a few key lesson by looking back at the previous year’s trends as well as my successes and errors. To this end, Joe Costello was tasked with taking a look back at the fantasy baseball year that was 2012 and give us 10 lessons that we can use to inform our 2013. I’m obviously biased, but I think you’ll agree that Joe didn’t a fantastic job.  Here’s a quick screenshot of ‘What We Can Learn From 2012′ piece (and there are two and a half more pages of this article to go along with the preview below):

 

Screen Shot 2013-02-23 at 11.36.06 AM (1)

 

I hope you enjoyed that quick preview, and again…there are two and a half more pages of that article in the draft guide, along with 137 more pages that you can read about here. And if you’ve ever wanted to try daily gaming, we’re also offering a special deal for first-time FanDuel customers that gives you $10 free on FanDuel along with the purchase of the draft guide!

 

The 2013 FantasyTrade411 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide

By on February 14, 2013
This entry is filed under Fantasy Baseball and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . | 18 Comments

Cover (1)We’ve been teasing you guys with this for weeks now, but the 2013 FantasyTrade411 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide is finally here!

 

We’ve been going HAM on this thing for over a month now and we’re extremely proud to bring you guys what I think is the best work that’s ever come out of this website.  We’re giving you a couple purchase options (more on that below), but to start…
 
Here’s a quick list of what you’ll find in the draft guide:

 

  • My Fantasy Baseball Commandments (by Nick Raducanu, aka “TraderX”)
  • Top 300 Rankings and Draft Cheatsheet (by Nick Raducanu)
  • Positional Tiers and Breakdowns (by Nick Raducanu)
  • 300 Player Projections (by Mike Gianella of Baseball Prospectus)
  • Expert Mock Draft (features Andy Behrens of Yahoo, Nando di Fino of CBS, Davis Gonos of Sports Illustrated, Dr. Roto of RotoExperts, Matt Deutsch of SiriusXM Fantasy, Jason Collette of Baseball Prospectus, Dalton Del Don of Yahoo and Rotowire, Jake Ciely of RotoExperts, Drew Dinkmeyer of Fantistics, Paul Sporer of Baseball Prospectus, Reggie Yinger of Baseball Press)
  • Draft Strategies for Snake, Auction, H2H, Roto, and Points Leagues (by our managing editor, Tony Mauriello)
  • Auction Values (by Tony Mauriello)
  • Is the Term “Injury Prone” a Myth? (by Will Carroll of Bleacher Report)
  • Daily Gaming 101 (by Ethan Haskell of RotoGrinders)
  • Sabermetrics 101 (by Moe Koltun of RotoAnalysis)
  • Fantasy Baseball Freshman Orientation (by Travis Rowe of FT411 and GoProFantasySports)
  • Trade Strategies and Etiquette (by Kyle Soppe of FT411)
  • Closer Report (by Nick Raducanu)
  • Sleepers and Busts (by Michael Clifford of FT411)
  • Who is the next Mike Trout?(by Davis Mattek of SportsWunderkind)
  • What We Can Learn From 2012 (by Joe Costello of FT411)
  • Why Fantasy Footballers Should Play Fantasy Baseball (by Rob Pallazola of FT411)
  • Streaming Pitching Strategy (by Dale Sokol of FT411)
  • 30 Team-by-Team Previews by 30 excellent contributors

How do you get your hands on it?

 

We currently have two options for you:
 
1. You can buy it below for $9.99 using your credit card or PayPal account
 
2. If you’re a first-time FanDuel customer, we’ve partnered up with the number one daily fantasy sports site around to give you all a special offer of $10 that will give you the draft guide AND $10 of FanDuel money.
 

  • If you’re already a FanDuel customer OR if you only want the draft guide, you can purchase the 2013 FantasyTrade411 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide by clicking the “donate” button below. You’ll then be taken to a Paypal screen where you can pay using either your PayPay account or your credit card (make sure you enter $9.99 as the donation amount) and I’ll email you a copy of the guide as soon as I get your payment.

 


 

  • If you’re a first-time FanDuel customer and want to try your hand at daily gaming, you can come purchase the draft guide at FanDuel here and get $10 of free FanDuel money to go along with your draft guide (or you get a free draft guide to go along with a $10 deposit on FanDuel…however you wanna think of it).

