Are you a fantasy baseball virgin? Have you played in a few casual leagues, yet you find yourself staring down an article chock-full of unfamiliar terms and statistics anytime you try to study for your upcoming draft? Are you a fantasy baseball veteran who has never really done much homework? Worry not, because FanHouse has you covered with this glossary of terms.Within this glossary, you'll also find strategy attached to each relevant topic. Thus, this is more an encyclopedia than dictionary. We're here to help you, not just define a bunch of terms.
5x5: Most fantasy leagues use this format. You will draft a group of players who will compete in 10 total categories -- five hitting and five pitching. The specific categories can vary per league, but most use: batting average, runs scored, home runs, RBI, stolen bases, earned run average (ERA), walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP), strikeouts, saves and wins. In these leagues, category scarcity is much more important than total points leagues. If Jose Reyes steals three bases in a game without getting a hit, it's much more important than Derrek Lee's four singles in four at-bats.
ADP: Average draft position. ADP is important because it helps you to determine who is a good value pick and who is getting drafted far too high (see: Bust). Just because you think Chris Davis is going to have a good season doesn't necessarily mean you need to draft him. Does his ADP fit for what you think he's going to do, or is it too high? If you go through an ADP report, which has the same parameters of your league, you can easily pick out the guys who should come cheap for you.
AL-Only League: See Monoleague. In AL-only, first base is pretty shallow, as is catcher. There are less elite starting pitchers, and there is tons of power. This means you value Roy Halladay more than an outfielder who hits for power without stealing bases (Carlos Quentin, for example). Joe Mauer is more valuable than Magglio Ordonez. You get the point.
BABIP: Batting average on balls in play. Generally speaking, about 30 percent of the balls that are hit in fair territory -- but not home runs -- are base hits. If you see a pitcher who has allowed a .350 BABIP, you can expect him to start having a bit better "luck." Likewise, if a hitter has a .350 BABIP, he's probably going to start seeing a dip in his batting average as his numbers naturally normalize. A scientific study has never been conducted, though, so it's not necessarily a hard-and-fast rule. It's possible to get through an entire season with a very lucky or unlucky BABIP. More times than not, though, we'll see a regression to the mean with this number. It matters.
Bust: I cannot overstate this: Calling someone a bust does not mean they suck or are going to suck. If someone says CC Sabathia (me, for example, but only in mixed leagues) is going to be a bust, it means that he will fail to meet the expectations of his draft position. It's pretty difficult for Mike Fontenot to be a bust, because there aren't really expectations. On the other hand, it's pretty easy for a superstar to be a bust. Remember, it's all relative. If people are scared off by CC in your league and he falls to the fourth round, please freaking draft him. He won't be a bust there.
Category Scarcity: Some categories (see 5x5) are harder to fill than others. Stolen base is the most scarce category, so if you can find a power hitter who steals bases (David Wright), he's much more valuable than one who doesn't (Manny Ramirez). It's easier to find pitchers who win games than it is to find game-winners who strike out a bunch of hitters, so John Lackey is exponentially more valuable than Chien-Ming Wang, despite similar ERA, WHIP and win totals.
Deep/Shallow Leagues: Most leagues house 10 or 12 owners. Some get up to 14, 16 or even 18 teams. I've even heard of 20-team leagues before. When we reference shallow leagues, we're talking about 10-12 team mixed leagues. When we say "deep leagues," we're likely discussing a 16-18 team mixed league with a 25-man roster, or any monoleague. There are some really deep monoleagues, where there are 12-14 teams with rosters of upwards of 30 dudes. We'll specify if talking that deep.
Eligibility: Obviously, this is where you can play a guy in your lineup. Players with more flexibility (Mark DeRosa) gain value, while players with none at all (David Ortiz and Travis Hafner can only DH) lose value. You need to know your league's specific league rules, in case there is someplace where you can take advantage. For example, if you can find a way to play Pablo Sandoval behind the plate instead of a corner infield position, by all means, do it. The more scarce the position, the better use he is at a position. A good example for this upcoming season is that Michael Young needs to be used at shortstop all season, even after he gains third base eligibility, because third isn't near as scarce as short. FAAB: Free agent acquisition budget. Some leagues use a bidding process each week to determine who "wins" a free agent. If someone like Matt Wieters is recalled to the majors in mid-May -- obviously a non-keeper league -- be ready to outbid people. If it's a simple Aaron Miles acquisition, just bid the minimum.
