There are many ways to draft a winning team in Fantasy Baseball. While the draft is just a piece of the entire puzzle to building a winning team, it is essential to have a strategy in place come draft day. You can employ various methods, but for this article, we will discuss how to approach the draft when building around pitchers early.

The most common strategy to employ is to pair one pitcher with several hitters in the first several rounds. Building a balanced roster is the goal for most, but that can still be achieved by drafting pitchers early. There are many ways to get the most out of each draft pick by using different strategies.

You likely have a specific strategy that you like to go to when drafting. It probably does not involve an extreme approach like going pitcher-heavy in the first several rounds. But let’s see what that looks like and how it can benefit your Fantasy Baseball roster.

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Reasons to Draft Pitchers Early

1. High-end starting pitchers go fast in drafts.
2. Most aces provide significantly more innings and quality innings at that.
3. Aces anchor your pitching staff with elite ratios, strikeouts, and likely wins.
4. In the era of not knowing what kind of baseball we will get on a year-to-year basis, aces are more critical than ever.
5. You can find plenty of hitting throughout drafts.

So let’s say you want to deploy this strategy of drafting pitchers early. What are the critical things to do during the draft?

Pitcher Draft Strategy: Aces as Your Anchor

If you are drafting pitchers early, it is clearly with the intent to anchor your rotation with high-end starting pitching. Every year you can find middle to late-round pitchers who pop. Last year, Trevor Rogers (SP – MIA) was a great example. But, if you try to build a rotation completely out of middle-round pitchers, you will have more misses than hits. Even if you hit on some, they could have blow-up starts now and then, which could hurt your team’s ratios.

Aces aren’t safe from poor outings either, but they are more likely to anchor your ratios because of the number of innings they throw. One blow-up start from an ace who pitches 200 innings hurts your team a lot less than a pitcher who has a blow-up start but only 120 innings. Most ace pitchers are throwing 175 or more innings, which helps balance out bad performances because the rest of their starts are usually solid.

Pitcher Draft Strategy: Grab a Closer Early

If you are drafting pitchers early, it is wise to mix in a high-end closer with your starting pitchers. Saves are spread out among bullpens more than ever, so having a high-end closer that gets the majority of a team’s saves is huge.

Last season, just nine closers posted more than 30 saves. In 2015, 21 different closers secured 30 or more saves, with Mark Melancon (RP – ARI) topping out at 51. Every year, the number of closers getting the bulk of a team’s saves opportunities dwindles. The reality is teams are spreading the ball around the bullpen more thanks to analytics and matchups. Very few closers are safe bets year-to-year, which is why paying up for the high-end options makes sense.

The ADP on closers right now is through the roof, mainly because so few teams have settled closer situations. After the lockout ends, there will be a flurry of moves that likely change many teams’ bullpen landscapes. I do not expect the prices of high-end closers to drop. If you build around pitching early, grab a top closer like Josh Hader (RP – MIL), Liam Hendriks (RP – CWS), or Raisel Iglesias (RP – LAA).

Approaching Hitters 

If you draft pitcher heavy early, how do you approach hitting? You miss out on most power and speed threats, and most stolen base threats are dissolved by the time you get through the first five rounds. But let’s say you hypothetically draft all pitchers for the first five rounds of your 12-team draft. Here is how I would build around hitting according to Fantasy Pros Consensus ADP.

Tyler O’Neill (LF – STL) currently has an ADP of 65, making him an excellent target for your first hitter off the board. Especially if you are in a five-outfield format, you will need to hop on outfielders early. O’Neill provides solid power and speed and showed his upside last season.

Following the O’Neill pick, it is time to fill second base before it dries out. Brandon Lowe (2B,OF – TB), Javier Baez (2B,SS – DET), and Ketel Marte (2B, CF – ARI) fall into this range and make a great second hitter. Due to volatility, I am not sure you want to have both O’Neill and Baez on the same team, but they are solid options.

You can draft upside plays like Cody Bellinger (CF – LAD), Christian Yelich (LF – MIL), and Jazz Chisholm Jr. (2B,SS – MIA). If you prefer to play it safe, there are great options like Jorge Polanco (2B,SS – MIN), Bryan Reynolds (OF – PIT), or Jonathan India (2B – CIN) you can take in the next several rounds.

Do You Like It?

Let’s build a team drafting pitchers in the first five rounds and hitters in the next five and see how you feel. I am building this team as if it were a 12-team draft and using Fantasy Pros ADP.

• Round 1: Gerrit Cole (SP – NYY) or Corbin Burnes (SP – MIL)
• Round 2: Walker Buehler (SP – LAD) or Max Scherzer (SP – NYM)
• Round 3: Shane Bieber (SP – CLE) or Aaron Nola (SP – PHI)
• Round 4: Josh Hader or Liam Hendriks
• Round 5: Chris Sale (SP – BOS) or Freddy Peralta (SP – MIL)
• Round 6: Eloy Jimenez (LF – CWS) or Tyler O’Neill
• Round 7: Ketel Marte or J.D. Martinez (OF – BOS)
• Round 8: Christian Yelich, Jorge Polanco, Jazz Chisholm Jr., or Cody Bellinger
• Round 9: Bryan Reynolds, Jonathan India, or Mitch Haniger (RF – SEA)
• Round 10: Franmil Reyes (RF – CLE), Kyle Schwarber (1B,LF – FA), or DJ LeMahieu (1B,2B,3B – NYY)

Would you be happy if you built a team with pitchers in the first five and hitters with the following five picks? The base of pitching depth you would have is unreal, and it sets your rotation up for plenty of success. Hitters are easier to find in the middle rounds. If you are in a stand-alone league, this could be a fun build to try. It may be much harder to pull off in a league with an overall component.

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