 

If you’re still on the fence about whether or not to purchase, fill in the form below and I’ll be happy to send you a quick sneak-peek to help aid your decision. And if you’re REALLY on the fence after that…buy the guide and if you don’t like it, shoot me an email (FantasyTrade411@gmail.com) and I’ll give you a full refund with no questions asked (that’s how confident I am that you’ll like it).
 


 
As always, if you have ANY questions…you know where to find me. Good luck this season!

Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide

By on January 28, 2013
This entry is filed under Fantasy Baseball and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . | 5 Comments

Sound familiar?

Sound familiar?

We still have one more week of football left, but me and the guys here at FantasyTrade411.com have been champing at the bit to get started on our upcoming Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide since Rex Ryan started contemplating keeping Tim Tebow on the bench all season (so basically since August).

 

We’re already underway with our rankings, player previews, articles, mock draft preparations (and everything else the draft guide will entail), but I wanted to give you guys a sneak-peak at something I’m really excited about — and potentially give you a chance to participate in the draft guide.

 

Just like a lot of draft guides do, we’ll be putting team-by-team previews together, but we’re going to do something a little different and have those team previews written by a fan of that team (a few of these fans are some of your favorite fantasy writers and a few of these fans are going to be some of you!). We’re shooting to have our draft guide ready by the beginning of February and I’ll be releasing the writer of one team preview each day up until the release of our draft guide (see below).

 

I’ll let you guys know how you’ll be able to pre-order your copy soon, but in the meantime, enjoy this living-breathing list  and keep back checking daily to see who’s been added to it.

 

Red Sox - Tony M (managing editor here at FantasyTrade411)

Devil Rays - David Gonos (contributor to SportsIllustrated.com and owner of DavidGonos.com)

Blue Jays – Michael Clifford (writer and head Canadian here at FantasyTrade411)

Yankees – Glenn Colton (co-host of SiriusXM Fantasy’s “Colton and the Wolfman”)

Orioles – Albert Lang (Podcaster extraordinaire and writer at FantasyPros911 and TheFantasyFix)

 

Tigers – Ryan Carey (writer at Mastersball.com)

Twins – Clave Jones (co-founder of (FantasyBaseballCrackerJacks)

Kansas City Royals – Davis Mattek (founder of SportsWunderkind)

Indians – Russ Shaffer (FT411 follower and lifelong Indians fan)

White Sox – Jim McGrew (FT411 follower and big Chicago sports fan)

 

A’s – Vincent Frank (writer at BleacherReport and Edraft)

Astros – Chuck Licata (writer here at FantasyTrade411)

Rangers – Brett Talley (managing editor and head podcaster at TheFantasyFix.com)

Angels – Josh Pacheco (founder of NewSportsGuru and co-host of SportsCast)

Mariners – Chad Scott (writer at FFOasis and Dynasty League Football)

Braves – Chuck Licata (writer here at FantasyTrade411)

Mets – Matt Schwimmer (co-founder of RotoAnalysis)

Nationals – Tom Murphy (FT411 follower and huge Nationals fan)

Marlins – Travis Rowe (writer at FantasyTrade411.com and founder of GoProFantasySports.com)

Phillies – Nicholas Minnix (fantasy baseball editor at KFFL.com)

 

Cubs – Mark Kaplan (producer at 730 Yahoo Sports and host of All Things Fantasy)

Reds – T  aka WHUDEY (writer and podcaster here at FantasyTrade411)

Brewers – Ryan Forbes (co-founder of 2 Mugs Fantasy Football)

Pirates – Dan Domenick (FT411 and Pennsylvania sports fan)

Cardinals – @HeHaithMe (one of the best sports handicappers around and co-founder of 3030sports.com)

 

Giants – Brian Forrester (FantasyTrade411 Insider Member and HUGE Giants fan)

Dodgers – Aaron Roberts (founder of Bertsball and long-time Dodgers fan)

Rockies – Nick Lauzon (FT411 follower and Rockies fan)

Diamondbacks – Will Carroll (contributor to SportsIllustrated.com and BleacherReport)

Padres – Sean P. Galvin (FT411 follower and Reality Television Producer)

 

Again, if you’re interested in writing a preview for your favorite team (and it’s still available), shoot me an email at FantasyTrade411@gmail.com. And if you have any specific topics you want us to cover in the Draft Guide, please feel free to email me or leave a comment below.

