Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Advanced Methods for Winning Your League [Paperback]

Henry Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 2004

Over 10 million people participate in fantasy baseball leagues each year and will spend an average of $120 to gain any advantage over the competition. This book shows how to create a comprehensive strategy, customized to the specific league. Readers will dominate their leagues with strategic advantages throughout

Editorial Reviews

Review

I can see this being a defining book on fantasy baseball strategy. -- Jonathan Leshanski, Editor of At Home Plate, Feb. 20, 2004

This book is for you. Take the extra step and check it out -- unless you’re satisfied with third place. -- Eric Karabell, ESPN Fantasy Games, March 12, 2004

From the Publisher

With that in mind I have to admit that I was slightly blindsided by Mr. Lee’s overall approach. The book details not only fantasy baseball strategy but it also offers a system in which a player can use in creating a draft plan AND a regular season strategy of their own. The basics of the system are not complicated, but the details certainly are and in order to get it all down the player would likely require an analytical brain, time and a lot of hard work.

What this means of course is that the approach will not be for everyone, but for those that take fantasy baseball as seriously as they do breathing this book can open your eyes to some things that you likely overlooked.

One of the most wonderful things about Mr. Lee’s system is that it doesn’t matter what kind of a draft you play with or what categories your league uses - the system can be applied to every specific circumstance because you are forced to customize it.

The book consists of 11 chapters, which include: Characteristics of Champions, Fundamental Theorem of Fantasy Sports, Competitive Strategy, Valuation, Special Considerations, Management Style, The Draft, Free Agents, Trading, Keeper Leagues, and Putting it All Together.

The chapter titles give you an excellent overview of what is contained within. Of particular interest were the chapters on the Fundamental Theorem of Fantasy Sports, Competitive Strategy, Valuation and the Draft. Each of these chapters contains some gems that will benefit both the novice and experienced player. A handful of these tidbits are obvious although they are things that most of us never put into words, while others are much more subtle.

I’m not going to have the time to put a lot of Mr. Lee’s ideas into practice this season, but even without that time I feel that I benefited from the book. I think most fantasy players will feel the same way. You might not have the time or impetus to use the tools provided to create your own custom fantasy guide (which this guide prepares you to do), but there is so much more in this book that you’ll find yourself better prepared for your next league.

I don’t know how well this system will work, but without having tried it I am very impressed with its fundamentals. I suspect it will make anyone that reads it a much better fantasy competitor.

I won’t say the book doesn’t have some flaws, but they are minor and no doubt future revisions of this book will get better and close some of the cracks. As for now, rate this a top fantasy strategy guide and give it 3 of 4 balls for all serious fantasy players.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Squeaky Press (January 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974844500
• ISBN-13: 978-0974844503
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,090,259 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretty disappointing, March 2, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Advanced Methods for Winning Your League (Paperback)

Though the book does make you take a hard look and ask some serious questions about what your strategy and goals are (which is a positive), there are quite a few vital matters that are brushed over. For example, he talks about his "Fundamental Theorem of Fantasy Sports" and the notion that you want to operate your team in a way that will not vary depending on whether people know what you're doing and to adapt your strategy based on what the strategy of others will be. Fair enough, but he skimps over ideas and suggestions as to exactly how you go about gathering this intelligence, which is really vital to making it work. Trying to do it at the auction or draft is improbable since you're trying to do it for 9 or 11 other teams at once, and that just seems infeasible.

Furthermore, I take issue with some of his theoretical underpinnings. For example, he uses as a starting point the notion that the average (let's call it mean, for clarity) fantasy batting average is worth zero points. But in most leagues, the mean batting average is not worth zero, but 5 or 6 points. Given that his whole valuation system begins from this premise, following his system will give you overvalued players with high batting average and undervalued for everything else. I also question the almost complete reliance on the previous year's performance, which will cause one to miss out on promising young players who don't have much of a track record in the majors, and he doesn't address major league equivalencies of minor league performance at all that I saw.

