Larry Schechter's Winning Fantasy Baseball: A Review

I cannot recommend Larry Schechter's new book - Winning Fantasy Baseball enough. 

There are many books about Fantasy Baseball and I have read a lot of them. I have read the fantasy baseball books by familiar names like Golenbock, Patton, Waggoner, Benson and Shandler and I've read many of the not so familiar names - Childs, Hendricks... Let's just say that If you've written a fantasy guide and wondered who that buyer on amazon was - look no further. I typically buy half a dozen of the fantasy annuals/packages and a bunch of magazines to boot. I know how much information is out there.  I wanted to point out just how much fantasy material I have read and continue to read so that my next statement has the weight it deserves.

Whether your goal is to learn to play fantasy baseball, get better at fantasy baseball or to re-gain an edge you may have lost over the years, there is no book more likely to help you win a fantasy league than Winning Fantasy Baseball: Secret Strategies of a Nine-Time National Champion

That may seem like high praise and it certainly is. This is not your typical fantasy guide full of player blurbs, sleepers and pages and pages of player statistics and values. Instead this book is very simply a guide to playing and winning at fantasy baseball. This book offers a very logical approach to fantasy baseball that anyone could follow and adapt to the time they devote to fantasy baseball preparation. If you are anything like me you realize how similar most fantasy guides are in the advice that they offer. Larry's book is different. In fact, depending on how attached you are to the typical views that so many so-called experts have pounded into your thoughts, the material presented could prove to be anywhere from enlightening to infuriating!

For those that do not know, Larry won his third straight AL-Tout Wars Championship in 2013 and USA Today's LABR-AL as well. He is making beating the fantasy industry's experts look deceptively simple. Like many of us, Larry Schechter began playing fantasy sports in the early 90's. He started making a name for himself in the 2002 CDM Diamond Challenge when he finished first and won a $25,000 grand prize. Then he did it again in 2005 becoming the first person to win the Diamond Challenge twice. Anyone who trounces the best competition that Tout-Wars and LABR and the Nationwide Contests have to offer, probably has some advice and perspectives worth your consideration.

This book includes the standard how-to-play fantasy baseball rules but more importantly a step-by-step guide to preparing for the fantasy season, drafting your team and managing your team during the season. Exploring the differences between various leagues types as he goes. Along the way Larry introduces us to the ideas and methods that separate him from most fantasy experts. These ideas include everything from how to calculate player values to optimizing your seating during the draft. These ideas include:

1. The Importance of Being Prepared -  Larry believes that one of the primary factors in his success is his willingness to take the time to properly prepare and through preparation simplifying the draft process.

2. Calculating Player Values and Utilizing Them - In Larry's view there is very little more important to winning fantasy baseball (or any other fantasy sport) than calculating player values and then acquiring as much of that value as possible.

3. The Value of Sabermetrics and How and How Not to Use Them for Fantasy Baseball - Larry shows how the improper use of advanced statistical measures can actually hurt your fantasy preparation. It is all about the context.

4. The Draft Curve and How Position Scarcity is Mostly Nonsense - You will not have any problem finding a dozen articles that insist that there is position scarcity and that those that ignore it are bound to suffer. Larry uses his draft curve to demonstrate how little effect so-called scarcity has.

5. Optimal Bidding Strategies and How to Make the Most of Auction Nominations - I have heard a thousand times from hundreds of fantasy owners that early in an auction you should not name the players you actually want. Larry shows how silly this notion is.

I think it is very important to point out that this book does not prepare you for the draft. This book teaches you how to prepare. While Larry believes that owners should create and use their own player values (and he explains how this creates an advantage) this book would also be an excellent complement to many of the available player/strategy guides. If you read between the lines a bit you will realize how easy it is to use Larry's ideas with your favorite expert projections. If you are math or Excel-phobic or intimidated by the idea of creating your own player values, you can always use an excellent tool like Rotolab. With Rotolab you can plug the calculations Larry teaches you to make directly into the program. You can also use Rotolab to build your own player values and the program will do all the calculations for you.

Larry's book is truly great and a very fun read. In addition to all the knowledge that he shares on player values and draft strategies, you will enjoy the stories about Tout Wars and other leagues in which Larry has participated. If anything the book is too short, I would happily devour another hundred pages on keeper and dynasty leagues. The book is available on Amazon right now, go get it!

Book Reviews by Alex Patton

Anyone that receives BaseballHQ's Free Friday Newsletter has likely seen this already. Alex Patton, one of my favorite fantasy baseball analysts and one of the longest lasting, wrote a piece for the newsletter reviewing a few Fantasy Baseball publications. For those that did not see it you can find it here.

Here are the books he reviewed and a very brief sample of the reviews:

The Bill James Handbook 2009 $23.95

This is the first stat book that appears in print each fall, and everyone who's even remotely into fantasy baseball snaps it up immediately, so there's no reason to dwell on it. I'll just point out some of the very cool things that are new...

Ron Shandler's 2009 Baseball Forecaster $24.95

It's probably fair to say that more people reading this article buy the Forecaster than the Bill James Handbook, so there's no point in me praising it too lavishly. I'll praise it briefly, then offer just a couple of criticisms.

