Consolidating Value vs. Spreading Risk

Consolidating value or spreading risk...  You are probably doing a version of one or the other in an auction league.  You may gravitate to one or the other in a snake-draft league, but the only real way to get there is through trades.

Let's discuss.

Consolidating Value:  Stars and Scrubs in an auction league.  Executing 3-for-1 trades in any league.  You want a handful of players that are so great you can afford to have junk everywhere else.  The studs are guys you can rely on and you don't have to take them out of the lineup, ever.  This gives you some breathing room with those guys and makes your team a little easier to manage.  If you have Jose Bautista and Joey Votto, those dudes are never coming out of your lineup.  Heck, Votto could go 5-for-5 with 2 HR's against Roy Halladay.  Who knows?  The rest of your team is basically replacement level, so that's fairly easy to manage as well.

With those replacement-level fill-ins I would recommend as many qualifying positions as possible.  John Mayberry, Daniel Murphy, etc.  Play the matchups.

Spreading Risk:  This sort of team is one that has strong options everywhere, though you may not have those big time studs.  This team requires more skill to pilot and more time in research.  If you don't manage effectively you are going to leave a lot of value on the bench, which is obviously a losing situation. 

Here, you'll want to pay close attention to split stats... Left/Right, Home/Away, etc.  You'll also want to look at histories versus today's pitcher as well as park effects.  Also, you'll want positional flexibility everywhere since you'll be doing a lot of swapping.

Also, one additional thought...  Streaming pitchers.  You may have one or two slots on either sort of team for this.  Maybe two with your scrubs and only one where you have spread the risk.  Streaming pitchers is a way to support your studs and also a way to spread risk so it has a purpose in both strategies.