It is a brisk read (about 3 hours to whip through it) and not terribly written, but to put a lot of his advice into practice (for instance, taking advantage of people with fluke performances) you would need to have a team structure with an enormous reserve. Since that's not the case in my league, I'm finding little of practical use here.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Independent Baseball Book Review, February 23, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Advanced Methods for Winning Your League (Paperback)

I couldn't understand the discrepancy between most of the reviews and one that seemed very different. On one hand, browsing through the table of contents of this book led me to believe that it is very different from what is out there. On the other, one reviewer was so venomous, I must admit I did have second thoughts about buying the book, having not heard of this author before. I was curious why anyone would tout an author's books so vehemently while ripping this one, that I was not sure what to believe. Some of the good ones did seem too good, but the bad one seemed too bad. I decided to look for an independent book reviewer on this book.

I found this at www.athomeplate.com

The review seems fair and at least the reviewer, Jonathan Leshanski, stand by his comments enough to post it on his website. You should decide for yourself what is real and what isn't. Here is what he wrote:

In the beginning when I picked up Fantasy Baseball Strategy I wasn't quite sure what to expect - after all I had never heard of Henry Lee and had no idea what type of information that he would be able to contribute about fantasy baseball. In truth I didn't expect to learn much more than I had in countless seasons of playing fantasy baseball and talking and debating with many other skilled players.

With that in mind I have to admit that I was slightly blindsided by Mr. Lee's overall approach. The book details not only fantasy baseball strategy but it also offers a system in which a player can use in creating a draft plan AND a regular season strategy of their own. The basics of the system are not complicated, but the details certainly are and in order to get it all down the player would likely require an analytical brain, time and a lot of hard work.

What this means of course is that the approach will not be for everyone, but for those that take fantasy baseball as seriously as they do breathing this book can open your eyes to some things that you likely overlooked.

One of the most wonderful things about Mr. Lee's system is that it doesn't matter what kind of a draft you play with or what categories your league uses - the system can be applied to every specific circumstance because you are forced to customize it.

The book consists of 11 chapters, which include: Characteristics of Champions, Fundamental Theorem of Fantasy Sports, Competitive Strategy, Valuation, Special Considerations, Management Style, The Draft, Free Agents, Trading, Keeper Leagues, and Putting it All Together.

The chapter titles give you an excellent overview of what is contained within. Of particular interest were the chapters on the Fundamental Theorem of Fantasy Sports, Competitive Strategy, Valuation and the Draft. Each of these chapters contains some gems that will benefit both the novice and experienced player. A handful of these tidbits are obvious although they are things that most of us never put into words, while others are much more subtle.

I'm not going to have the time to put a lot of Mr. Lee's ideas into practice this season, but even without that time I feel that I benefited from the book. I think most fantasy players will feel the same way. You might not have the time or impetus to use the tools provided to create your own custom fantasy guide (which this guide prepares you to do), but there is so much more in this book that you'll find yourself better prepared for your next league.

I don't know how well this system will work, but without having tried it I am very impressed with its fundamentals. I suspect it will make anyone that reads it a much better fantasy competitor.

I won't say the book doesn't have some flaws, but they are minor and no doubt future revisions of this book will get better and close some of the cracks. As for now, rate this a top fantasy strategy guide and give it 3 of 4 balls for all serious fantasy players.

Our Rating System is based on a four ball system as follows:
One Ball: Average. It has something to say but is nothing special.
Two Balls: Something men usually have - also means its a cut above average, and worth reading/owning.
Three balls: Stands out from its peers and is highly recommended.
Four Balls: More than just what two men have when hanging out together, it means it is an exceptional book that truly earns a walk - straight to the local book store to get a copy.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book if you already think you know what you're doing., February 23, 2004

By 

"ny_yankers_2000" (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Advanced Methods for Winning Your League (Paperback)

I liked this book. It may be a bit overwhelming for the beginner, but it covers new ways of approaching fantasy baseball. I wish there were a few more examples, but part of what it preaches is that you cannot just do the same thing season after season and expect to win. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results right?