Overwhelmed? 4 Tools For Simplifying Your Roster Management

The baseball season has started and things are already happening way too quickly. Closers are dropping like flies and weekly waiver wire claims are just around the corner and it’s really hard to keep up with it all, isn’t it? Fret not because fantasy baseball does not have to be a 24 hour job. There are amazing resources out there to make your fantasy baseball life as stressfree as it can be.

Tools for Chasing Saves

Chasing saves is the term for when you are trying to pick up closers or would-be-closers for your roto team in order to get cheap saves after the draft. In leagues where there are weekly waiver wire claims, it isn’t as stressful to chase saves but it is a race to your computer in leagues where add/drops are instantaneous.

The Easy Solution: Closer Monkey
The Advanced Solution: Follow @closernews
The Expert Solution: Subscribe to a MLB beat writers list on Twitter

Closer Monkey is a great resource because an e-mail will simply arrive in your inbox when there has been a shift in one of the MLB bullpens. If you get emails sent to your phone, it really can’t get any easier than this.

If you’re on Twitter, following @closermonkey and @closernews will likely get you the information a few minutes earlier than the Closer Monkey email. You could get it even earlier than that by going right to the source and subscribing to an MLB beat writer list. These solutions require that you’re constantly checking your Twitter feed 24 hours a day though. That’s added stress which is what we want to avoid.

Tools for Weekly Add/Drop Advice

Most of my leagues are weekly waiver wire pickups. I prefer this to the daily grind of real-time pickups. If you’re just doing weekly pickups too then all you need is a good article each week before you make your waiver claims.

The Easy Solution: Read the FantasyPros waiver wire feed on waiver deadline day
Possible Sites: RotoGraphs and Fake Teams

The FantasyPros feed has some great sites linked within it. If you need waiver claims in by Friday night, read some of their linked articles on Friday and you’ll be knowledgeable enough to make some claims within a few minutes of reading. Your job is done for the week.

Two sites within their links that I like for weekly advice are RotoGraphs and Fake Teams. If you want to consolidate your weekly reading to one site only then choosing one of those is a good way to go.

Tools for Daily Updates

Sometimes catching up on fantasy baseball news over a morning coffee can be enough for the pace of your league.

The Easy Solution: Fantasy Rundown
Alternative: RotoFeed

Fantasy Rundown is the gold standard of fantasy baseball news feeds. You can rely on it being updated every morning and it only pulls from the best sources in the business. Advice and news are waiting for you every morning. If you prefer a more magazine-like feel, RotoFeed offers that but with a bit less content.

Tools for Trade Advice

The last piece of your roster management puzzle is deciding what to do about trade offers. For that, a second opinion is all you’re really looking for.

The Easy Solution: Follow and tweet at @BaseballGuys, @ProjectRoto or @FantasyWhizMLB
The Other Easy Solution: Baseball Monster Trade Analysis
Yet Another Easy Solution: Reddit’s /r/fantasybaseball

You can get opinions from experts via Twitter by tweeting at them. It’s not their job to respond but they’re often more than willing to help.

When you need a third opinion on top of a second opinion, there are more options. Baseball Monster has a nice trade analyzer that uses season stats to gauge the trade for roto leagues (using projections is a premium feature that I haven’t used). And, oh man, if you’re still struggling at that point then crowdsourcing an opinion from a place like Reddit will hopefully settle your internal debate.

Other Helpful Tools

While this is about having a minimal toolbox to make your life easier, there are sometimes other specialty tools that you need to access in times of need. Here are a few helpful resources that you may need to call upon occasionally:

The Fantasy Baseball Experts list on Twitter is worth subscribing to and checking out each day
MLB Depth Charts is a great resource for looking at lineups and depth charts
Daily Lineups at BaseballPress helps with daily lineup decisions
Weekly Two-Start Pitcher articles for making your weekly lineup decisions

The 5 Minutes A Day Management Toolbox

If done right, fantasy baseball can just be a small, enjoyable part of your day. This is really all you need to manage a roster effectively without stress:

1. Sign up with Closer Monkey and wait for emails about closer changes
2. Check Fantasy Rundown in the morning for your news/advice summary
3. On waiver claim day, check the FantasyPros waiver wire feed for advice
4. When a trade is up, tweet at a few trade analysts for advice

That’s it. Your day is freed up so that you can actually watch baseball, enjoy life and have your roster on autopilot without abandoning it. Fantasy baseball isn’t about information overload. Keep it fun and easy.

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