Posts Tagged ‘scott swanay’

Fantasy Baseball Advice from the Guys Who Started It

Wednesday, February 25th, 2009

“I was a schmuck for not making any money on this thing,” Daniel Okrent says early in a Forbes.com story posted Wednesday.

Although Okrent is universally attributed with creating what we know most commonly as fantasy baseball, he and his fellow originators failed to capitalize on their copyrighted Rotisserie Baseball.

But while the Forbes report leads with that unfortunate tale, the crux of the item is really the advice sought from Okrent and several of his leaguemates — as well as select other experts from the fantasy industry.

Forbes went to the eight gentlemen listed below in search of some player recommendations and a bit of sage advice. You’ll have to click on the links for the players. For the words of wisdom on the other hand, look no further than …

Daniel Okrent, creator of Rotisserie Baseball: Pay attention to your wife.

Ron Shandler, Baseball HQ: Decide whether you are in this to have fun or to win. In many cases, those two goals are mutually exclusive.

Harry Stein, original member of Okrent’s league: Bid up superstars (in auction drafts), but make sure someone else gets them. The successful rotisserie player does not get wedded to the idea of landing a particular player. And avoid one-dimensional players.

Scott Swanay, FantasyBaseballSherpa.com: Use a set of player rankings that quantifies position scarcity. If time permits, compare your player rankings to Average Draft Position (ADP) data from a credible source (such as Mock Draft Central) to avoid picking your targeted players too soon.

Sam Walker, Fantasyland: Read psychology books. The way to win is to understand the people in your league and to know what they do before they do it. Try to get inside peoples’ heads.

Bobby Jurney, 2008 winner of NBC Sports’ National Fantasy Baseball Championship: Know the players. It is easy to draft the big names, but nine times out of 10, that is not going to win you anything. It is the people who do the research and know all of the players, big and small, that are going to be successful.

Cary Schneider, original member of Okrent’s league: Find someone younger than you to give you information. If you’re over 30 you won’t know who any of these players are.

Nando Di Fino, The Wall Street Journal: Don’t follow the experts blindly. And read Rotoworld or Rotowire every day. (Di Fino forgot to add: “… and FSB.com.”)

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FSB Daily 12/10: Draft Getaway, Fantasy Sherpa, FanDraft, NHL in Trouble?

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

A roundup of recent posts on the FSB News page.

– Trying to figure out where everyone in your league should gather for your draft next year? How about Aruba? (If you can afford to hold your league draft in Aruba, make sure you use the FSB contact page to acquire our address for donations.)

– Once you get past a couple of other folks in far less interesting industries, this New York Post story tells a bit about how Scott Swanay rebounded from two corporate merger-driven layoffs to develop his Fantasy Sherpa sites (baseball and football to date, with basketball and hockey in the works).

– eROI offers a look at how it developed content e-mails for CBSSports.com (free download) and how important such a tool can be.

– FanSoft Media expects to release the 2009 version of its FanDraft baseball product in December — ahead of its usual January release.

– The global economic downturn could impact the National Hockey League more heavily than other major American sports leagues, largely because of the lack of a solid television contract and the weakness of the Canadian dollar.

– This columnist in California has found fantasy golf lacking and wants to play with rotisserie scoring.

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