Hi all, and welcome to the new weekly baseball points league article that will be published every Monday here on Razzball. I’ll try to cover a variety of topics to help you win your fantasy points championship not only this year but in future seasons as well. I’ll try to make it a good mix of strategy talk in regards to drafting, trading, and streaming players as well as specific player discussions and occasional positional rankings. I also hope to get the community involved in the weekly topic choosing process and cover some highly requested reader questions throughout the season, so feel free to comment and let me know what you’d like to hear about in an upcoming edition!
I’d like start this first article off by running through one of the most important points in regards to my philosophy on points leagues since they can be very different – priority-wise – than roto or categories (additionally, in all contexts of discussion unless otherwise stated assume that I’m discussing strategy in terms of 12 team leagues with standard points scoring settings) I think it’s important to set the foundation for why I recommend the strategies I do and why I value certain positions as well as certain players so highly.
First of all, not all will agree or adhere to this but this is generally a hard and fast rule that I live by when playing points: I avoid drafting pitchers in early rounds. Starting or relief. It doesn’t matter, I avoid pitching in general because I don’t think the value is truly there. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it’s not that the early round starters in drafts don’t return good value but moreso that you can often find equal or better value in late rounds or even off the waiver wire.
For example: Corbin Burnes was a top 5 starting pitching target for many in this year’s fantasy draft potentially up to the #2 SP off the board for most (usually unanimously right behind Spencer Strider). As of today he’s the #11 ranked SP in points. Not to say that that’s bad. He’s actually been quite good and has returned an average of 13.0ppg for his owners thus far. The problem is that you likely took him somewhere in the second or possibly third round of most 12 team leagues – this is roughly based on my own drafting experiences as well as our preseason rankings here on Razzball. I’ll now name all the other starting pitchers you could have taken either much later in drafts or possibly even off of waivers that have outscored him and generally where you’d have gotten them value-wise:
- Tarik Skubal – the SP1 on the season currently, generally went somewhere around the 4th or 5th round
- Chris Sale – at least the 8th round or later unless you play with someone who was really ahead of the curve on this comeback
- Logan Gilbert – the 5th or 6th
- Dylan Cease – 10th+
- Seth Lugo – Very late rounds or potentially even off waivers
- Cole Ragans – I’m a bit higher on him personally and drafted him at 85 in one of my leagues but I can definitely see him slipping into 10th+ territory in most leagues
- Aaron Nola – the 4th or 5th
- Hunter Greene – 10th+
- Michael King – 12th+
One more quick example before I start beating a dead horse here. You may have noticed I said Burnes was the SP11 but then only named nine other pitchers in the above list. Well, that’s because Zach Wheeler is the SP2 on the year and he also probably went early in your draft. Like 2nd round early, potentially even earlier, so he didn’t make the list as he’s not really a value pick over Burnes. So you might think “Okay, but that’s great isn’t it? He returned his value for where you drafted him. What’s the problem?” Well sure but again, refer to my list above (which is in order by the way, just slot in Wheeler between Sale and Gilbert and you have the current top 10 SPs on the season) and there are still a few well-known names you could have gotten significantly later who have produced to nearly the same degree. I would say specifically Gilbert, Cease, and/or Ragans would have been great picks in place of using a very early pick on Wheeler. You wouldn’t have been reduced to scouring the waiver wire for production, all three are proven arms, and they all came at a significant discount in most drafts compared to the top 10 ranked SPs in the preseason.
Additionally, Wheeler has been a unicorn this season in that he’s actually the only SP from our top 10 preseason ranking that’s still ranked in the top 10 at this point in the season. In order, the others in the preseason top 10 were: Spencer Strider, Corbin Burnes, Kevin Gausman, Luis Castillo, Freddy Peralta, George Kirby, Pablo Lopez, Zac Gallen, and Logan Webb. Spencer Strider and possibly Zac Gallen if we consider that he missed some time on the IR in-season are the only two pitchers that potentially also could have made it if they’d remained healthy.
All that being said, I do think that in instances where you have a strong conviction on a player you should go for it. If you want a pitcher like Strider or Burnes in an early round and you have strong feelings that they’re in for a great season then that’s perfectly fine. I do obviously caution against going after pitching early and I definitely highly discourage taking multiple pitchers early as not only is it typically the most replaceable roster position in points leagues in terms of fantasy production but it’s easily the most often injured position in real life as well.
Well, that’s it for this week! As most leagues will have already started or will just be starting playoffs today I’ll be jumping into some playoff tips and reminders for next week’s article, so stay tuned!
Even,
thank you for the points help. Always nice to have it. So my question is about keepers.
12team H2H, mostly standard hitting, -1 KO,+2SB pitching +3IP, -5 Loss +5 win -1 er -1 BB -1H +1K
We can keep 2 forever. current roster (in the championship series. We play best of 3 weeks world series)
C Perez
1b Olson
2b Bogarts
3b Burger
SS Nato (Volpe)
OF J Durran
Of L Butler
OF Pete CA
OF K Carpenter
DH T Fitzgerald
SP Skubal
SP P Lopez
SP M Keller
SP Paafdt
SP Schwellenbach
SP Ragans
(some others not worth mentioning)
So as to keepers for next year, I have always kept a batter and a pitcher. Is it a better strategy to always keep 2 hitters or go ahead and knock 2 pitchers out and stay with hitters until the later.
Again, thank you for the points help and looking forward to it in the future.
Hey Cole! Thanks a bunch for your comment and positive feedback!
As for your question, when choosing your two keepers I think the more important aspect to consider rather than position is who do you think has the most overall upside and at the same time will also be in their “prime”, so to speak, for the longest duration so as to be a potential keeper for multiple years running. Since, unlike in dynasty, you’re trying to roster a championship worthy team each and every year in keeper. So, although I like what we’ve seen from guys like Pete Crow-Armstrong and Lawrence Butler down the stretch run this year I still think they’re both a little bit too young and inexperienced to qualify for your keeper selection. On the flip side I’d also avoid players where the chance that their best days are now behind them is higher than the chance that they’ll bounce back into form next season. Particularly speaking about Bogaerts and Olson. I think they can both easily be in the keeper discussion but are also entering their age 32 and 31 seasons, respectively, not to say either is a bad player but their stats are probably not getting any better heading into their 30s.
Catcher I think is also fair to rule our right away unless you’re rolling in a two catcher league which it doesn’t appear that you are. You’re just never getting enough production at the position to make it a viable keeper. But in this situation I think it’s completely fair game for you to go for a pitcher.
My top 4 in particular order from your roster are:
I think if you wanted to go two pitchers that would be perfectly fine. Skubal for sure no questions asked but either Lopez or Ragans would be a great second choice. However, one thing that stood out to me right away though was the +2 for SBs in your scoring settings. Durran will obviously give you SBs by the boatload and I also think he’s shown tremendous strides this year in almost all aspects of his game but especially at the plate. When you see a guy go from “hey, he might be something in the league, keep an eye on him” to All Star MVP and likely will getting a significant amount of votes in the AL MVP race I’d recommend taking note. So I’d personally go Skubal and Durran this year. You’ll have the likely SP1 in points for this season on your roster and an OF just hitting his prime and looking like a future superstar if he keeps up the pace. Not a bad base to draft from for your championship run next season!
-Evan
Evan, thank you for the reply. Yes, right now those are the 2 that I am targeting as my keepers. I love Skubal and Durran has been really good for me especially for where I drafted him (round 20). Thank you again and I look forward to your H2H content. Now I just need them to hold up for the next couple of weeks.
Great stuff, Evan!
Thanks Grey!