We pour hours of research into the draft. As soon as we hear that beautiful phrase “pitchers and catchers” our minds can’t stop thinking about baseball. We stress the most over that first round pick. Who do we anchor our team with this year? We stress ourselves out so much, change our minds, argue with people on Twitter, but the sad part is the first round pick is one of the least important decisions you will make. Most of the top 12-15 are going to be good players. Yeah, injuries happen which you can’t predict, and there might be a dud or two in there, but generally the entire draft is just the baseline for your fantasy team. Just think of your team last year, how different did your roster look in September from when you drafted in March? The answer is likely extremely different.
While you will likely do some trading, the team looks so different (and hopefully better) because of one reason. There is no better friend to a fantasy baseball player than the waiver wire. Fantasy baseball is a grind. It is every day from April to September, outside of the All-Star Break of course, and the people who win are the people who stay involved. The waiver wire can be your best friend, and sometimes it also breaks your heart when you chase that hot player that has been good for three days that suddenly goes cold and you dropped a consistent performer.
There are several methods that fantasy leagues use to decide who can add a player, so we will first recap those before giving you some winning strategy for using the waiver wire to your advantage in your quest to crush the competition.
Waiver Methods
First Come, First Served
This one is a free-for-all and is generally used in more casual leagues, or in leagues where the commissioner eats, breathes, and sleeps his fantasy team. Savages use this system. With this method, any player can be picked up by anyone at any time. No rules, just chaos. This was a system that was used many, many years ago when I first started playing, and I was very successful because well, I am a degenerate. News breaks, hit that waiver wire. Prospect called up from the Minors, time to pick him up. Sunday dinner with the family? Sorry, someone just got injured and I need to pick up his backup. Wife in labor with your first born child? Just keep pushing; I have a transaction to make! That last one is REALLY not a good idea, well either of the second two honestly unless you want to live under a bridge in a cardboard box with no life. But hey, at least you picked up that hot new prospect, amirite? You get the idea here, the first one to the table, gets the player.
Waivers
A waiver system keeps everything more under control and levels the playing field. A priority system is in place so either daily or weekly, everyone can pick up players at the same time. Generally teams are ranked in the reverse order of the draft order, so the team that picked first gets the last waiver priority, while the team that picked last (you guessed it) gets the advantage of the top waiver pick. This does two things. One, it gives everyone a chance to see if a hot new name is available. The person on their phone 24/7 looking at news and making moves isn’t rewarded here necessarily. If the team with the top waiver priority and the team that is fourth in the waiver order go for the same guy, the team with the number one spot gets the guy. After that the order usually resets with the team who used a waiver pickup now goes to the bottom of the list and everyone else moves up a peg. There are also systems where the waiver priority is linked to the standings so the team in last gets the top priority and the team in first gets last pick. Sometimes waivers are run daily, sometimes they are run weekly. Sometimes the rules of waivers only apply to players who are dropped by another team to give everyone a fair shot at them, and then it is first come, first served. Be sure to check your league settings so you know, as this is crucial to your success. Waivers are better than the first come, first served scenario, and is probably the method used in most leagues as it is easy and straight forward, and everyone can understand it.
FAAB Bidding
This is the sweet spot, at least from a strategy standpoint. It is also the way that every fantasy baseball industry league and high stakes competition is run. Each team is given a budget, generally $100 or $1000, to spend for the entire season. Bids can be placed at any time, but are processed on a pre-determined day, usually Sunday evening. You do not have access to see what your competitors bid on a particular player. The person who made the highest bid, gets the player, it is as simple as that. If there is a tie, the person who is lower in the standings gets the player. This is the system with the highest level of strategy and competition. FAAB bidding not only tests your ability to budget, but it makes you think twice about whether you want to bid on a particular player. There is also strategy in how much to bid, and we will discuss all of that in this article.
Waiver Strategies
Assess Your Draft
Whatever time you have after your draft ends and the season begins; take a look at how your draft went, and where your potential weak spots are. No draft ends perfect, it is almost impossible. There is surely a position or two (hopefully not three) that you know could be a problem. You go into the season hoping that these possible weak links work out, but look at the wire after the draft to make a list of guys to monitor right from Opening Day that might be able to help you. Being proactive and honest about your team is the first step to waiver success.
Know the League
This seems so basic, but can’t be stressed enough. First, know what kind of waiver system you have, and understand how it works. Not only that, but whether the league is with your buddies from high school or a high stakes league for big money, try to get to know your competitors. If nothing else, at least look at their rosters and see where they have holes or can improve to try to make an educated guess at where their waiver moves might be made. That is especially important in leagues with FAAB bidding as it will help you guess who might be bidding on a player you like, as well as how much budget they have left to compete with you for a certain player.
Holding On To Number One
Some people will have that top waiver priority and they will hold it waiting for just the right player to get dropped or the top prospect gets called up. They will hold that priority like it is their first born child or the first dollar they ever made, reluctant to give it up. There is some validity to this, especially with teams often holding their prospects in the Minors until the Super-2 deadline passes. However, there are two issues with this “strategy.” First, you could easily be missing out on several other players that can really help your team. Early in the season teams are still changing rotations and position battles, and a player left undrafted could see their fortunes change in the first few weeks of the year. Second, MLB teams don’t care about your fantasy team. You might think that a player is going to be called up at any moment. And whether it is for financial reasons, or they don’t think he is ready, it could be another month before you see that coveted prospect in the Majors. Sometimes holding a priority will get you that golden goose, but more often than not, you will realize that you missed out on something else special, or the player wasn’t worth the wait.
