Brian Slack of Los Angeles, California earned the distinction of being the best fantasy baseball manager in the country after winning the 2023 NFBC Main Event title and the record $200,000 grand prize. Slack topped a field of 795 teams. Former CreativeSports writer Michael Richards, who won The Great Fantasy Baseball Championship in 2022, finished 34th in the competition.
Brandon Kamerman won the 2023 TGFBI, a fantasy baseball industry contest with 435 participants in the overall contest. Congratulations Brandon! TGFBI brings together the industry’s best analysts in a competition designed to promote the fantasy baseball industry. I had the privilege of competing for the second year and managed to finish 44th overall in TGFBI.
As the curtain falls on the the 2023 fantasy baseball season, it’s time fantasy managers to take stock. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not telling you to buy stocks, although it’s always a good time to purchase a portfolio of blue chips and small caps. To take stock means to review or make an overall assessment. What did you learn from the season that ended on Sunday?
Let’s start with Ronald Acuna of the Braves, who must be from another planet. Acula stole 73 bases – the first player to take thievery to that level since Jose Reyes stole 78 in 2007. But then Acuna also clobbered 41 home runs to start a new club called the 40/70 club. Frankly, I don’t expect to see anyone else join this club unless there’s another extraterresterial from his planet.
Speaking of extraterresterial life, how about Shohei Ohtani? I don’t know what planet he’s from, but he was gold in daily leagues where you could switch him back and forth from hitter to pitcher. Ohtani the hitter batted .302, hit 44 home runs, scored 102 runs, drove in 95 and stolen 20 bases. Ohtaini the pitcher had 10 wins, 167 strikeouts, a 3.20 ERA and a 1.07 WHIP.
Acuna and Ohtani were off the board when I drafted in TGFBI, so I had no chance of rostering them. But Matt Olson was available to everyone. I thought his ADP was too high. Ray Atherton didn’t agree and took him 50th overall in TGFBI’s draft. Olson, also of the Braves, led all of baseball with 54 home runs and 139 RBIs. His .281 average made him a four-category giant.
Anyone who plays fantasy baseball knows hitting is only half of the game. While there were plenty of early-round hitters that busted, there were more pitchers. The handful that didn’t included Spencer Strider, with 20 wins and 281 strikeouts, and Gerrit Cole, with 15 wins, 222 strikeouts, a 2.63 ERA and 0.98 WHIP. He was the only pitcher with a WHIP under 1.00.
There were other are effective starters around the majors in 2023, but the lack of separation at the position makes me reluctant to spend a draft pick on any starting pitcher in the early rounds of next year’s draft. I plan to focus on quantity over quality by starting the draft with several proven hitters before loading up on hurlers in the middle rounds. I will look for value there.
While I probably won’t take a starting pitcher in the early rounds of next year’s draft(s), I will take at least one relief pitcher with a track record for earning more than 30 saves. This short list would include Emmanuel Clase, Josh Hader, Jordan Romano, Edwin Diaz, Ryan Pressly and Kenley Jansen. I would also consider Liam Hendriks if he’s back to his former self.
The lesson for me this past season was that rumors of the demise of the closer position were greatly exaggerated. While more teams are going with a go a closer-by-committee approach on saves, not all of them are. Some major-league managers like to play matchups and use different relief pitchers in different scenarios. But others, like Terry Francona, still do it the old way.
What else did we learn from the season that just ended? One lesson for me is that players with good batting averages are still scarce. The cumulative impact of the MLB rule changes (primarily the limitations on defensive shifts) has led to a year-over-year increase of six points in the league-wide batting average. But we are still far from where we were 15 or 20 years ago.
The rule change on defensive shifts was expected to have a bigger impact than it did in 2023. The season ended with less than 10 qualified players with an average over .300, which is actually down from the previous year. One of them was Luis Arraez, who turned out to be a one-trick pony. He led the league with a .354 average, but he didn’t offer power or speed on the bases.
Put all of this information in your pipe and smoke it for three months. When the calendar turns to 2024, think carefully about how you will approach next year’s drafts. Are you going to focus on hitting in the early rounds (like me), or pitching? How are you going to approach stand-alone categories like stolen bases and saves? Enjoy a little time off, and then get back to work.
Thomas L. Seltzer, AKA Doubting Thomas, writes about baseball and football for CreativeSports. Be sure to follow Thomas on Twitter @ThomasLSeltzer1.
