How-to Guide to Selecting Players in a Fantasy Baseball Draft

Every year February signals the beginning of fantasy baseball leagues in offices and neighborhoods around America. Fantasy baseball is king of all fantasy games. Americans follow their favorite Major League Baseball players for a full 6 months in hopes of winning their local fantasy baseball league. So who will ultimately hold the advantage in these local fantasy leagues and ultimately have the local bragging rights? The answer to that question is usually determined in less that an hour on a day that usually occurs a full month before the Major League Baseball season even begins: fantasy baseball draft day. The winner of most fantasy leagues usually begins his success with a great draft, so the following is a how-to guide for selecting your fantasy baseball team during your fantasy draft.

The first step to having a wonderfully successful fantasy baseball draft is preparing properly. Preparing for your fantasy baseball draft involves studying statistics, trends, rosters, and lineups from past years. It's important to not only study superstar players but to also do in-depth research into players who may develop into contributors. For example, it's always important to take a look at the typical superstars such as Alex Rodriguez and Albert Pujols. The stats and trends of those players will generally help you decide which to pick first during the first few rounds of your fantasy baseball draft. However, the key to winning and having a successful draft is understanding the lower picks. The first few rounds of the fantasy draft typically don't impact teams much because every team will have superstar players at the top of their lineups, but only the better fantasy squads will be deep enough to contend for the title. To have depth and success, it's essential that you study the borderline players and average contributors very well and know their trends. Understand who is on the upswing of their career and who is in the midst of a downfall. For example, knowing the previous year's stats for players like Carlos Guillen, Adam LaRoche, or Alex Rios could make the difference between you picking the best player available and making a bad selection.

Second, after studying the stats, lineups, and rosters from previous years, it's important to predict the stats and lineups for the upcoming year. Using your research, attempt to make logical predictions about what a player might do during the upcoming season. For example, before last season it would have been beneficial for a fantasy baseball manager to try to predict Ryan Howard's stats for the upcoming season. If you had predicted that Ryan Howard's would be on the upswing, you would likely have selected Howard and had great success during your fantasy season. Also, you can use the players' bio's to make logical decisions. For example, knowing that Gary Sheffield is an older player can save you a lot of hassle during the upcoming season. Or on the contrary, knowing that Hanley Ramirez is a maturing young player might make him a great pick this season.

Finally, you have to make great draft day decisions when you finally picks. Selecting players for a great season is tough challenge. Using your research and predictions as planned is important. Deviating from that plan may lead you astray and into troubled waters. However, that's not to say that making adjustments on the fly isn't a good thing. If a better player becomes available unexpectedly, then jumping on that selection may be a jump start to your fantasy season.

So, for your ultimate fantasy baseball draft day success you must follow the 3 P's: Prepare, Predict, and Pick. If you follow these simple steps, then you will have great fantasy baseball draft success.