Points Leagues – Don’t Do This!

Baseball is full of rules.  For example, the mound is exactly 60 feet, 6 inches away from the back point of home plate.  Home plate is 17-inches wide.  The bases are 90 feet apart.  Hit the foul poles in the air, it’s a home run.  Your team is leading after 9 innings, you win.  We all know these common rules.  Of course, new rules are coming in all the time.  There’s the new pitch clock, extra inning rules, larger bases, and pitch challenges are right around the corner.  Some rules stay the same while others evolve.

Baseball is full of unwritten rules too.  Don’t swing at a 3-0 pitch with a big lead.  Take too long rounding the bases after a tater, you might wear one next time up.  Position players don’t walk across the pitcher’s mound.  You don’t bunt during a no-hitter.  Speaking of no-hitters, players aren’t supposed to talk about those during the game. I can go on and on…

Fantasy baseball is no different, there are written and unwritten rules.  For today’s Points league draft lesson, we’re going to focus on the latter – UNWRITTEN RULES.  Before we do though, let’s talk a little about RazzSlam.  How are your drafts are going?  Here’s a quick look at mine:

Yes, our league is only through 9 rounds at this point.  Moving a bit slow but that’s ok…we’ll make it.

Drafting from the #2 spot, I knew I’d get my first (and probably only) share of Bobby Witt Jr. and I couldn’t be happier.  I love me some Gunnar Henderson but if there’s one SS to build your squad around, this cat is the one!  You’ll also notice I didn’t take my first pitcher until Rd 9.  Your eyes are not deceiving you.  My strategy is to load up on high-scoring bats in the early rounds.  Remember two weeks ago we talked about Points league draft strategy (go HERE if you don’t), top bats tend to score more points than top arms so I load up on them.

Will this draft strategy work?  Time will tell, but I have it on good authority that it’s a viable approach.  Don’t believe me, check out this article done by our own @everywhereblair.  He’ll make a believer out of you too!

Feel free to share your draft progress in the comments below.  I want to know who will be pushing for second place behind my team!

Ok, now that we’ve had some draft fun, let’s get back to the “unwritten” rules of drafting in Points leagues.  There’s one unwritten rule specifically that I want to focus on today.  It’s kinda like quicksand, sucking people in every time and real hard to escape from.  And that is:  Don’t follow a platform’s ADP when drafting in Points leagues!

Well, that’s usually good advice in any draft room but it’s particularly true in Points leagues.  Let me show you.

Based on Razzball/Streamer Projections…and why would you use any other…here are the top 20 projected scorers in RazzSlam6.  You can do this yourself.  Simply download the hitter and pitcher projections into a spreadsheet (feel free to tweak them as you see fit), add a formula to input the NFBC scoring, and voilà, you have projected scoring for your Points league.

These are of course sorted by projected RazzSlam6 scoring but note the NFBC ADP (third column) that you’ll see in the draft room.  Mookie Betts is a perfect example of this “unwritten rule” about using ADPs.  In a Roto league, Mookie’s 5-category projections, especially 25 HRs and 15 SBs, will help you immensely at the start of a draft.  In this Points league though, with HRs worth 6 points and SBs worth 5 points, he’s not quite as valuable.  However, the site ADP is more reflective of results from Roto league drafts than strictly Points league drafts.  So, if you follow ADP, you’re likely to draft him in the mid- to late-first round rather than mid-second round.

Also note, there are no pitchers listed in the top 20 (disregard Shohei)…but more on that shortly.

Now 21-40:

For the most part, these names track with the top 21-40 projected scoring.  We don’t see a lot of situations like we did with Mookie Betts above.  Conversely, some of the players, like Teoscar Hernandez and Marcel Ozuna would actually provide a little value if they fall to their ADP.    Look at Josh Naylor and especially Luis Arraez, however.  If you can land them near their ADP, their draft value goes up quite a bit.  NOTE: if your league mates know their stuff, don’t count on these big bats falling to their ADP.

Still no pitchers here either…and we’re into the 3^rd round now.  I know it’s hard when Paul Skenes or Zach Wheeler are staring at you from the top of the draft board but DON’T DRAFT PITCHERS YET!

The next 20:

Now we see the top pitchers showing up.  Paul Skenes, with an ADP of 17.7 in the draft room, actually comes in as the 53^rd highest scoring player in this Points league format.  Zack Wheeler comes in right after at 54^thand Tarik Skubal at 58^th.

In a 12-team league, we’re now at the end of the 5^th round.  Do you have the stones to keep passing on these top SPs and load up on bats for 5-7 rounds?  In a Roto league, it’s definitely not the kiss of death but it will make the rest of your draft harder.  In a Points league, I’m here to tell you it’s ok.  In fact, go back up to see my RazzSlam6 draft.  I passed on pitchers until the 9^th round and still landed Aaron Nola.

For kicks, here are the stats in my RazzSlam league.  As I write this, the draft is coming back to me in the 10^thround.  Only one other team (a fellow Razzball writer, no less) has a single pitcher drafted.  The rest:

• 2 Pitchers Drafted = 4 teams
• 3 Pitchers Drafted = 5 teams
• 4 Pitchers Drafted = 1 team

So, while these other teams have been drafting pitchers, I have been loading up on hitters that score more points.  In fact, six of my eight hitters are listed in the tables above (top 60 projected scorers).

Again, I know it’s hard to pass on those big hurlers, especially coming to a Points league draft after doing some Roto league drafts, but have patience – it will pay off in the long run.  Even if you just pass on pitchers until their projected scoring equals the hitters, don’t sweat it.  You’ll be able to assemble a solid staff and have the edge on offense.

Remember one of the key rules of Points leagues:  It doesn’t matter WHERE the points come from, you just need to find them.”

Summary

The lesson for today…be cautious with how you use ADP.  If you’re drafting based on ADP, especially in a Points league, you are setting yourself up for failure.  I’m not saying ignore it all together.  Use it as a guide or better yet, pay attention to how your league mates are drafting.  If you notice they are strictly following ADP, use that to your advantage.  If you’ve done your homework, like I did above, you know the players who offer scoring value at their ADP (Luis Arraez and Bo Bichette) and those to avoid at their ADP (Mookie Betts and Paul Skenes).

Feel free to post or discuss your RazzSlam draft progress below and tell me how you’re putting the team together.  I promise to be kind – well, as kind as I can be.

As always, you can find me on Twitter/X (@Derek_Favret) and on BlueSky (@dfavret.bsky.social).

Until next time, my friends.