Fantasy Baseball Draft: You’re (Not) On Your Own, Kid
If this is your first time trying out fantasy baseball, I must admit there’s no good way to ease you into your first task. So, let’s get the bad news out of the way: The draft is 19 rounds. But there's good news! I’m here to give you some tips and tricks for drafting your team.
A fantasy baseball draft runs similarly to a fantasy football draft with a few differences. In fantasy baseball your roster is larger, so of course there are more rounds in the draft. Throughout the 19 rounds you will draft a total of nine position players, seven pitchers, and three bench players. Your bench players can be position players or pitchers. There are plenty of drafting strategies that can be used, but I’m going to give you three common approaches you could use on draft day.
1. The Pitcher Priority
A common strategy is the pitcher-focused approach.To compare to fantasy football, this approach would be like drafting a quarterback first. They’ll likely be your top scorer, but the rest of your team may suffer. If you’re using this approach, your early round picks are heavily focused on drafting the strongest available pitchers. The mid to late rounds are to select hitters and your remaining pitchers. Great pitchers can be harder to come by in the later rounds of the draft. It can also be difficult to find strong pitchers on the waiver wire or in free agency throughout the season. Anchoring your team with strong pitchers early in the draft can alleviate some of those problems.
Pitchers also have the best chance to score the most points each week. However, that also means pitchers have the highest chance to lose the most points each week. Negative points are much more common in fantasy baseball than they are in fantasy football. Taking this approach to your draft also means it’s more likely that your hitters won’t be as strong.
2. A Hitter’s Paradise
Another common strategy is the exact opposite of the pitcher-focused approach, it’s a hitter-focused approach. To compare to fantasy football, taking this approach would be like drafting your running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends then selecting an average quarterback later in the draft. Using this approach, your early rounds are spent on selecting the strongest available hitters, selecting pitchers towards the middle of the draft, then using the late rounds to fill in the rest of your hitters and pitchers.
The hitter-focused approach means that you likely won’t have to rely on one or two guys to hit multiple home runs every week. In theory, if a couple of guys start to slump, your team is still in a good position because the rest of your hitters are strong enough to pick up the slack. The downside is that you might have to stream starting pitchers week to week based on their matchups.
Streaming starting pitchers is a gamble, but it can work. What does it mean to stream a pitcher? This just means that you add a pitcher to start for your team with the intention of dropping them at the end of the matchup. Again, to compare this to fantasy football, streaming a pitcher is like picking up a Kicker to fill your starting roster when your usual Kicker is on a bye. Streaming pitchers can be more time consuming since there is a need to manage your lineup day to day.
3. The Mastermind Method
The most common strategy is a more well-rounded approach to drafting your team. Throughout the draft you don’t place a heavy focus on hitters or pitchers in particular. Instead you look at what players are available. The top available hitters are stronger than the top available pitchers? Select a hitter. The top available pitchers are stronger than the top available hitters? Select a pitcher. Again, to compare to fantasy football this would be like drafting the best player available in each round. The advantage of this approach is that injuries and slumps are less likely to have a major impact on your roster. Let’s be real, injuries and slumps are bound to happen in a season that’s 162 games. If your team’s talent is balanced throughout the roster, then one player being injured or slumping isn’t too detrimental. However, it can be harder to have a strong advantage in weekly matchups. You might need to stream 1-2 starting pitchers every week.
It’s a long draft and a long season. Even if you miss out on a player or “mess up” in your draft, there’s still hope for you to come out on top in the regular season. Go into the draft with a strategy, but don’t be afraid to pivot! Lastly, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to your league commissioner, check out our Fantasy Baseball 101 document, and join us on Discord. We are always ready to talk baseball and answer your fantasy baseball questions!