I wanted to shed some extra light on my previous H2H strategy article that I published in March 2007:

http://www.rotorank.com/FantasyBaseball/Fantasy+Baseball+Articles/Fantasy+Baseball+Draft+Strategy/136.aspx

Since more fantasy baseball leagues have access to new categories to track and score, you really need to determine which categories in your league can be reliably generated on a weekly basis and which groups of statistics are generated from the same type of player.  Let’s take a look at a set of categories from one my current subscribers:

As you can see from the above table, 5 categories (green header) are being used to score fantasy baseball hitters and only 4 categories (blue header) are being used to score fantasy baseball hitters.  Right off the bat, the league commissioner has implied that drafting great hitters is going to be more important than drafting starting pitchers or relief pitchers. 

On top of the selected fantasy baseball categories used to score weekly H2H head to head fantasy baseball league matchups, this league also has the following roster requirements: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, LF, CF, RF, two SP, two RP, and three P (any type).  The roster requirements for this H2H head to head fantasy baseball league also discriminate against starting pitchers.  By only requiring 2 starting pitchers, and only having two categories that starting pitchers can consistently dominate in fantasy baseball on a weekly basis (Quality Starts and Strikeouts), a team owner can easily decide not to draft any starting pitchers and load up on Middle Relief pitchers at the end of the draft and have an excellent shot to dominate 2 pitching categories during each weekly H2H head to head fantasy baseball league matchup.

Unfortunately, if you take the balanced approach to drafting your H2H Head to Head Fantasy Baseball Team, your weekly scores are dependent upon a lot of factors beyond your control, including: Pitchers on your team with 2 starts, pitchers on your team with favorable matchups, hitters on your team with 7 game schedules, hitters on your team facing tough catchers, etc.  In the table above, two balanced teams met for a H2H Head To Head fantasy Baseball weekly matchup, and Team 2 won five categories, split one category, and lost the other 3 categories, taking a 5 to 3 weekly victory.  When you have rules in the game that favor chance, the best way to win the game is to have luck go your way more often by using an unbalanced strategy. 

In order to slant the odds in your favor of having a good chance to win at least 5 head to head fantasy baseball scoring categories each week, you can choose a draft strategy that takes advantage of the established league scoring system.  My recommendation to the RotoRank subscriber participating in this league was to draft hitters with his first 14 picks (filling up all starting hitter slots plus all of his reserves with above average hitters, then draft 5 middle relievers and two disabled starting pitchers (guys like Adam Wainwright and Stephen Strasburg) to close out his head to head fantasy baseball draft.  Selecting disabled starting Pitchers keeps them from potentially impacting your WHIP and ERA, and it only costs you 2 Head To Head Fantasy Baseball scoring categories (Quality starts and strikeouts) that you were unlike to win every week anyway, even if you decide to draft 5 starting pitchers out of your 7 pitching slots.  By his use of the RotoRank fantasy baseball draft guide, the subscriber had already noticed that Power hitters were definitely more valuable than any other player, since they can dominate 4 scoring categories on a consistent basis, more than any other type of player in a H2H Head To Head Fantasy Baseball League.

As you can see in the revised table above, the “No SP” strategy is likely to dominate 6 of the 9 possible Head To Head Scoring categories on a weekly basis.  And in some weeks, it is likely that he has a shot for SB and possibly strikeouts.  Another bonus of this draft strategy is that he has more depth on his team than any other owner, so he can endure an unexpected injury better than most, and if he were to lose a Middle Reliever to injury, he could simply cut him and grab one of the other 100 players available that can post very good ERA and WHIP numbers.  In addition to the previous items, this owner is also in a better position to make 2 for 1 trades to upgrade a good Top 50 player into a Top 25 player, giving him that much more of an edge in the 5 hitting categories used by this Head To Head Fantasy Baseball League.

On the flip side, once this owner wins his H2H Head To Head Fantasy Baseball league in 2011, the league commissioner will likely make new rules for 2012, including a minimum of 30 innings pitched per week, which may or may not prevent this exact same strategy from working.  The commissioner should also consider making adjustments to the number of scoring categories, so that an owner has no reason to use radical draft strategies to load up on power hitters that can easily win a majority of the H2H Head To Head Fantasy baseball Scoring Categories on a weekly basis.  For example, even if you decide to participate in the league and follow the spirit of the league setup, you can still decide to focus your draft on power hitters and leave the other 5 categories up to chance in this example H2H Head To Head fantasy baseball league.

One other item I would like to mention in this article is the recent trend of H2H Head To Head fantasy baseball leagues using both Holds and Saves as separate scoring categories.  When a league does this, it is an attempt to prevent owners from getting locked out of the Closers available to play in the mandatory RP slots or to help experienced owners to take a greater advantage of new owners who can find more information and advice on Closers, but need to do a lot more to uncover the best middle relievers.  If your H2H Head To Head Fantasy baseball league has both Holds and Saves as Scoring Categories, ignore saves and focus on drafting Top Middle Relievers on each team with low ERA and WHIP, since these are the middle relievers who will usually end up dominating the Hold category by the end of the year.  The great thing about great middle relievers is that even the really bad teams have a few “specialists” that get Hold opportunities throughout the year.  The only reason I would draft a closer over a middle reliever in this type of H2H scenario would be if I had already filled all of my starting hitter slots, and for some reason a top closer like Heath Bell, Brian Wilson or another top 10 closer was still in your H2H Head to Head fantasy Baseball Draft pool.

I hope this article helped to fine tune your strategy going into your upcoming H2H Head To Head Fantasy Baseball leagues, but if you think you need a little extra help, consider become a RotoRank subscriber:

http://www.rotorank.com/FantasyBaseball/Purchase+RotoRank+Subscription/Purchase+Customizable+Fantasy+Baseball+Draft+Guide/default.aspx

Enjoy the draft and laugh every time someone asks you when you plan on drafting your first starting pitcher.  And no matter how luck shines on your H2H Head To Head Fantasy Baseball team during this season; have fun watching your team perform and make sure you learn something new that will help you improve for 2012…