I'm joining an AL only, 5x5 roto redraft league with some guys from work. I've never played before, as I always thought it would be too much of a time suck, but thought I'd give it a try. Realizing that no hard and fast rules apply, but also that I'm completely ignorant, can anybody throw any general tips my way? Assuming no early run, when do you start taking pitchers? Also, I'd love to hear some theoretical, yet realistic stat benchmarks to aim for by position, if such a thing can be easily tossed out. Thanks, in advance for your time.

Jesus Christ another nerd turd!

I've never played Fantasy Baseball, and don't really plan on changing that. As far as drafting, I'd recommend looking at the 5-tool players first, and working your way down from there. In the ESPN league, played by Karabell and 9 others, I don't think Yu Darvish was taken until the 8th round. So that's some sort of barometer.

I'm sure there is a lot of free Fantasy Baseball content on the Internet of people giving top-100's. Just search the right places.

YAWWWWWNNNNN

In most leagues it doesn't really pay to take an ace with one of your first 4 picks or so. Get you some position players guaranteed to give you some points then draft a couple pitchers.

Fangraphs is an invaluable resource for fantasy baseball.

Or you can say YOLO and just draft LAA players... after all, the Halos have too many good players.

I was kinda considering only drafting guys that have that PED smell, since chances are they will be undervalued due to possible timeouts and undeniably have a stat advantage. :)

I am actually targeting a couple of Rangers, being Elvis, Yu, and maybe Profar if he goes deep.
Some part of me really wants Chris Davis too.

I appreciate the tips.

Fangraphs is an invaluable resource for fantasy baseball.

Or you can say YOLO and just draft LAA players... after all, the Halos have too many good players.

This made me laugh out loud. Hard. And I'm in my backyard right now. I think the neighbors who are gardening think I'm a crazy person. YOLO.

So you are saying that's a good example of nerd turd humor?

Become completely fluent and expert with your league rules and stay on good terms with the other players. Leagues are won with trades, DL moves, and aberrant positional qualifications.

I really wish I had a job or something. Nerd turds!!!!!!!!!

FLB is all about stats. Forget the names and go for the numbers only. A player like Elvis is invaluable on a real team but not so much in FLB because he could go into the hole and turn a single that would score 2 runs into a DP and no runs. In FLB that is zero worth. You can often trade the big name players for better stat players to improve your team.