The Doc’s Week 20/ Week 3 Playoff Rankings

By on January 15, 2013
This entry is filed under Fantasy Football and tagged , , , , , , .

Daily Fantasy Sports Games at FanDuel.com
 

Whether or not you think Joe Flacco is "elite", he's a top four option this weekend

Whether or not you think Joe Flacco is “elite”, he’s a top four option this weekend

Since I initially posted by full playoff fantasy football rankings on New Year’s Day, I have received numerous requests during the last few weeks about whether I planned on posting rankings for the individual playoff weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. I have since posted rankings for each of the “Wild Card Weekend” as well as the “Divisional Round Weekend”. My “Conference Championship Weekend” rankings follow.

 

Typically, most playoff fantasy football leagues are set up such that you draft one team prior to the four wild card games and the goal is to accumulate as many fantasy points as possible such that the fantasy team with the most points after the Super Bowl is the winner of the league.  Of course, there are other variations on how to score playoff fantasy football. For example, some leagues allow you to draft a full roster of players, but you can only use a player for one weekend. Additionally, I have seen leagues where teams draft a new set of players each week of the playoffs.
 
For this reason, I have decided to rank the players playing only during the Conference Championship Weekend (or week 20 of the NFL season). Please see the rankings below. Keep in mind that if you are selecting players for this week only (and you can only use a player once during the entire playoffs), you want to make sure that you balance (a) talent and how well you think the player will perform as well as (b) whether you think a player’s team will win this week and whether you want to “save” him for next week. For these “one and done” playoff fantasy football formats, I put more weight on talent and matchup as opposed to whether I think a player’s team has a chance to advance. The reason being is that this is the NFL and anything can happen any given weekend, especially during the playoffs.
 
If your playoff fantasy football team is clearly out of contention for the title, I would suggest heading over to one of the daily gaming sites (I suggest my friends at FanDuel) and try your hand at some head-to-head fantasy football. Even if your team is long gone this year, you can at least tune into the two games this weekend to watch the players you chose for your FanDuel lineup.
 
Make no mistake – if you are reading these, you are likely playing in some sort of fantasy football playoff tournament. Maybe the weekly game is your choice or you like sticking to head-to-head games. No matter which option to choose, your opponent is probably poring over every morsel of fantasy knowledge online as you read this, including attempting to guess which coach will bench his players. Meanwhile, you are reading my drivel and build-up when you really want to skip to my rankings, which are also posted over at FantasyPros.com under the “Experts” tab.
 
I will update these rankings at least once before kickoff. Please check back often as you will see updates as critical injury news flows through.
 
If you have sit/start questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter. If I do not respond, use my rankings as a guide to your answer. However, I believe that I have managed to answer every question that I have received this season.
 

Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyPros

 
A 22-year fantasy sports veteran and a California and New York licensed corporate attorney by day, I am a managing editor/senior writer/general counsel of FantasyTrade411.com. Please feel free to contact me at any time on twitter @TheTonyM with your fantasy sports questions. Be sure to listen to my podcast “Sports Counseling with the Doc and Slim” with my radio partner, Michael Clifford (aka @SlimCliffy) on the Fantasy Trade 411 Radio Network.
 
 

Fantasy Football: Way Too Early 2013 Rankings

By on December 31, 2012
This entry is filed under Fantasy Football, Rankings and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , . | 6 Comments

Time to break out the handy ole Magic 8 Ball...

Time to break out the handy ole Magic 8 Ball…

I realize the season just ended, but I had fun tweeting with a bunch of you last night about what our 2013 fantasy football draft boards might look like and wanted to put some of those thoughts into writing before I moved on to fantasy basketball and fantasy baseball. There’s a LOT that can happen before next September (and coaches are literally getting fired as I type this), but it’s never too early for all of us addicts to start thinking about next year, right!

 

I’ll preface this by saying I haven’t given more than a few hours thought to any of these rankings, but here are some quick lists (overall top 10 and then position-by-position) of where I’d rank guys for next year as of December 31, 2012. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.

