Baseball season is on its way, and along with it comes your fantasy baseball season! If you’re taking part in a league, or leagues, then your draft will probably be coming up soon and you need to prepare. This article can help you get the basics of fantasy baseball down if you’re new and need to learn some of the basic strategies of fantasy baseball and fantasy drafts.
TWO KINDS OF DRAFTS
Fantasy baseball drafts can occur in two ways: using an auction where players bid amounts of fantasy money for each player they want using a pre-set team budget, or in a snake draft where each player takes his turn picking an available player for his team. Auctions were the original form of fantasy draft, but when online fantasy sports became popular snake drafts gained popularity since it was easier to do over the internet. Auction drafts are probably better, and definitely seem to be the favored form by more experienced fantasy players, but snake drafts remain the most popular kind of draft overall.
If you’d like to try out either of them I recommend using ESPN’s fantasy mock-draft lobby. They have options for snake and auction drafts, with differing numbers of owners, and also AL or NL only options. Another good mock-draft site is Yahoo!’s, which I also recommend trying out since the people and the strategies tend to be a bit different than what you’ll see on ESPN.
FANTASY ROSTER
There is some variation on what kind of roster each league uses, but generally you’ll have at least one of each position then probably an extra corner infielder, a middle infielder, maybe some extra outfielder positions, and then a utility spot which any position, including a DH, can fill. It is a good idea to know exactly what kind of starting roster your league will be using before you start planning your draft. Of course you’ll probably also need some pitchers, both starting and closing, and will also have some bench spots for replacement guys.
POSITIONAL PRIMER
There are some different necessities in real life baseball that guide what types of players are available at each position for your fantasy team. For example, it’s easy to get a great 1B, but hard to get a decent catcher. This is why people discuss positional scarcity so much for 2B, SS, and catcher. So here is a quick by position primer to explain things and get you started.
1B – All teams need big hitters, but just because you’re a great hitter doesn’t mean you’ll be a great fielder. But since big hitters do tend to be big guys, a great position to stick them is first base where they’ll rarely be called upon to come up with ground balls and their long reach will allow them to easily catch hastily thrown balls from the SS or 3B. Because of this, 1B is the most plentiful fantasy baseball position and you’ll probably want to consider using first baseman for your corner infield and utility positions.
2B and SS – Players in the middle infield are there because they’re great fielders. Not many of them are anything but decent hitters. Often fantasy team owners will take a second baseman or shortstop even when better hitters are available, because they want the best they can get at one of these “scarce” positions.
3B – These guys are sort of like first baseman, except often a little better at fielding, but still a convenient place to stick a great hitter with a limited glove. In 10 team, mixed leagues there tends to be a pretty good third baseman for everybody, but with larger leagues or AL/NL only leagues, this position can begin to get scarce towards the end.
Catcher – This position is so scarce that most experts say you shouldn’t even worry about it. Catchers are their own breed of ballplayer, and their ability at that position, and the damage they take doing it, takes absolute precedence over their hitting prowess. As such, there are not enough good hitting catchers to go around a 10 team standard league. The ones who are any good tend to demand such a high draft pick or so many auction dollars that they really aren’t worth it, because for the same price you could get a first baseman who is waaaaaay better.
OF – This position splits between plentiful and scarce. See, there are a lot of good outfielders, but you often require so many of them just to fill your starting roster. So even in a standard 10 team league, if you have five OF spots, then your league will be pulling 50 outfielders just to start, and more for the bench. Because of this you don’t want to get left completely behind on outfielders during your draft, on the other hand, because there are so many outfielders in real life their quality never really falls off that badly. And also they are great position to watch on the waiver wire, because good outfield hitters will emerge during the early part of the season.
SP – Starting pitchers are plentiful, but there are only about 25 of them who could be considered great at the beginning of the season. Since your league will suck up around 50 to 70 of them, the owners who get an early jump on picking up aces can get a big advantage over those who wait. This position is also the one who is most affected by whether you are doing an auction draft or a snake draft.
You see in an auction draft you have an equal chance of getting any player, you just have to pay up for them. In a snake draft you only have the chance to take one guy from each round. So if you want Roy Halladay this year you might have to take him in the first or second round. That means you sacrifice getting a hitter from that round, so if you take him in the first you give up your chance at say Robinson Cano, or Joey Votto, or Troy Tulowitzki. Because of this it’s really not worth taking a pitcher early, in the first four or five rounds. And also, if you want a stable of four or five ace level pitchers, you have to use up a lot of early draft picks getting them.
In an auction draft, you can set aside whatever money you want for pitchers and don’t have to sacrifice getting great hitters to also get great pitchers. Your pitching budget will cut into the amount you can spend on hitters, but it’s up to you how to distribute those losses, perhaps getting some stars but then not getting any mid-level $5-$10 guys.
