FanNation

Won my first fantasy league. Kind of psyched. Hockey league. Small group (six teams), so there were a lot of free agents at any given time. I stumbled upon this strategy and successfully used it throughout the year: had to hold on to my "no trade" guys (Zetterberg, Luongo, Pronger, Jokinen, and Sundin-not bad, although Luongo bit the big one down the stretch, Sundin was a horse until the last week, Pronger went on the DL, and Jokinen never really recovered from Zdnek- although he had an overall solid year, and Zetts was lights out all year.) Anyway, I made sure that I fielded an ENTIRE team every night by picking up and dropping free agents. No one else in the league had the desire or inclination to follow suit. Doing this I happened upon Pasquel Leclaire, Rob Morrow, Marc-Andre Fluery, and Eric Staal.

I've tried a similar tack with my fantasy baseball team, especially with respect to pitchers. So far, definitely not the same success. Being a fantasy owner in baseball, if nothing else, has reinforced the reality of how few good pitchers there are. I'm still trying to figure out some sort of strategy (other than just making sure that I have all my players activated). Looks like there's something to the whole "matchup" theory, i.e., trying to figure out which of your players does best against certain other players. I think this must be the reason why Yahoo Sports (my league) has instituted this new "matchup" ratings section. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of some of the more veteren fantasy baseball league players out there. 

Also in a NASCAR and golf league, again through Yahoo. I started the NASCAR league because I've got some students who are real fans. I know very little about the sport, so I'm sort of winging it (and the standings bear this out as I'm getting pretty much skunked).

Golf, on the other hand, is a sport I know quite a bit about. Still, when it comes to fantasy, it's a crap shoot. You pick your "team" each week, then "start" those guys you think will have a good week. It's quickly becoming a Tiger plus three others on a weekly basis. The league will be won or lost depending on who "runs out" of max starts for Tiger first. Other than that, there isn't a whole lot of strategy to be had.