Everybody cross your fingers, throw salt over your shoulder, and knock on the nearest wood surface you can find. Because it certainly looks like we’re gonna have a normal spring training after three years of chaos.
Last year we had a lockout and though we did get a full season in, it was not a sure thing by any means. In 2021 and 2022 we had seasons that were shaken up by Covid. Finally, in 2023 it looks like we’re going to return to some sense of normalcy!
This fresh start makes it a whole lot easier to get excited about the coming season of fantasy baseball. We might not know what the season will bring, but we do know it’s coming.
The 2023 Fantrax Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit is just kicking into gear, but I wanted to jump in right away with a few nuggets of wisdom before draft season really heats up. This isn’t so much my draft strategy as it is my stream of consciousness regarding what it takes to have a successful draft.
I’m gonna be honest with you. I have reposted this article several years with just a few minor tweaks… until the last two years. Things have changed so much in the last few years I think it’s more than time to re-examine some of the basic tenets I once held firm to.
Follow these basic principles, and with a little luck on the injury front, you’ll find yourself in contention come August. Don’t worry, all of us here at FantraxHQ will be here to offer support along the way and help you seal the deal when September and October roll around. First, you’ve got to get to that point, so let’s lay out the road map to Fantasy success.
The season is not here yet, but why not get a head start and jump in a Fantrax Classic Draft contest? Get a jump on the season with a Best Ball league or maybe a Draft and Hold. Or put some green on the line with a new season-long league to try and conquer. There’s no better time than now to get your baseball on!
Fantasy Baseball Draft Tips for 2023
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Play it extremely safe in the first five or six rounds
Whoever said you have to take risks to win, didn’t mean drafting injury-prone or unproven players in the early rounds. I get it. It’s boring to play it safe, and nobody makes comments about how great a pick is when it’s the obvious safe play. That’s okay. I’d rather look like a genius in September than in March. That probably means you’ll skip over the trendy hitter everyone thinks is gonna break out. It means you’ll probably have to bypass that pitcher with the 100-mph heater to go along with a sketchy injury history. Instead, go with known quantities. The early rounds of a draft are not where you earn profit. Use them for safe investments more likely to get you your money back. Save your upside plays for later. Speaking of which…
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Let your sleepers be sleepers.
This hasn’t changed much for me. Everybody has sleepers. Even those fantasy baseball snobs who say there are no such things as sleepers; they have sleepers. They just like to call them value plays, late-round fliers or some other less cliche term. Whatever you call them, sleepers are players that may have big question marks, but you like them to greatly out-produce their draft cost. It’s a chance to make a nice profit in your draft. Profit is what wins leagues.
If you start reaching too far for your sleepers, though, you take away a lot of your profit even if that player breaks through and you feel like a genius for drafting them earlier than everybody else. I still remember a perfect example of this from years ago.
It was an NL-Only industry mock draft during the draft season of 2012. Jose Altuve was coming off a nice, but unspectacular 57-game debut (Yes, the Astros were in the NL then). The draft was going mostly as expected until someone drafted Altuve in the third round.
Now Altuve went on to have a very nice year and probably returned his value, so some would say this guy nailed it. Smart fantasy baseball managers know he cost himself a ton of value. He could have safely waited until the eighth or ninth round to draft Altuve and taken a more proven player in the third. So maybe he got third-round value out of Altuve, but his ninth-round pick was just a run-of-the-mill ninth-round pick. It was a great call on the player. It was a terrible mistake as a draft pick.
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Use a paper cheat sheet
But Fantrax and other draft sites show who’s been drafted and who hasn’t. Why the extra piece of paper? Two reasons. First, while it’s easy to see who is available overall, the speed at which most drafts move means it’s not always easy to see how many draftable players are available at any one position.
More importantly, though, you want a cheat sheet with your own rankings, because the default rankings for any site are going to conflict with your values. Your favorite end-game sleepers might be so buried on the site you forget all about them in the heat of the draft. Your cheat sheet will help you stay on top of the available player pool better and ensure you maximize value later in the draft. Don’t worry, we’ll have some printable cheat sheets for you once the player pools are a little more solidified.
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Don’t wait too long on third base
Over the past few years, it was first base that was shallower than most people realized. While first base still has just a few truly elite bats, it has returned to being a position where you can get solid production even late in drafts. Third base? The question marks start early. I feel okay with the top five in My current third base rankings. That’s Jose Ramirez, Rafael Devers, Manny Machado, Austin Riley, and Nolan Arenado. The next three by ADP are Wander Franco, Kris Bryant, and Adalberto Mondesi. Talk about HUGE question marks! Alex Bregman is a safer play but the rest of this position is filled with could-bes and high-risk/reward types. If player values are even close I’m emphasizing third base eligibility more than any other position in 2023 drafts
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Draft two top starting pitchers in the first four to five rounds
We may not always get the names right, but there’s little argument that elite-level starting pitchers are more valuable than ever. They are the rare pitchers still throwing close to 200 innings or more and enjoying the full benefit of this swing-and-miss generation of MLB hitters. Meanwhile, the bulk of starting pitchers are seeing fewer innings and subsequently fewer wins and a smaller share of the strikeouts. We don’t know how the baseball will play this year, but in order to compete you’re going to need two elite starters who give you high-quality innings with plenty of strikeouts. If you don’t get these aces, you’re gonna end up chasing strikeouts with lower-quality pitchers and your ratios are gonna be worse for it.