RP – Old baseball managers greatly overvalue closers and saves, and many fantasy baseball managers overvalue closers and saves. Saves aren’t worth spending an early draft pick or much auction money on. It’s a fickle position, both in terms of how many saves a closer gets a year, but also in who gets to actually be the team closer. The guys with the most job security are expensive in fantasy baseball. But every real team needs a closer, so there’s going to be enough to go around. It’s nice to get a closer who won’t destroy your team’s ERA and WHIP, so don’t be afraid to get a decent but reasonably priced guy, but generally you don’t have to overspend for this spot. Most fantasy teams will need two or three RPs.
SNAKE DRAFT STRATEGY
Snake drafts don’t involve a lot of detailed strategy because you mostly will be taking what you are given by your draft position. You can’t plan on getting any specific player because you don’t have an equal chance for every player. Instead snake draft strategy is about broad thinking, what do you want early, what do you want late?
For example, the number of home runs have been dropping steadily for the last several years as pitching improves and PEDs are removed from the game. But stolen base numbers have remained the same. Because of this many people see a growing scarcity in power, but a plentiful amount of speed, so they’ll look to draft power hitters early and wait till the end of the draft to get their stolen bases. During the draft if the pick comes to them and the next two players are Jose Reyes and Jose Bautista, they’ll take Bautista and his 35 home runs over Reyes and his 35 steals.
Other things you can look for early is getting very high batting average guys to draw up your team’s overall average and have more freedom getting heavy sluggers late in the draft, or possibly focusing on gathering up the few 5-category guys who will help your team everywhere. Just decide what you want for your team.
Another thing you’ll definitely need to think over is what you’re going to do about pitching. Snake drafts invite a lot of improvisation on your part, but it’s good to know how much you want to dedicate to pitching. If you take a pitcher in the first four rounds you’ll be missing out on getting one of the games excellent batters, but you’ll probably be taking a top 5 ace. A lot of players look to “anchor” their rotation by making sure they get at least one solid ace, and probably another nearly as solid ace. To do this you can probably wait till round five, six, or seven before starting to take pitchers. Then they begin to go back and forth between pitchers and hitters, making sure they get the best mix for both. Sometimes if you really like having good pitchers you can go all in on this, taking four great hitters in the first four rounds, then taking four great pitchers in the next four rounds before the other players start a run on the remaining aces. Though if you do this, you better be sure those first four batters are going to be lights out good.
While some players like taking aces, others just want to wait on pitching, taking hitters with their good draft picks and picking up decent-value mid-level SPs at the end. A lot of guys who are considered fantasy aces this year were late rounders last year, so it’s possible to pick a break-out sleeper who can anchor your rotation without having to pay what he’s worth. You just gotta be lucky.
AUCTION DRAFT STRATEGY
Auction draft strategy is a much bigger topic and I won’t be able to go into all the different ways a person could plan out an auction. To get started though the basic things you want to do is to split your budget between hitters and pitchers, and to decide how many high priced guys you plan to buy. Because guys are pre-valued by many fantasy experts and going prices in actual drafts are available on sites like ESPN, you can accurately plan out how your team will be budgeted, player by player.
Even though you have a chance at getting every player, and I say that in auction drafts you can plan on getting certain players, you never want to actually plan 100% that you will get any one specific player. Instead you want to rate players in tiers, for example this year I might want to get a really high Avg. having middle infielder for my team. Now I might have my heart set on Hanley Ramirez, but maybe another guy in my league does too. Maybe two other guys in my league do too. So now when I bid on Hanley for his value price, they bid over me, I bid again since I’m willing to pay a few dollars over for the right guy, but they bid again. And then another guy bids over him. And so on and so on. Now Hanley Ramirez costs $10 over what he’s probably worth, do I really want to keep bidding on him and pay way too much?
Instead make a tier, I want Hanley Ramirez, he’s #1, but after him in the middle infield are Robinson Cano and Troy Tulowitzki. So I have them ranked at #2 and #3 respectively. Any of those three guys will suit my strategy, so if the best one goes too high, I move on to the next guy. He goes too high, I move on to the next guy. Odds are, if you know your league and how the bidding tends to work you won’t need more than three or four guys in a tier. But if they all cause a bidding war, just have a backup plan, maybe I’ll take a high cost 1B like Joey Votto instead, or I’ll just wait and take a top middle infielder who is on the next level of talent like Dan Uggla.
By having a general group of players you want at a certain value, you can make sure you’re sticking to your budget plan, even when you don’t get the specific guy you want. You can also plan your roster according to the expected cost of a player. Let’s say in your league the most expensive, first-round guys cost $30-$40. So you decide to take one of them. And then you decide you’ll wait a little and take two guys who cost around $25 each. And maybe 5 guys who cost around $13-$18. You can then create a pool of possible players you’d like to take in each cost group, and rank them by which ones you want the most.
Remember you’ll always need to pay at least $1 for a player, but there’s nothing wrong with spending heavy on stars and then waiting and taking several $1 guys. In fact, it’s a really smart strategy to do just that. Fantasy baseball tends to be about achieving heavily over the mean, and the best way to do that is take guys who will be way over the average level of production.
