#1:  Hammer the Waiver Wire.

 

Since your injuries left with roster spots filled with platoon players, don't assume that Aaron Miles is going to become the next great 2b.  Work the waiver wire.  Watch the transactions, if a player goes down with an injury, go and pickup his replacement.  If a guy gets called up from the minors, pick him up.  Notice that a mediocre starter is getting 2 decent starts next week, go and grab him.  Do whatever it takes to get serviceable bodies on your team.  You will need them as we move down this list.  It also makes you a more active member of your league and weakens some of the top teams as they try to recover from their own injury problems.

 

#2:  Buy Low/Sell High.

 

Start working the trade lines right now and go after players that were highly rated at the beginning of the season but have gotten off to bad starts.  Carlos Delgado's owner would probably love to listen to some offers.  Owners of Derek Lowe, Joel Pineiro, and Andy Pettitte would probably love to hear what you have to offer for their players.  Derek Jeter and Shawn Green owners will look at their players batting averages and at the very least toy with the idea of trading them.  Who knows, you might be able to get a Pettitte or a Pineiro for Kenny Rogers.  Rogers is not going to win 20 games this year, but he's on a hot streak to start the season.  Realize that baseball is a long season and that the numbers tend to average out in the end.  If Derek Jeter is a .330 hitter and he's batting .220 right now, the trend means he's going to hit well above .300 the rest of the season.  If Paul Wilson's ERA is 3.50 right now, and you and everyone else had him pegged for about a 4.75 ERA, then take a good guess what his ERA is going to be for the rest of the season.

 

#3:  Go After Injured Players.

 

Teams that have been holding onto Nomar Garciaparra, Preston Wilson, Marcus Giles, or Dmitri Young, just might be getting tired of their injured status.  Go and find out what it will take to get one of these guys.  Their owners have been holding onto these guys all season long and have not reaped many rewards.  The nice thing, is that they have done all of the dirty work.  Now you can swoop in, pick them up for 3/4 or 1/2 value and get to reap the rewards.  Many times you will find that fantasy baseball owners are very impatient.  Use this impatience to your advantage.  Maybe you won't get some of these guys back yourself until All-Star break...but look at the position you might find yourself towards the end of the year.  Would it be better to sit by with your crummy team and stink all year?  Or would it be fun to get into July and start spoiling your foes and making a run at winning your league.

Now is the time to trade for Nomar.

 

#4:  Forget Rookies.

 

This seems to be the biggest pet peeve of my in non-keeper fantasy baseball leagues.  People falling in love with rookies.  It seems that a players potential seems to always fall short of their actual production.  Quickly name one rookie this season that is actually out-performing their expectations.  You won't find one, yet teams still are lusting over Joe Mauer, Alexis Rios, BJ Upton, etc.  Why is that?  I have an easy answer to it...the media.  Wherever you go, ESPN.com, etc there are always articles gushing about how great a prospect is going to be.  Do you ever read an article about Jamie Moyer?  How about Rafeal Palmeiro?  These guys just go out and produce year after year and are just after-thoughts.  Remember in Step 1 when I told you to go and grab the hot rookie prospects?  Well use them to deal to other owners who have just read the latest article that says that David Wright is the next coming of Scott Rolen.  If 1 of the 50 prospects that everyone talks about turns into something good this year, so what.  What about the other 49?  Go after production now and let someone else buy a lottery ticket.

#5:  Analyze what you have and what you need.

Are Luis Castillo and Barry Zito good baseball players?  Sure.  If you are hurting for Home Runs or Strikeouts, will they help?  No.  This seems so simple yet so many fantasy owners fail to do it.  Find out what you need and what you have.  If you are in a head-to-head league, it's not helping you to have Carl Crawford and Scott Podsednik and win Stolen Bases 8-1 every week.  Trade one or both of those guys to help out where you are lacking.  There are certain specialists that will help you out in specific categories.  Find the ones that can help you the most and go after them.  Remember in a head-to-head league, it's not how many stats you can accumulate, it's how many categories.  Work on ways of "guaranteeing" yourself certain categories and then try to build on those players to hopefully steal a couple of the other ones.  As you do this, you'll start to see your win totals rise and you should start to move up in the standings.

 

#6:  Go out to an Actual Baseball Game.

 

Turn off your live scoring on your computer for one day.  Don't look at a boxscore or how badly your team played the day before.  Don't look at your starting pitchers line of 3 IP, 8 ER and swear off baseball forever.  Fantasy/Rotisserie Baseball is my favorite hobby.  I love looking at stats, studying players, working on trades, and analyzing the free agent market.  I also love the game of baseball.  I love having a hot dog and a beer at a stadium.  I love the crowd's reaction to a hard hit ball.  I love the shuffling of players and the defensive positioning of players in a game.  I love the lefty-lefty matchups that managers use during a game.  I love being able to act like the manager during a game and gripe and moan about a move that I don't agree with.  Those parts of the game are lost when you play Fantasy Baseball.  Go out to a game, have fun and remember how much fun baseball really is.  Then go out and build your team back into a contender.