Know What’s Coming
One of the bigger mistakes that people can make is to wait to pick up a player. This doesn’t mean a guy who has been kind of hot in the last few days; this means guys who aren’t on a Major League field. Was an injured player dropped because he was going to be out a long time? Pick him up a week before he is set to come back. Don’t wait until he is on the Minor League rehab assignment, because by then everyone knows he is about to be back and there will be more bidders in on it, and the bids will be higher. Pay attention to the Minor Leagues. Is there a hot prospect that is tearing it up at Triple-A? If so, and you can use help at that position, grab them early. It is always better to be a week early and get the guy for half the price than wait too long and everyone is after them. This is the information age. You are likely on Twitter, pay attention. Follow people who track injuries and the Minors. Know what’s coming and you will be more successful with waiver claims and have more of your FAAB dollars left to make other moves.
The Past Is Sometimes The Past
You’ve heard the term “flavor of the week” for the hot player who everyone is clamoring over? Yeah, sometimes the flavor of the week is horse manure next week. I have always said, do you know what follows a hot streak? A cold streak. Keep chasing the guy who just had one 12 strikeout game or had three homers in four games, and you’ll be picking them up just in time for them to go cold again. If there is some track record of success, picking up a guy who has gotten hot is smart. However, some folks play the waiver wire like a rotating door and as soon as the hot guy goes cold, they are moving on to the next hot streak…..and likely buying another cold spell. Give a guy a little time before you take a shot at the next name that everyone is clamoring for or you will be chasing last week’s points all season long. Also, just don’t make moves to make a move. Claim when you need someone, not just to be overactive.
When Bidding, Be Different
Don’t bid round numbers, everyone thinks to do that. If you are thinking of blind bidding $10 for a player, you should do $11 or $12. It gives you a better chance of winning over your non-creative league mates, and also helps to avoid ties where you might lose the bid if you are higher in the standings.
Percentages
When you are considering bidding on a player, you often will come up with a dollar figure in your head you think he’s worth, or what it will take to win the bid. However, you have to think of your entire FAAB budget as a whole. What percentage of your dollars is he worth? You might want to think you need to bid $10 to get someone (or $11 based on our “avoid round numbers” discussion). In the beginning of the year that $10 might be ten percent of your season budget, but by June that might represent 25 percent or more of what you have left. IS that player worth a quarter of what you have left? These are things you need to consider. You will also go to websites with waiver wire articles (like Fantasy Alarm, of course) that could give you a dollar figure they think you will need to spend. But that isn’t taking into account your remaining dollars. You have to think based on a percentage of your loot, not just a dollar figure.
Don’t Screw Yourself Late
While it is important to be proactive and aggressive early in the season, don’t blow your whole budget so you have nothing left towards the end of the season. You would hate to have played hard all season long just to catch a couple of injuries in mid-August and not have the money to bid on players to replace them. Consider yourself a savings plan. Determine that no matter what that you will leave a percentage of your FAAB budget (15-25%) that you won’t touch until the trade deadline. If you still have that nice little nest egg left for a late season surge or to grab someone late. You will also have an advantage in AL-only or NL-only leagues where stars can get traded across leagues at the deadline.
Forget Fantasy Football
It never fails, once late July hits half the league goes a little more dormant as those meat heads get ready for fantasy football season. Even if you are one of those said meat heads (and I am indeed one of them), that doesn’t mean to forget your fantasy baseball team. In fact, the end of the year is where you can make a real run. Even teams near the top sometimes get lackadaisical when it comes to waivers and maintaining their fantasy baseball team, and an injury or two could really have them plummeting. That is when you swoop in on the waiver wire and score a couple of late season gems to vault you from sixth to first. It happens; you can get ready for football and still take a couple hours a week to focus on the baseball wire.
Never Rest
This comes into play in a number of situations. If your league runs waivers and then goes to a first come, first served system, know when that waiver time is and be ready to grab someone who wasn’t claimed. It doesn’t matter if it is 3:00am, you can sleep when you win! That might be a bit extreme, but I know people who have set an alarm to pick up a player. The early bird gets the worm, and the hot prospect. In weekly scenarios, don’t get lazy. Waivers are generally run Sunday night, so don’t miss the deadline! Make sure that you take a little time each Sunday to go over your roster and see who out there can help you. Fantasy baseball is played over the Spring and Summer when there are a lot of fun events and holidays. The casual player forgets his fantasy team on Memorial Day weekend or the 4th of July. Don’t be the person who misses picking up a hot name because you forgot and you were out watching fireworks! It doesn’t take that long. This is the technological age! Set a reminder on your phone for say 7:00pm and put your kid in front of a YouTube video, put on the Hallmark Channel for your significant other, and just pour over that waiver wire. It is especially important if you are in more than one league. You might not even pick someone up every week, but the week you miss will be the one where there was someone that you could have really used and you’ll be left crying in your beer……or perhaps White Claw.