Testing Yahoo Fantasy Baseball’s Auto Draft Reliability

Over the past few years, I’ve enjoyed managing at least one team through Yahoo Sports public fantasy baseball leagues. I enjoy having Auto-Draft enabled because I feel it is challenging having to manage a roster that is largely “given” to me.

While historically I have always actively managed the roster (trades, add/drop, waiver pickups etc), the question remains as to whether this is a sound idea.  Since I’ve always finished in the top 3 since playing in public leagues, it is a fair assumption that it is.  However, there has always been a team that also finishes top 3 with minimal adjustments.

This year I’ve decided to auto-draft two teams.  For one team, I am going to maintain status quo – shuffling players, trades, etc.  For the other, I am going to attempt to run the team largely on auto-pilot.   Outside of essential lineup changes, obvious holes and the compensation for injuries, let’s see how “lucky” I may be with Yahoo’s auto-draft settings.

Here are the standard Yahoo Fantasy Baseball League settings:

• 12 Team League
• 5 by 5 rotisserie scoring system
• Scoring categories – R, HR, RBI, AVG, SB; W, SV, K, ERA, WHIP
• Standard lineups – C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3 OF’s, UTIL, 2 SP’s, 2 RP’s and 3 P’s with 5 Bench Positions and 1 DL slot

Whichever team I “think” needs the most tweaking will be the team that I actively manage (as in, whichever team I feel my auto-draft was worse off).  In my next post, I’ll post my rosters for each team and what the initial decision will be for active and passive fantasy baseball management.