20/20 VISION
Get twenty tips to building a champion
Fantasy baseball is a game that can be won many different ways, because every league is unique. What works one year in one league may not work the following year, even with the same group of owners. The one thing you can count on is that change is a constant in the game. The way to combat change and win is to roll with the trends, especially at the draft table. Here are 20 key pointers for this season that should help you stay ahead of the pack and maintain a championship edge.
1. Make a draft plan and stick to it.
Enter the draft with a good idea of the players you’re after and know the player pool. The more you know, the better you’ll draft, so read and learn. Knowledge is power.
2. Use hard-hit rate, a relatively new measure of power, to uncover home run hitters.
The league average hard-hit rate is usually around 35 percent. Here are five players whose 2016 hard-hit rates could signal even bigger years in 2017: Yasmany Tomas (41.0 hard-hit percentage, 31 HRs), Christian Yelich (38.0 hard-hit percentage, 21 HRs), Marcell Ozuna (37.4 hardhit percentage, 23 HRs), Gregory Polanco (35.7 hard-hit percentage, 22 HRs) and Travis Shaw (33.3 hard-hit perentage, 16 HRs).
3. Don’t overspend on catchers.
The catcher pool is as bad as ever, but the top options will cost you a pick in the first six rounds. Of those top options, only Texas Rangers catcher Jonathan Lucroy is actually worth a pick that high. Others to consider in the later rounds are Evan Gattis, Matt Wieters, Welington Castillo and J.T Realmuto, all of whom can be drafted in the later rounds in most leagues.
4. In the final rounds of your draft, work to target pitchers who have strikeout ability and plenty of upside.
One of them could emerge as an ace, and you’ll know early in the season who that pitcher is are. There’s almost always plenty of hitting available on waivers anyway.
5. Maintain a conservative approach in uncovering saves and closers.
It’s not worth wasting draft picks on closers before the 10th round. Instead, get a few middle-round closers and a setup man who has strikeout ability and a path to closing.
6. Keep an eye on Nomar Mazara, who has the skillset to take a leap forward in 2017.
The Rangers outfielders’ plate skills and power are still developing, yet he blasted 20 HRs in his rookie season with a solid .266 average. If he can improve his production against left-handed pitching, Mazara could easily be a .285 hitter who launches 25-plus homers.
7. Round out your pitching staff with starters who consistently limit hard contact.
The average hard-contact percentage for qualified starters in 2016 was 31.4 percent. There were 34 pitchers below that threshold, many of them aces. There were also several surprise names who should be on your draft list: Washington’s Tanner Roark, Baltimore’s Kevin Gausman, Seattle’s Drew Smyly, Houston’s Collin McHugh and the Dodgers’ Kenta Maeda.
8. Don’t overrate rankings and projections.
Rankings represent subjective opinions, and projections are only mathematical calculations that can’t account for injuries, changes in playing time and other uncontrollable factors. In-season management skills are far more important.
9. Value players with multi-position eligibility to hedge against injuries on your roster.
Having one player eligible at several positions will help keep your offense going at full tilt no matter what. So keep an eye out for a player such as St. Louis’ Matt Carpenter or the Cubs’ Javier Baez, and stick him in your utility slot or on your bench.
10. Don’t buy into Jean Segura’s 2016 power surge (20 HRs) and don’t expect him to steal much either.
As a team, the Mariners stole just 58 bases in 2016, the seventh-lowest total in baseball. This is driven by a managerial philosophy, so Segura isn’t likely to get the green
light to run, especially since his stolen base success rate was just 77 percent. Never pay for a career year.
11. Jake Arrieta’s cutter and curveball just didn’t fool hitters last year, but don’t be afraid to draft him.
The Cubs righty struggled with his command at times, leading to decreased strikeouts, more walks and more home runs. But there’s been no word of a potential injury and Arrieta’s other peripheral stats were very similar to his 2015 numbers. He’s one candidate for a bounce-back year in production.
12. Be cautious of the eight hitters with strikeout rates above 28 percent last season.
Chris Davis, Chris Carter, Mike Napoli, Alex Gordon, Danny Espinosa, Melvin Upton Jr., Justin Upton and Michael Saunders all fanned so often that they can’t be ranked in the top 100 players in fantasy baseball, despite some gaudy home run totals. Napoli also had a career year in 2017, another reason you should avoid him.
13. To keep your ratio stats (ERA and WHIP) from tanking, pick up some high-strikeout, low-WHIP middle relievers, aiming for those with starting pitcher eligibility.
You can plug these pitchers in whenever one of your starters has a bad matchup or is between starts if you have daily moves. They typically provide clean innings that will help control your ratios while adding strikeouts.
14. Draft skills, not statistics.
Aim for high strikeout rates, low walk rates, high swinging strike rates and low homers-per-nine-innings rates in pitchers. For hitters, look for high walk rates and low strikeout rates, and chase quality line-drive and hard-hit percentages. These skill stats give you a snapshot of a player’s direct ability level, and they are stable and more predictable than other statistics.
15. Always consider team philosophies when drafting steals.
Because steals are as much about talent as organizational ideas. The top five teams for stolen bases in 2016 were the Brewers, Reds, Diamondbacks, Indians and Padres. All five teams had at least 125 stolen bases and four of the five had successful stolen base rates above 83 percent. Milwaukee’s Jonathan Villar led baseball with 62 steals.
16. Make sure you cover all the categories on draft day.
There is power available from top to bottom in the draft. The hot commodity this year will be stolen bases. Pitcher values can be found throughout the player pool. Here are some bargains based on current Average Draft Position: Seattle’s James Paxton (181), Arizona’s Taijuan Walker (235), and St. Louis’ Michael Wacha (372).
17. Take note of Mitch Moreland, who looks like a fit in Fenway Park.
He’s gotten better at hitting to all fields and has the power to clear both the Green Monster in left and the right-field porch. He struggles to hit for average against righthanded pitchers but his hard-hit percentage is high enough (35 percent for his career) that he still takes them yard regularly. Moreland is a terrific late pick in a disappointing first base pool.
18. Don’t get enamored with rookies.
There were 30 rookies who received 250 or more plate appearances in 2016. Less than half of those rookies made any sort of impact in fantasy play. The same applies to rookie pitchers. Less than 15 made meaningful contributions last year. Don’t waste precious plate appearances or innings on rookies.
19. Beware the two-for-one fantasy trade.
You probably have to dump someone on your roster to clear a spot; they count in the deal, too. Don’t make ridiculous trade offers either. Find ways to trade something your opponent needs for something you need, but don’t go after an elite player without offering something similar.
20. Hitters reach their peak between ages 27-29, while pitchers peak at ages 25-28.
Target as many players as possible in those age ranges to minimize injury and maximize production. However, don’t fully ignore consistently producing players just because they don’t fall in the age ranges above.