As the new year dawned, fantasy football enthusiasts were waking up to the reality that their season was over. The baseball season is still three months away, and the casual fantasy baseball manager will remain in hibernation until at least the time when Punxsutawney Phil makes his prediction about spring. But then there are the serious players. While you’re at the office putting in your 40 hours, they’re looking at baseball statistics.
Michael Richards, who won The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational in 2022, was diving into the player pool before Thanksgiving. Richards, who finished 34th overall in last year’s National Fantasy Baseball Championship Main Event, the premiere contest in the fantasy baseball industry, does this for a living. Richards has his eye on reaching the pinnacle in 2024 by claiming the overall title and the $200,000 grand prize.
I sat down recently and interviewed Richards, and the focus of the interview was how he builds a winning team. Here’s a caveat. Neither Richards nor I, would tell you that there is only one way to build a winning team. But keep in mind what Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew: “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
In this case, substitute “championship” for life. If you look at the draft boards of the top players, they will look different. But there are some basic principles they all follow on the narrow road. If you follow these principles, it’s likely that you will excel in even the most competitive leagues. So, if you’re serious enough about fantasy baseball that you’re considering playing in an NFBC event for real money, this column is for you.
While the seven principles of building a winning team in the draft will have applicability to all managers, this column is geared toward managers competing in 15-team Roto leagues. The most used scoring formats are Rotisserie and Head-to-Head. In Roto, teams are ranked from first to last in ten statistical categories. Points are then awarded according to the order in each category and totaled to determine an overall score and league rank.
PRINCIPLE 1: RESPECT AVERAGE DRAFT POSITION
Average Draft Position (ADP) is a list of players ordered by their average position taken in every fantasy draft. As a financial advisor, I subscribed to the Efficient Market theory on the pricing of stocks. This theory holds that market prices reflect all available, relevant information. If markets are efficient, then all information is already incorporated into prices. I believe the Efficient Market Theory can be applied to the “pricing” of players in an ADP list.
For example, Corbin Carroll’s ADP is currently 4th overall on the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) site. At first blush, this looks too high to me. There’s no denying that Carroll had an awesome rookie season. In addition to his 54 stolen bases, he scored 116 runs, hit 25 home runs, drove in 76 runs and hit .285. But one season is a small sample size. Still hundreds of the best fantasy managers alive set his price here, so I respect it.
Understand, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t avoid a player at his ADP based on your own research and analytics. What I am saying is that it’s likely that the sum of all those fantasy managers drafting at NFBC know more than you, or I. That’s why I am keenly aware of the pricing of players and am looking for bargains. For example, if Royce Lewis has an ADP of 47, and he’s still on the board in the fifth round, I’m probably going to take him.
PRINCIPLE 2: BUILD YOUR TEAM AROUND RATIOS
This is a guiding principle for Richards, and it should be for you, too. There are three ratio categories – batting average, ERA and WHIP. If you blow up your ratios with hitters batting below the Mendoza line, or pitchers who give up home runs and a lot of walks, you’re doomed early. Runs, home runs and RBI are important, but not at the expense of batting average. Wins and strikeouts are important but not at the expense of ERA and WHIP.
Last year, I finished 44th overall in TGFBI. Early in the season, I was ranked in the top 10, but then my hitters went cold. I battled back to finish fine in all the counting categories, but I was dead last in batting average. I never recovered from the tailspin that started in May. You can find players on waivers that hit home runs, score runs, drive in runs and steal bases. But if you get off to a slow start in batting average, you will find it difficult to recover.
Richards told me that he’s unlikely to draft a player who is projected to hit below .250. That means he’s fading Kyle Schwarber – in spite of the fact that he hit 47 home runs, scored 108 runs and drove in 104 last year. Why? Because he hit .197. Schwarber will be a popular draft target because he finished second in home runs, eighth in runs and 11th in home runs. But the smart players at NFBC currently rank him only 92nd overall.
PRINCIPLE 3: FIVE-CATEGORY PLAYERS ARE GOLD
This is another big one for Richards, and that’s why he took Mookie Betts with his first pick in a recent Draft Champions League Draft at NFBC. Betts hit 39 home runs, scored 126 runs and drove in 107 last year. But he also hit .307. Betts’ 14 stolen bases were gravy. Richards then took Michael Harris in the third round. In spite of a schizophrenic sophomore season, Harris still hit .293, stole 20 bases, hit 18 home runs, scored 76 runs and drove in 104 last year.