 

Yup...you're number one, buddy

Yup…you’re number one, buddy

Overall Top 10 for 2013
I could probably interchange anyone from 2-10 and feel fine about it (A lot of this has to do with your QB strategy, but I personally like to wait for better value lower in the draft so I didn’t include Brees/Rodgers/Brady in here)

     

  1. Adrian Peterson – is there any argument?
  2. Doug Martin – tied Arian as the 2nd highest-scoring RB in his rookie season
  3. Arian Foster – I’m a little worried about wear and tear, but he’s safe at 3
  4. C.J. Spiller – Gailey is gone, Fred Jackson might be too…is he top 3 if so?
  5. Calvin Johnson – I hate taking WRs early, but he’s as safe as they come
  6. Alfred Morris - finished 5th among RBs this year. Shanahanigans are the only downside to Alf
  7. Marshawn Lynch - he worries me a bit, but I can’t argue with what he’s done
  8. Ray Rice - still finished 6th amongh RBs. An absolute steal if he drops this far (I’ll probably end up taking him earlier than 8th)
  9. Trent Richardson – might be too high, but he’ll only get better and is Swiss watch consistent
  10. LeSean McCoy – huge unknown with the new coaching staff, but I’ll gladly take him at 10

 

Close, but no cigar: Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Stevan Ridley, Jamaal Charles, A.J. Green, Dez Bryant, Brandon Marshall

 

Can Aaron Rodgers re-capture his crown...er...belt?

Can Aaron Rodgers re-capture his crown…er…belt?

Top 10 Quarterbacks for 2013
If you like playing it safe with your first or second round pick…this list is for you.

 

  1. Aaron Rodgers – actually finished tied for 2nd with Brady in 2012, but I’ll take youth at 1 here
  2. Drew Brees – finished as the top fantasy QB in a “down” year. I’ll take him over Brady (and I’m a Pats fan)
  3. Tom Brady – I could argue him at 1-3, but 3 sounds about right for now
  4. Cam Newton – as “bad” as he was this year…he was pretty damn good
  5. Robert Griffin III – if he can stay healthy (big IF), he’s probably top 3
  6. Peyton Manning – have to worry about regression a tad, but he’s easily top 8
  7. Matt Ryan – faded a bit in the middle of season, but still a solid plug-and-play each week
  8. Matthew Stafford – still finished 10th in a down year (so I guess we know his floor)
  9. Andrew Luck – some will say this is too low, but I just can’t justify him any higher than 8th at the most
  10. Eli Manning – he went too high in 2012 drafts, but 10th will be a steal if (when) he bounces back in 2013

 

Close, but no cigar: Tony Romo, Colin Kaepernick, Russell Wilson, Andy Dalton, Josh Freeman

 

Free C.J. Spiller!!!

Free C.J. Spiller!!!

Top 10 Running Backs for 2013
This is basically a re-hash of my top 10 list so scroll up if you want explanations on any of these guys.

 

  1. Adrian Peterson
  2. Doug Martin
  3. Arian Foster
  4. C.J. Spiller
  5. Alfred Morris
  6. Marshawn Lynch
  7. Ray Rice
  8. Trent Richardson
  9. LeSean McCoy
  10. Jamaal Charles

 

Close, but no cigar: Stevan Ridley, Frank Gore, Chris Johnson, Matt Forte, DeMarco Murray

 

Everyone else is just playing for second with Calvin Johnson around

Everyone else is just playing for second with Calvin Johnson around

Top 10 Wide Receivers for 2013
This list is probably going to the most fluid over the offseason, but there are plenty of great options at fantasy football’s deepest position for next year.

 

  1. Calvin Johnson – no explanation needed
  2. A.J. Green – I’ll take the youth/stability over the next two guys
  3. Dez Bryant – this is probably too high, but the sky is the limit
  4. Brandon Marshall – neither he nor Dez have “stability”, but I guess I took youth with Dez at three
  5. Demaryius Thomas – Eric Decker is the only reason I don’t have him above Marshall
  6. Andre Johnson – bounced back in a big way in 2012 and he’ll definitely improve on only four TDs
  7. Julio Jones – he’s about as frustrating as they come, but just too good to pass up
  8. Vincent Jackson – one of this year’s biggest steals should continue to produce as Freeman matures
  9. Roddy White – another pain in the ass (see Julio Jones), but still very productive
  10. Michael Crabtree – I could’ve put about 15 guys here, but I’ll take a leap with the Crabman

 

Close, but no cigar: Eric Decker, Victor Cruz, Marques Colston, Wes Welker, Reggie Wayne, Randall Cobb

 

Yo Soy Fiesta!!!

