Draft strategies 101

If you’re serious about fantasy baseball, then you know drafting a great fantasy team isn’t just about figuring out which superstar will have the best year. But if you make smart choices throughout the draft, then you’re on to something.

So before getting into the strategies you’ll want to use in that essential second half, it’s worth stopping to talk about the big time no-nos for the first eight to ten rounds.

Most fantasy owners will at least one pick, draft with his heart – and picking somebody on his favorite team. The first ten rounds is not the time for this. Almost everybody overrates players on his favorite team, but drafting a Royal in the first 5 rounds isn’t a good idea for anybody. And don’t even think about drafting a prospect yet to play his first major league game. The first ten rounds is the time to draft players who are good year in and year out. You won’t win your league because of your first ten picks, but a string of bad picks in the first ten can put you in a pretty deep hole.

The second half of the draft is when the fun begins. It’s the time when the fantasy baseball savvy league player separates himself from the casual baseball fan. Knowledge of players and draft strategy are now the pillars of your fantasy wisdom, and having the best strategy can go a long way.

It’s OK to Draft Veteran Pitchers
It’s not always fun to draft pitchers who have been around for 10-12 years, but it is usually smart. Young pitchers have more question marks than young hitters. Besides their stats alone, a lot of young pitchers have trouble getting through an entire season for their first couple years, with many getting shut down in September or developing arm problems – Francisco Liriano, Anibal Sanchez, Josh Johnson, just to name a few. In 2007, even King Felix Hernandez was only slightly better than Greg Maddux, who’s now 10 years past his prime. To give you the numbers, both had 14 wins, Felix beat Maddux by 0.211 in ERA, Maddux beat Felix by 0.135 in WHIP, and Felix had a sizeable 61 K advantage.

While veterans like Tim Wakefield and Doug Davis didn’t have great years in 2007, they still found ways to win games, with 17 and 13 respectively. Zach Duke was probably picked much higher, and he finished 3-8 with a 5.53 ERA. The point, of course, is that you usually know what to expect from pitchers who have been around a while, and having a couple at the back end of your pitching staff can be a reliable source for wins.

Gamble Where You Already Have Depth
To clarify, these are picks with a lot of added risk. When you’re deep in the draft, every pick will have some level of uncertainty, but that doesn’t mean you should pick a rookie every round. The biggest gambles are rookies and players coming off of a major injury the year before. Your best bet is to draft these kinds of players at positions you already have filled, or at positions you know you can fill easily in the coming rounds. By doing this, you’re not putting unnecessary faith into a player you don’t know that much about. Better yet, if he turns out to be a star, you now have extra depth to trade away and improve at another position. If and when you decide to take your risks, make sure you don’t take too many in a row, or you could miss the boat on some.

Waiting on Catchers and Middle Infielders
When it comes to these positions, there are only so many stars to go around. If you don’t get one in the first few rounds, don’t get pulled into some sort of run on one position. For the sake of argument, we’ll say there are 5 top catchers – Victor Martinez, Joe Mauer, Jorge Posada, Brian McCann, and Russell Martin. All five have proven themselves to be good hitters at a thin position. Once they’re gone, the difference between Kenji Johjima to Gregg Zaun and John Buck really isn’t that big. If you’re in a league that only starts one catcher, it’s especially important not to get pulled into a run on one position.

There are more great hitters at the middle infield positions today, but that still doesn’t mean it’s worth picking one just because you’re afraid you’ll miss the boat. Troy Tulowitzki, J.J. Hardy, Ian Kinsler, Aaron Hill, and B.J. Upton all surprised fantasy owners with solid outputs at MI last season, and there will probably be just as many surprises this year. That means that even if you wait, you still have a good chance at getting a productive player up the middle.

The Best Player on the Board
This next strategy goes hand in hand with the first and it’s pretty straightforward. While all the other owners in your league are busy making sure they have their catcher or second baseman squared away, you can just sit back and take the best player left. It’s easy to write off your opponents’ good drafting by saying “he got so lucky, every good player fell right to him.” It takes some luck, but it takes good drafting to pick the guy everyone else passed on. Picking Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, or Adam LaRoche might not be a sexy pick, but it still might be a good one. While your opponents are busy taking Orlando Hudson and Jose Lopez, you can take Nick Swisher and still get Kaz Matsui or Jose Lopez three rounds later.

Don’t Draft To Trade

The lesson to be learned is that drafting a player because you think somebody else will want to trade for him is like throwing away your pick. Chances are people will be happy to see you with a waste of space on your bench and won’t be inclined to trade you for him. You’d be much better served to make a pick that can actually help your team.

Whatever your draft strategy is, its important to have an idea of what you want to do before the draft starts. A 2 or 3 minute time limit doesn’t leave much time for guess work, especially if that one player you covet gets scooped up right before your pick.

You don’t need to have a strategy for every round, but when the clock’s ticking down and you’re deciding between three players and don’t know who to pick, keep these lessons in mind and you might save yourself the humiliation of posting to your Draft Message Board, “OK guys, that was a horrible pick.”