It definitely hurts to bypass some of the great hitters in the earlier rounds, but with more hitting positions to fill, you can make up for it during the rest of the draft. It’s virtually impossible to make up the production an elite starting pitcher can provide.
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Draft a couple of good middle relievers in the reserve rounds
For many of the same reasons the elite starting pitchers have gained value, so have the really good middle relievers. The average starting pitcher is getting fewer wins than ever. Those wins and many of the strikeouts are going toward middle relievers who also offer much safer ratios. The best part? These middle relievers are almost free! Use them early in the season while you’re still waiting to see what your upside picks really are. If you draft skill over role, you’re also very likely to “luck” into a closer or two during the season. The relief pitcher rankings are a hot mess right now. That likely means there will be plenty of opportunities if you draft the right middle relievers.
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You can wait on the middle infield
I remember the days when the middle infield was Derek, Alex, and Nomar, and then a bunch of garbage. It’s still nice if you can get Trea Turner or Bo Bichette, but both shortstop and second base go 20 deep in useful players. If you don’t grab one of the top few at each position, you’re gonna be okay waiting.
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Do not draft a closer early!
Because there are so few solid closers in baseball these days, in 2022 many fantasy pundits started pushing managers to draft closers as early as the third or fourth round. There is way too much hitting and pitching value at that point to be wasted on saves. Yes, those managers may indeed win the saves category. Just remember, you don’t need to win saves to win your league. It’s very doable to finish in the top half of your league in saves, while piecing together a fantasy bullpen in the later rounds and being active on the waiver wire. Sometimes old advice is good advice. Don’t pay for saves!
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Track the rosters of the two owners who draft right before you and after you
Most online drafts move too fast to meaningfully track rosters of the entire league and even in 12-team leagues, it’s very hard to predict which players will go off the board in between your picks. What you can do is try to keep an eye on the positional needs of the owners who draft in close proximity. It might help you decide between two players you’re targeting. For example, if you know the owners drafting before and after you already have two closers, you might wait on the closer you want and grab your second starting catcher. If you’re within a few slots of the turn (3rd-4th, 9th-10th) this really comes in handy.
Great site! I just joined a baseball league mid-year as a replacement after several years out of baseball. It is head-to-head and points. These days, is BA or are HR the thing to have? For pitching, it looks like K’s and wins, and to a lesser extent, saves, are the most influential. Is that accurate? Thank you.
I’m joining 14 Team H2H fantasy Baseball league for the first time ever. I’m great at fantasy football but have no clue what I’m doing in FF. I last watched baseball during Seattle Mariners 1995 Refuse To Lose era with Griffey, Edgar etc. I was looking for statistical advantages as I have no strong team loyalties. What I’m hearing is: Take safe studs early, draft balance. Fair? Elite level players in first 4-5 rounds as a best available, safe bet scenario. Include a 1B and two SP. Don’t get shut out. Sleepers can wake. Draft balance. Middle Relief late? What’s considered late round? Perception of Position/Stat advantages no longer different. I recall Piazza/Pudge being only C with good bats. This is helpful. SS/2B not known for power. But both are deep… in 14 team league with guys that probably care about baseball. Should I be mindful of roster depth at any particular position? What will be hardest to replace? In 2QB football leagues you need 3 QB starters. TYIA~! Cheers
Get some good starters (SP) to rotate, go OF and MI early for hitters, look for 20/20 type hitters in the middle rounds.
love your article. i’ve been winning in sultan of stats jeff borigs’ invitational league over the years but it’s the only roto i do and i’m still weak with roto (i cut my teeth in h-h category leagues and i’m by no means close to advanced). why do you say there are more strategies involved and where do i find your roto strategies.
My comment on strategy is more geared toward roto vs. Points. H2H categories does involve quite a bit of strategy. Points leagues are simply about fielding a team that produces the most points. Of course there’s some strategy in building that team, but in general you’re just chasing points. In roto you might not have the best team, but can manipulate categories to gain an advantage. Things like using middle relievers that are basically free to take advantage of WHIP and ERA. Targetting categories where you can gain the most and lose the least later in the season, etc…
nice article doug!
WHICH IS THE BEST FANTASY LEAGUE TO GET INTO ???
It’s really a matter of preference. I like rotisserie because I think it allows for a lot more strategy from us. Points Leagues probably do a better job of reflecting the value of players in real baseball and allow for more smack talk with weekly matchups.If you’re just starting and have maybe done some fantasy football a points league would be a good jumping in point.
I have to say, I have been in a single league, head to head, 12 teamer, points league, lineup sets once a week for the matchup. At first people think it is odd, but every member of the league has stayed the entire 11 years because it is so much fun.