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| Go Isotopes! |
In the following blog post, I'll give you some of the background on the league in FAQ format. Disclaimer: most of this is a cut-and-paste job from a couple years ago, but I'm busy these days, so please forgive me.
Who are the Nephews of Jody Reed?
We are! The name of the league is a play on the Sons of Sam Horn community, a renowned Red Sox message board with sophisticated baseball analysis. Similarly, we are a community of elite fantasy baseball GMs... our analysis is just a bit more proprietary since we also compete against one another.
Why Jody Reed? Mostly a flight of whimsy, but as a budding Red Sox fan in 1990, I'll never forget going to Fenway Park for the first time and seeing him hit one of his league-leading 45 doubles off of the Green Monster. I believe that all us baseball fans have a similar memory that converted us into the loyal fans we are today.
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| His moustache inspired a (Red Sox) nation. |
What can you tell me about the history of the league?
Like I mentioned earlier, this is the 6th edition of NoJR. The league has typically been 12-teams deep with active GMs. This represents our 2nd year with keepers, and it has certainly ramped up the strategy and competition level.
I have written end-of-year draft recaps for each season - feel free to read at your own leisure:
- 2011: link
- Champion: Hughes Drubbers
- 2012: link
- Champion: Rip City Reavers
- 2013: link
- Champion: Rip City Reavers
- 2014: link
- Champion: Saratoga Oldtimers
- 2015: link
- Champion: Rip City Reavers
I've never done an auction draft before - what should I expect?
Every GM has $260 to spend as they wish, minus keeper costs. Since each team needs to draft for every starting position and bench spot, Yahoo will make sure that you have enough money to draft for every position.
Players generally go for roughly their Yahoo predicted value, although it's fairly common for GMs to go into a bidding war for the best players. Generally, a top 5 fantasy player will go for around $50. GMs should value players based on their personal expectations of performance - Yahoo's predicted values are not the be-all-end-all.
Nomination time will be set at the minimum of 30 seconds, and bidding time will be set at 20 seconds. Any bids made with less than 10 seconds to go reset the bidding timer at 10 seconds, so you can't sneak in a higher bid with 1 second left and expect to steal someone.
I don't want to influence draft strategy at all, so I'll just say that it helps to do a mock draft or two to make sure that you're familiar with the process and what to expect.
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| Mock drafts help you avoid this figuratively happening to you on draft day. |
What's the deal with keepers?
One of the most important pieces of strategy in this league is who you keep on your roster from last year. New GMs will have the opportunity to keep players from the rosters they inherit, meaning everyone starts on a level playing field.
How it works: each team can keep up to 3 players from last year's roster at their previous auction value. The draft values of those players will then be deducted from your auction budget. E.g. if I just kept Jake Arrieta at $19, my draft budget for the following year would be $241 ($260 minus $19).
What are the stat categories?
Hitting: runs, homeruns, RBI, steals, batting average, walks
Pitching: wins, saves, holds, strike outs, ERA, WHIP
Basically the only differences to the standard categories are walks and holds. I originally added walks because I wanted to preserve hits as a component of offensive contribution, and I felt that there was too much double-counting with slugging and homeruns.
Meanwhile, I've continually seen the immense value of quality middle relief in the real game, and felt the virtual game skewed too much toward glorifying closers, who are but a sub-segment of overall relief pitching.
Keep these categories in mind as you devise your own strategy for draft day.
Anything else I should know?
Last year we added an "NA" slot to rosters. Players who have that tag are typically minor leaguers who aren't even in the pros yet. When you couple this roster spot with our keeper system, this is a great opportunity to stash a prospect cheaply for future seasons.
When's the draft?
Thursday, March 31 at 8:00 pm Eastern. If you miss it, the ghost of Honus Wagner will haunt you. Actually, Yahoo will just auto-draft for you, which is just as bad.
Where's this league been all my life?
Let's not dwell on the past, let's just enjoy a prosperous fantasy baseball future.
Thank you for playing, and good luck this season!
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