Preparing for a fantasy baseball draft by getting caught up on the players who have changed teams or the pitchers who have added to their arsenals is an excellent start. The next step to take?
Preparing for a fantasy baseball draft by actually preparing for a fantasy baseball draft.
When it comes time to draft a team, knowing the players you want to acquire is only part of the equation. This isn’t an auction where, in theory, you could strong-arm your way to a few names by overspending. In a draft, you need to time your actions properly.
“Timing” is, therefore, an integral part of the process. Whether it’s the start, middle, or end of a draft, different approaches need to be taken. This article breaks up the draft into those three distinct segments and lays out some tips on how to best attack each one.
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Starting Your Draft – “You can’t win your draft in the first round, but you can lose it.”
Everybody has seen that quote. I’ve written about it. Therefore, instead of trying to defend it, I will focus on how to best utilize it.
Visualize where your team will be in the middle of the summer and try to identify how you will feel about it. It sounds silly at first, but I always write that, because of the marathon that is a baseball — and fantasy baseball season — there should be some element of commitment to it.
“Commitment” gets dropped when the fun or potential reward has evaporated. That tends to happen when key players spend the majority of their season on the injured list or a high draft selection has failed and you are stuck deciding how long you can hold onto the asset and hope for a turnaround.
Identify now the players who could present heartache later, and avoid them.
It’s early. The player pool is filled to the brim. That won’t always be the case and, if you ultimately sacrifice a few points in true underlying value to take a more stable player, your team has a chance of competing deeper into the season.
Of course, risks are a necessity — and we obviously can’t always see the players who will sink our roster — but early-round picks should be an even balance between high-ceiling and high-floor. It’s impractical to expect both, but offset picks with that underlying theme through the first handful of rounds and replace future headaches wherever possible.
The Middle – Beat Others to the Punch
It’s often mentioned that the later selections in a fantasy draft are where champions are born, but I’d argue that winners emerge largely from the middle rounds. Indeed, hitting with a lottery ticket is going to vastly improve your chances of winning a league, but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until the end of a draft to try to find some value plays.
We’re in the age of instant information. You and your opponents both have access to the same data, analyses, experts, and content.
This means that you have access to the same sleepers, busts, and breakout candidates.
If you want one — and you do — you have to be aggressive. Many fantasy managers, filled with the hope and belief that “the draft will be won with late-round selections” will, to their detriments, wait until the late rounds.
Don’t make the same mistake. Pounce.
This is also where mock drafts can be a gift or a curse. Many sleepers will fall through the cracks by nature of either automated opponents — when the drafts don’t fill — or a less-educated crowd. Pay special attention to the players you want who are going in the middle rounds, as they almost certainly won’t survive past that point in a real draft. Prioritize those players and take the chance when presented with selecting one of them.
Don’t let the middle of the draft pass while you try to fill potential holes in your roster. Instead, use that time to make your move and take control of your team and its future.
The End – Checkmate
If you’ve bought into how important the middle rounds of the draft are, then you might fall into the trap of taking the last few rounds lightly. Don’t. Indeed, I argued that some of the best sleepers should already be long gone at this point, but that doesn’t mean that the strategy evaporates.
You should always have a plan when entering a draft, but the final rounds are where that plan will either fully come together or fall apart. If you wanted to punt stolen bases, don’t select a cheap source of steals now. Strengthen a different area of your team by adding depth. If you missed on sleepers in the middle rounds, then be extremely aggressive here.
If there were ever a time to take chances, it’s in the later rounds of a draft. Most likely, if you look to cut bait with an underperforming player, those who you take near the end of the draft will probably be the first to leave your roster.
Finally, pay attention to your opponents and their rosters’ needs. If you want to win the league, you have to beat everyone else. If you see that a team has a weakness and said weakness can be filled with, for example, a closer, then draft the closer first! Doing damage to another team helps you in the standings by default.
Ideally, you reached the backend of the draft by strategically moving players onto your team as you wanted. Now, strategically keep players out of your opponents’ hands.
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Mario Mergola is a featured writer at FantasyPros and BettingPros and the creator and content editor of Sporfolio. For more from Mario, check out his archive and follow him @MarioMergola.