The Principles of War, Applied

The vast accumulation of centuries of military thought has been distilled into a few, basic principles of war. The U.S. military accepts nine (Objective, Simplicity, Mass, Offensive, Surprise, Economy of Force, Maneuver, Security, and Unity of Command). The principles represent enormous amounts of scholarship and thought regarding battles and campaigns, and learning to apply them properly is a large component of the curriculum at every service War College (I know they were drilled into my little military mind). Their application allows strategists to better understand why some operations succeeded while others failed. With a bit of interpretation, they may equally be applied to the fantasy baseball arena.

One of the principles most often forgotten at draft time is that of Objective. Objective, the definition of a decisive and attainable endstate for every operation, is a useful tool to have in the box after the first few rounds of a draft. Player selections in the first three rounds are relatively easy - the top sixty players, who will reliably provide Superstar numbers, are fairly obvious - but the quest for value in the later rounds sometimes induces the sort of confusion that results in snap decisions with occasionally disastrous consequences.

In laying out your draft plan, remember the principle of Objective. In a common 5 x 5 mixed roto league, for example, with ten hitters and seven pitchers, you may estimate that you’ll need 150 steals, 200 home runs, and 850 runs scored to finish near the top of those categories. Those are planning components within the overall objective of building a team that can put up the necessary numbers. This sounds obvious, but it is a virtual certainty that in 90% of the leagues in play, at least a few of the drafters are using their cheat-sheets almost exclusively, after round five or six, without a firm endstate in mind.

When you get to the middle rounds, and you have a choice between Julio Lugo in the middle of the infield or Jermaine Dye in the outfield, look at what you have, what you think you will need, and what is left on the table. There are often lots of “Austin Kearns” and “Michael Cuddyer” types available later, potentially close to Dye’s strength, but not quite as powerful, while the only legitimate speed left may be from free agents like Corey Patterson or Kenny Lofton. Dye is generally more highly regarded than Lugo on cheat sheets, so the temptation might be to go for the two-category stud. But what do you need more?

None of this breaks any new ground, but that’s the value of the principles. They, by themselves, are not a recipe for success, either in the fight or on the field, but they do provide a touchstone for your original plan, the one built over weeks or months of research, the one you’ll regret ignoring sometime around the trading deadline.