Baseball Prospectus 2009 $21.95

This is the other publication that throws a ton of fancier metrics in with the standard stats in the stat scans. At more than 600 pages, space is no object. Thus, while the Forecaster combines Aviles Triple-A and MLB stats last year into a combined 633 AB, BP gives Aviles two lines of stats. In fewer than 50 words, the Forecaster basically says, Beware. In approximately 180 words, BP says beware.

Graphical Player 2009 $21.95

I bought this annual for the first time this winter, and so far, to tell the truth, have been finding it a tough go.

Fantasy Baseball Magazines

The Fantasy Baseball Guide 2009 $6.99

Gets check marks ahead of all the other ones out there, except, well, it's not all that pretty. Reluctance to say so is based on the fairly well-known fact that my friend Peter Kreutzer (aka Rotoman) is the editor.

Sporting News Fantasy Baseball '09 $7.99

Here I have paid the extra dollar for glossy pages and wider columns, and I love it! Only one problem: 700+ profiles.Are they kidding me? What am I supposed to do when someone says Gil Velazquez in the end game and I go speed-dialing down to the V's and he's not there?

Fanball Fantasy Baseball 2009 $7.99

The big thing here is multiple cheat sheets, each clearly spelling out what the prices are based on. There are three sets of prices: 5x5 AL-only, 5x5 NL-only, and 5x5 mixed. It's hard to figure what the reasoning is for the prices in the mixed leagues. Hanley Ramirez costs more in mixed than in NL-only, which I happen to agree with. But Grady Sizemore costs less in mixed than in AL-only, which I don't agree with and is totally inconsistent.

Fantasy Sports $5.99

I'm looking at the April issue, the one with (at least in New York) David Wright on the cover. Kind of ironic that this is the cheapest of the magazines, since the editor, Greg Ambrosius, is the driving force behind the high-stakes National Fantasy Baseball Championship. Greg has opted to deal with the pricing issue by offering AL-only dollar values by position, NL-only dollar values by position, and mixed-league rankings by position. All for 5x5 leagues.

2009 Major League Baseball Yearbook & Fantasy Guide $9.95

Almost ten bucks?? Yes, I admit it. I can't resist any of them. This one's got a lot of things going for it. 850+ players in the profiles. Hitters alphabetized, pitchers alphabetized. Three-year stat scans, with 2008 also broken into first half, second half. Prices for 5x5 AL-only, NL-only and mixed leagues. That's good. They are the same for all three, though, and that's not right.

Wise Guy Baseball 2009

Not sure what the price is. Gene McCaffrey sent it to me. He doesn't even give contact information, but I'll give you his email address anyway: GenetheM@aol.com. Gene is the original wise guy of the title. John Menna and Ken Magna are his "special guests." Tom Zownir contributes something called The Hitmen. It's basically a crank-press item directed at the CDM contest leagues. But baseball is baseball and good comments are good comments.

Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball's Lunatic Fringe

Most of the books you'll read about on this site will be more of the annual and reference guide types. Fantasyland is a book I'm really looking forward to buying. Rather than write about how good I think it is before actually reading it, I'm going to show you some clips of the reviews I've found and the places you'll find them.

Netshrine.com:
As a sportswriter, Sam Walker has the access that most fantasy team owners can only dream about – in that he has a direct connection to players, scouts, coaches and general managers. As such, in the book, there are many remarkable stories involving Walker’s roto-related exchanges with current major league baseball participants such as Jacque Jones, Doug Mientkiewicz, Jose Guillen, David Oritz, Bill Mueller, Brad Radke, Miguel Batista, Mark Shapiro, Jim Beattie, Theo Epstein, Dave Littlefield, Billy Beane, Kenny Williams, Lou Piniella, Alan Trammel, and Mike Scioscia – just to name a few (from a list of numerous personalities).

Imagine talking then Devil Rays Manager Lou Piniella into using B.J. Upton as a Designated Hitter because he’s on your rotisserie team and you need the At Bats. Walker did it. Imagine e-mailing then Orioles G.M. Jim Beattie to see if Luis Matos was about to lose his full-time job – and getting a fast and honest answer. Walker did that as well. Imagine asking Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz if he would trade himself in exchange for Texas Rangers speedster Alfonso Soriano (because you need steals in the standings) and then having a debate with him over it. Again, Walker did this. Fantasyland is full of entertaining and sometimes startling dealings such as these mentioned here.

Publisher's Weekly:
When Walker, a senior writer for the Wall Street Journal, enters his first fantasy baseball tournament, he aims high: Tout Wars, a competition for guys who make a career out of analyzing stats to find the best Major League hitters and pitchers. He figures that because he can get to the ballparks in his journalistic capacity and talk to the players and coaches, he'll be in a better position to judge the intangibles and pull one over the pure numbers crunchers. But even with the help of a young research assistant and a NASA scientist, things quickly head south. This hilarious diary of the 2004 season includes several encounters with the players Walker has picked; from Jacque Jones's struggle to refute predictions of mediocrity to David Ortiz's razzing Walker for trading him away. Along the way there are mini-profiles of the Tout Wars competition, as well as explorations of the origins of fantasy baseball (predating even the famed Rotisserie League) and the shaky relationship between dedicated statistical analysts and Major League executives. Readers might even pick up a few tips on how to draft their teams this spring, but the real fun is in watching Walker's well-laid plans unravel.