Yo Soy Fiesta!!!

Top 10 Tight Ends for 2013
So much for the “year of the tight end”. This position is the biggest cluster F of them all…and please stop drafting anyone who doesn’t use the phrase “Yo Soy Fiesta” in the first two rounds!

 

  1. Rob Gronkowski – like with RB and WR…number one isn’t even an argument in TE
  2. Jimmy Graham – disappointing year (partly due to injuries), but he still finished 1st among TEs due to Gronk’s injury
  3. Aaron Hernandez – if he stays healthy (a big IF), he could challenge Gronk for number one
  4. Jason Witten – this spot probably belongs to the next guy, but I think Witten will usurp him next year
  5. Tony Gonzalez – assuming he doesn’t retire, he’s easily a top five TE next year
  6. Owen Daniels – relatively unheralded, but the guy just keeps producing
  7. Greg Olsen – unless something changes, he’s basically Cam’s 2nd-best target
  8. Kyle Rudolph – he went missing for a few weeks here and there, but he’s only getting better
  9. Antonio Gates - yup…that’s the sound of me banging my head against the wall
  10. Vernon Davis – that other sound is me banging my head against the wall again

 

Close, but no cigar: Brandon Myers, Dennis Pitta, Heath Miller (top 10 if healthy), Jermaine Gresham, Brent Celek

 

So what do you think? Anyone I missed? Anyone you think I have rated too high? Too low? Let me know what you think in the comments section below…I’m looking forward to debating this for the next 9 months!

 

And if you want even more 2013 analysis, go check out the first round of a mock draft that my buddy David Gonos put together on his website. As has come to be expected from Gonos…it’s great stuff.

 

 

The Doc’s Week 17 Rankings

By on December 26, 2012
This entry is filed under Fantasy Football and tagged , , , , . | 1 Comment

Still playing in a weird 17 week league? Drew Brees is here to help...

Still playing in a weird 17 week league? Drew Brees is here to help…

After the months of preparing for your 2012 fantasy football drafts to the months of setting your lineup each week to ensure you crushed your opponent on the virtual field, the season comes down to a winner-take-all game. For most of us, that game occurred last week. However, there are still a good number of fantasy football managers who are competing in week 17 of the NFL season.

 

As to why you would hold your Super Bowl in the final week of the NFL season is a topic for another article, but I have received numerous requests asking me “will you be here next week” or “are you doing your rankings for week 17?”
 
My week 17 rankings follow below. Let me first congratulate those of you out there who have already won your championship and have already spent your winnings on something that you would not normally purchase with your own hard-earned cash.
 
For those of you who still have this last week to go before you earn some hardware for your mantle, please dig in and study these rankings. Please keep in mind that the rankings may seem a tad “off” this week because some teams may rest their players if the team has nothing to play for and want to give their studs some time off before the playoffs.
 
Make no mistake – your opponent is probably poring over every morsel of fantasy knowledge online as you read this, including attempting to guess which coach will bench his players. Meanwhile, you are reading my drivel and build-up when you really want to skip to my rankings, which are also posted over at FantasyPros.com under the “Experts” tab.
 
I will update these rankings at least four times between today and kickoff on Sunday. Please check back often as you will see updates as critical injury news flows through.
 
My final rankings will be published late Saturday with some minor tweaks on Sunday morning, but use this article as a guideline to make adjustments to your rosters as you strive to earn a “W” in this second week of the fantasy football playoffs.
 
If you have sit/start questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter. If I do not respond, use my rankings as a guide to your answer. However, I believe that I have managed to answer every question that I have received this season.
 

Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyPros

 
A 22-year fantasy sports veteran and a California and New York licensed corporate attorney by day, I am a fantasy sports analyst by night. Please feel free to contact me at any time on twitter @JakobMD with your fantasy sports questions. Be sure to listen to my podcast “Sports Counseling with the Doc and Slim” with my radio partner, Michael Clifford (aka @slimcliffy) on the Fantasy Trade 411 Radio Network.