H2H: This is a league where you play a different owner each week, kind of like in football. Many people refer to total points leagues as H2H, but there are cumulative points leagues and head-to-head 5x5 leagues.
MDC: Mock Draft Central. This is the Web site most widely used for research on ADP.
Mixed League: The opposite of monoleague, this term refers to most fantasy leagues -- where you are able to own any player in the majors. Obviously, these leagues are much more shallow than the monoleague varieties.
Monoleague: These are leagues where you are only going to own players from the American League or National League. One thing that sucks about these leagues is you could lose a big name midseason. For example, what if you play in an AL-only league and Roy Halladay gets traded to the NL in July? There goes over two months of production from your staff ace. Bye bye, league championship. On the flip side, players in an NL-only league would either be the beneficiary of holding the top waiver priority or enjoy a furious FAAB bidding process.
Multicategoricality: I'm not sure if he invented it, but a man by the name of Pierre Becquey -- who now works for ESPN, but used to work with me on a now-defunct website -- always used to harp on this, and with good reason. In 5x5 leagues, you will get the maximum amount of value out of a player who stuffs as many of the categories as possible. Hanley Ramirez, for example, fills all your offensive needs. That might be why he was our No. 1 player in mixed league rankings. Take power hitters who run, take starting pitchers who have a huge strikeout-to-walk ratio, and take closers who have a high strikeout rate. Fill those categories.
NL-Only League: See Monoleague. NL-only leagues have a lot more upper-tier pitchers, but this doesn't mean you should wait. I'd definitely want a staff ace. Chase Utley -- despite injury questions -- is an absolute monster because second base is incredibly shallow, and David Wright jumps ahead of the competition because the other third basemen aren't even in the same ballpark.
Positional Scarcity: Why is Dustin Pedroia more valuable than Josh Hamilton? Because there are tons more productive outfielders than second basemen. Don't get me wrong, the big boppers at the corner infield positions are important, but if there is a shortstop with exactly the same numbers as a third baseman, please draft the shortstop. Generally speaking, catcher, closer and the middle infield positions are the scarce ones.
Roto: This format, short for rotisserie, is where you accrue stats for the entire season without ever playing head-to-head. Let's say you play in a 10-team league. You get ranked by category and it all totals together as points for the league standings. If you lead the league in steals, you'd get 10 points. If you are third in home runs, you'd get eight points. If you are last place in batting average, you'd get one point. So, after three categories, you have 19 standing points. And so on. In this format, streaky players like Pat Burrell don't hurt you nearly as much as they could in head-to-head formats.
Total Points League: Some would call it head-to-head (or H2H), but, again, it's possible to play a cumulative points league. These are leagues where you accrue points for each stat, regardless of how the points are accrued. In these leagues, you throw category scarcity out the window. When Ichiro Suzuki gets a single, steals two bases, and is stranded on third, it does half as much damage for my team as a solo home run from Milton Bradley. In these leagues, gimme power. Lots of it.
Tiers: When you head into a draft or auction, you must tier-up every position. If you find three of four guys who you deem to be substantially similar, group them together on your list. This is a good way to protect yourself from, uh, yourself. Let's say I really want to draft my second outfielder in the current round. I see Jermaine Dye, Johnny Damon, Adam Dunn, Torii Hunter and Raul Ibanez sitting on the board. Well, those five all do different things well, but they are very similar in value. You might as well wait another round and get whomever is left from the group when the draft comes back. There's no reason to overpay when you could fill a more scarce position -- especially if you see someone sitting alone in one of your tiers. When you draw a line and separate the tiers by position, it helps you figure out when to pull the trigger. If you have only Geovany Soto remaining from your top catcher tier, but every other tier has four or five guys, it's time to take Geo. This provides the most value.
Value: Brilliant segue, eh? This is the name of the game. From ADP to positional scarcity to category scarcity to multicategoricality to using tiers; put everything together. Drafting Albert Pujols won't win you fantasy baseball in and of itself. If, for some godforsaken reason, he falls into the middle of the second round, though, it might. The way to draft a winning team is to not overpay for guys and to find as many bargains (value picks) as you can. Cliff Lee, Ryan Dempster and Ryan Ludwick helped a ton of teams last year, but it's just as likely they hurt teams this year with their newly found value. You want to find this year's version of those three.
Waivers: The opposite of FAAB. In these leagues you use a waiver system to acquire free agents instead of bidding on them. It's virtually "taking turns." Once you use your position, you move to the back of the line.