Pitching cuts into your batting budget, so you have to decide how much you’ll trade off. Several famous older strategies devalue pitching, say spending only the minimum $9 on pitchers and keeping $251 for sluggers. That type of strategy seems a little behind the times these days because while pitching is deep, the difference between aces and scrubs is still massive. Then again as pitching begins to dominate the league, maybe focusing on sucking up all the dwindling batting talent is a sound strategy.
Normally you’ll want to staff your rotation in a similar way to snake drafts. The difference is, if you want to go as heavy on aces as you can, you’ll be able to do so with much less sacrifice to your overall team. Say you want five low level aces, the Roy Oswalts, the Matt Cains, the Jared Wavers, etc. Well in a $260 budget draft, their value will be around $12-$15 each, meaning you can budget around $65 to $70 to get them all. In a snake draft if you want five aces, you’ll need to start in the fourth or fifth round and spend the next five rounds taking pitchers. And miss out on all those good hitters. Not so in auction drafts, where you can take the money from wherever you want, so now you go ahead and buy the same batters you would have got in rounds 4 through 8, and instead sit out the draft for the guys who would normally go from rounds 12 to 20. That will likely be much less of sacrifice.
For closers, a lot of people like taking one great closer and then two less pricey closers. Some think it’s a waste to do even that. You want to make sure you have enough closers to compete in saves (unless you plan to write off saves to focus on something else), but it’s entirely possible to get three good closers for almost nothing most seasons if you do your homework and work the waiver wire early in the season.
POTENTIAL VS. RELIABILITY
In fantasy baseball you have to pay extra for both future potential and known reliability. Guys with lots of hype are labeled sleepers because they might be worth far more than you’ll pay for them, yet at the same time their price is still going up from all the hype. Reliable guys tend to give you consistent production you can trust in, and so most people will want to have them on their team and will be valued up. It’s important to know what you’re paying for with a player and when you want to shoot for guys with high potential and when you want to shoot for guys with high reliability.
Perhaps the simplest way to frame this is that when you spend a lot on a guy he better be reliable, and when you spend almost nothing on a guy you always want to swing for the fences. Nothing will kill your team faster than having your first round pick lay an egg. And when you pick up your late round guys, why bother to go for a veteran who reliably puts up okay numbers? Okay numbers are available on the waiver wire all year long. Take a guy who may blow up and be awesome, or may just plain suck.
You might need to do some research to see which guys you find most reliable. There aren’t a lot of cheatsheets with reliability level listed, so often you need to look at top guys past years to see what they trend. Also fantasy baseball experts have a lot of guys to rate, and they don’t look over their numbers and rethink what they’ve recently seen. Because of this, it’s not uncommon for a normally reliable guy to have one bad season and then be expected to keep producing at the level of their bad season. Look for guys on the bounce back. They may be more reliable than you think.
WHICH GUYS SHOULD I VALUE THE MOST?
If you’re doing an auction draft you have total control over how you want to build your team. In a snake draft, you only get one first round player, even if you want three, and you get a 17th round player, even if you don’t want one at all. But having all that control often works against people because as much as you can use it to your advantage, you can also screw it up and ruin your chances from the first day.
So here are a few thoughts on that. The first is, a lot of people, when they start fantasy sports, use a munchkin strategy in their drafts, blowing basically all their money on as few players as possible before being reduced to only being able to afford $1 and $2 guys from there on out. In fantasy football and in fantasy basketball, this is a ridiculous strategy that never works. Hell in real basketball it doesn’t seem to be working (cut to the Miami Heat frowning from their bench), and fantasy requires even more players to start and do well.
But in fantasy baseball, this strategy can work when done responsibly. This is thanks to the relatively decent baseline of talent that the lowest fantasy baseball starter possesses. So if you spend almost your entire hitting budget on six or seven superstars, you can then get lucky on your cheap guys and outpace the rest of your league. If you don’t get lucky on your cheap guys, and aren’t able to steal the best picks off the waiver wire, well, it won’t work. If you do use this strategy, you should still consider keeping enough money to afford a small base of decent starting pitchers so you don’t get killed in those categories.
On the complete opposite side are the people who are overly responsible their money. They don’t spend a lot on stars but have plenty of money available to get $8 to $10 starters for all their positions. This strategy unfortunately seems to work the least. Again the reason is that nice fluffy baseline of talent, meaning the guys who have to wait for $1 ballplayers, still can get some pretty decent talent. That’s why I say $5 to $10 players are poison. These are the guys who are likely to post decently in three categories instead of just two like a $1 guy. Or they’re expected to get 73 RBIs instead of the 65 expected from a $1 guy. They just don’t have the value over the $1 guys to be worth five to ten times the cost. These players slowly leech up your budget without giving you enough in return. Sometimes there will be a hyped up sleeper for $8 that you want and will purchase, but you can’t go buying many of these guys, especially if you’re not paying for sleeper potential.
IN CONCLUSION
So hopefully you have a good start in figuring how to do great in your draft and set yourself up for a great fantasy season. Remember to keep working the waiver wire after your draft, a lot of old experts say wait until May, but if you’re in an online league, or in a league with young guys you definitely don’t want to wait that long. So trust your gut, draft the guys you want, and do your homework—and you should have a great year!