 

 
 

Week 16 Fantasy Football Rankings

By on December 19, 2012
This entry is filed under Fantasy Football, Rankings and tagged , , , , .

“If you ain’t first, you’re last!”

If you’re reading this, you’re likely in the finals of your league. Congratu-freaking-lations! But before we start patting ourselves on the back, let’s remember the wise words of Mr. Ricky James Bobby, “If you ain’t first, you’re last!” .

 

For the past few weeks, I put together a few rules to live by in your fantasy playoffs. I hope those have come in handy (and if you’re reading this, I must have done something right to keep you coming back. Now that you’ve gotten to the championship round, it’s time to add a couple rules to some the holdovers from the last few weeks:

 

  1. The time for nostalgia and loyalty is over…your draft was over three months ago. Playoffs are the time to throw name-brands out the window and forget about where you drafted a guy (I’m looking at you, Vernon Davis) and play the hot-hands (I’m looking at you, Dennis Pitta).
  2. Fantasy football is essentially a large puzzle, so make sure you use all the puzzle pieces you can to help make your decisions. Recent performance, carries/targets, matchups, weather, previous games against a team, and rankings are all helpful pieces, but make sure you use them as part of a large picture…not in a vacuum.
  3. Put in extra time this week. You’ve probably gotten this far by doing a lot of research, but this is for all the marbles…you can always do more. Go solicit as many opinions as you can, go read as many columns as you can, and go crunch as many numbers as your brain will allow before it explodes. If you can learn as much about each of the criteria I listed in #2, you’ll be well on your way to winning your matchup.
  4. That said…don’t overthink your start/sit decisions! You very well may be wrong come Monday morning, but as long as you feel good with your decisions using the criteria I outlined in #1-3, you can’t really be mad about anything. If you can look back and say, “I was wrong, but I’d still make that same decision if I had a do-over”, there’s nothing to complain about. No regrets, right? (I’ll stop now before I turn this post into a “No Fear” t-shirt).
  5. This is the time for no-holds-barred fantasy football (ya, I know you’ve been playing that way all along, but this is different). If your opponent has RG3 and hasn’t grabbed Kirk Cousins already…scoop him up! If your opponent is a little weak at RB…go grab every relevant RB you can. I know you’ve probably been ruthless all season, but it’s time to step it up a notch.

 

Alright, enough of that…I think it’s time to get to the rankings. Good luck this week! (note: I’ll be updating these throughout the week, so make sure you keep checking back before kickoff!)
 

Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyPros

 
 

Week 15 Fantasy Football Rankings

By on December 12, 2012
This entry is filed under Fantasy Football, Rankings and tagged , , , , .

Depending on how your league is set up, you’re either one week into your fantasy playoffs or you’re about to enter the Thunderdome for the first time this weekend. Last week, I put together a few rules to live by in your fantasy playoffs and I’m going to post them again since they’re still obviously very relevant (the extra bonus here is that I don’t have to think of anything original to write this week):

 

  1. The time for nostalgia and loyalty is over…your draft was over three months ago. December is the time to throw name-brands out the window (I’m looking at you, Larry Fitzgerald and Ryan Mathews) and play the hot-hands (I’m looking at you, Danario Alexander and maybe even David Wilson).
  2. Fantasy football is essentially a large puzzle, so make sure you use all the puzzle pieces you can to help make your decisions. Recent performance, carries/targets, matchups, weather, previous games against a team, and rankings are all helpful pieces, but make sure you use them as part of a large picture…not in a vacuum.
  3. Don’t overthink your start/sit decisions! You very well may be wrong come Monday morning, but as long as you feel good with your decisions using the criteria I outlined in #2, you can’t really be mad about anything. If you can look back and say, “I was wrong, but I’d still make that same decision if I had a do-over”, there’s nothing to complain about. No regrets, right? (I’ll stop now before I turn this post into a “No Fear” t-shirt).

 

Alright, enough of that…I think it’s time to get to the rankings. Good luck this week! (note: I’ll be updated these throughout the week all the way up until kickoff on Sunday, so keep checking back!)

 

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