There aren’t a lot of five-category players, so get them early. Ronald Acuna, Julio Rodriguez, Bobby Witt, Carroll, Kyle Tucker, Freddie Freeman, Trea Turner, Juan Soto, Jose Ramirez and Shohei Ohtani are all likely gone in the first round of a 15-team league. Bryce Harper, Ozzie Albies and Marcus Semien will be taken in the second. I am not including Fernando Tatis Jr, and Francisco Lindor in this list because both have too much BA risk.
PRINCIPLE 4: DON’T CHASE SAVES IN A DEEP LEAGUE
Saves are a sore subject for me because I always seem to be chasing them. Last year, I drafted Josh Hader in the third round in TGFBI league and didn’t take my second relief pitcher/closer until midway through the 30-round draft. That was a mistake because I spent the entire season chasing saves. I was fortunate enough to pick up Evan Phillips with a reasonable FAAB bid later in the season, or I would have been sunk. I won’t make the same mistake this year.
In the NFBC Draft Champions league, Richards took Camilo Doval in the fourth round and didn’t take another relief pitcher until the 14th round when he took Jose Alvarado. I thought Alvarado in the 14th round was a savvy pick, but Richards lamented that he wished he had taken a second closer in the 6th round and then Alvarado would have been a great but speculative third. This is all about position scarcity, with the bullpen committee trend.
PRINCIPLE 5: BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY EARLY ON
There is a time to take risks in your fantasy baseball draft, but it’s not in the first two rounds. That’s why Tatis is a hard pass for me in the first round. Anyone who follows baseball knows that Tatis has monster upside. But he’s as volatile off the field as he is on the field. In addition to the injury risk, his BA was only .257 last year. There are a lot of good managers who disagree with me about Tatis, who currently has an ADP of 7 at NFBC.
Consider Elly De La Cruz, who is a divisive player going in the middle of the second round in most NFBC drafts. In the interest of full disclosure, De La Cruz is a player Richards and I disagree on. Richards points out the fact that the 21-year-old rookie had 35 stolen bases in only 98 games after being called up by the Reds. He also was on a full-season pace for 90 plus runs, 20 home runs and 65 plus RBI. My problem is that he hit only .235.
PRINCIPLE 6: PRIORITIZE CATCHERS AT NFBC
Position scarcity is not a huge issue in 2024, but it’s always an issue with the catcher position. The reason is that you must fill two catcher spots in an NFBC starting lineup. To make matters worse, there were only seven catchers with at least 450 at bats who hit above .250 in 2023. Only two hit above .270. I don’t want two catchers hitting in my starting lineup that are going to drain my team batting average (see Principle No. 2).
One of the two above-mentioned catchers was Adley Rutschman, with 20 home runs, 84 runs, 80 RBI and a .277 BA. He’s pricey, with an ADP of 49. The other one is Williams Contreras, with an ADP of 84. Contreras, the third catcher off the board in early drafts, hit .289 (12th best in the majors), with 17 home runs, 86 runs and 78 RBI. J.T. Realmuto, who is going one round earlier, had 20 home runs, 70 runs, 63 RBI and 16 steals. He hit .252.
PRINCIPLE 7: DON’T BE AFRAID TO DRAFT ROOKIE HITTERS
This is a lesson I have learned after passing on the likes of Corbin Carroll, Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt the past two years. I wasn’t going to use a fourth-round pick on Carroll in 2023, based on his small sample size the previous year. He had a fantastic pedigree, but his 13 runs, four home runs, 14 RBI, 2 stolen bases and .260 BA in 115 plate appearances in 2022 just didn’t impress me. Of course, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Go ahead and take a swing on a rookie hitter – especially if the price isn’t too high. Evan Carter flashed in his 40-game run with the Rangers after he was called up in September, but he’s going inside the first ten rounds. Richards says he prefers post-hype sleeper prospects who have had a cup of coffee and didn’t show much. A good example is Jordan Lawlar at ADP 266. He also likes Kyle Manzardo at ADP 321. I like Pete Crow Armstrong at 323.
There are my magnificent seven – seven principles that should guide you in your 2024 draft. Good managers build their teams in different ways but agree on most of these principles. Richards prefers to take starting pitchers early. He had three in the first seven rounds of his recent draft. It’s likely that I won’t take my first starter until the 7th round. But both of us can be successful, as can other managers with different approaches.
Thomas L. Seltzer, AKA Doubting Thomas, writes about baseball and football for CreativeSports. Be sure to follow Thomas on Twitter @ThomasLSeltzer1.
