The Major League Baseball season (and the fantasy baseball season by proxy) is a marathon, not a sprint. That is part of the beauty of the game, but it can also turn managing a team into a chore. That is especially true in leagues with daily transactions. Many fantasy managers simply do not have the time or patience to deal with the constant upkeep.
The good news is that there is a way to enjoy fantasy baseball without the grind of constant lineup decisions, waiver wire claims and awful trade proposals from leaguemates. Enter Best Ball leagues.
Best Ball leagues are quickly becoming one of the most popular forms of the hobby. You can draft until your heart’s content and then sit back and watch your handiwork unfold. In Best Ball leagues, there are no lineup changes for the entire season. The team you draft is the team you have from the first pitch on Opening Day until the 27th out of the 162nd game is recorded.
This format presents its own unique set of challenges. Here’s the complete Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Draft Strategy & Players to Target. Below we dive into a few picks to zero in on when it comes to you fantasy baseball best ball drafts.
Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Targets (2024)
Now that I have explained my Best Ball strategy and theory, let’s identify some of my favorite Best Ball targets for 2024.
Elly De La Cruz (3B, SS – CIN)
The budding Reds superstar can be tough to manage in Roto leagues because of his 25.5% K-BB ratio. That resulted in a .235 batting average, which is less than ideal for a high fantasy draft pick. But when De La Cruz puts the ball in play, he scores fantasy points at a rate rivaled by few. His elite mix of power and speed is the perfect blend for a Best Ball target. He is also eligible at both third base and shortstop, making De La Cruz even more valuable in leagues that allow for multi-positional eligibility. I would consider De La Cruz as a second-round pick in Best Ball leagues.
“The Polar Bear” had an ice-cold .217 batting average in 2023. That type of drain on a batting average is problematic in Roto but less so in Best Ball. Alonso smacked a career-high 46 long balls last season. More importantly, Alonso has only missed 24 games in his five-year MLB career. It is often said that availability is the best ability, and that is certainly the case in Best Ball formats. Even if Alonso cannot improve the batting average, he is still an elite Best Ball pick. His .251 career average also suggests that some improvement is possible, if not likely. Alonson is another player who should provide top-25 overall value this year.
While there is optimism regarding Alonso’s ability to improve his batting average, that is not exactly the case with Kyle Schwarber. Schwarber has hit .218 or worse in three of his last four seasons. Yet, he and Alonso managed to outscore the Cy Young Award-winning duo of Gerrit Cole and Blake Snell last season in Best Ball. Schwarber contributed by posting career-bests in homers (47), runs (108) and RBI (104). He did so largely on the strength of playing 160 games. Schwarber has been fairly reliable in that department, playing in 155 or more games in three of the last four full MLB seasons. Schwarber often goes in the seventh round of Roto leagues, but I would feel comfortable drafting him two rounds earlier in Best Ball.
Justin Steele posted a 16-5 record with a 3.06 ERA and 1.17 WHIP in his breakout 2023 campaign. However, he barely struck out a batter per inning. This gives many fantasy managers pause, especially in this day and age where it seems like every starter worth his salt is striking out at least 10 batters per nine innings. Steele is going well outside the top 100 overall players picked in early 2024 fantasy baseball drafts because of this relatively low strikeout rate. I think that is far too low, especially in Best Ball, where innings are of primary importance. Twenty of Steele’s 30 starts were quality starts last year. That rate was bested only by Cole and Logan Webb, another example of a starter I believe is more valuable in Best Ball formats.
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