Every year, I write about how the least effective thing I can do to help your fantasy game is rank pitchers. Every year, readers shout at me “But what about Jack Black in Nacho Libre, wasn’t that Oscar-worthy?” To them, I reply, “This is an article about pitchers, but yes, total snub.” After a few moments of wiping the Cheeto dust from their mouth, readers then reply, “But I don’t understand anything unless it’s hierarchical, like the Oscars. There needs to be a winner, some runners-up, and 10,000 losers.” That’s fine. Baseball culture is accustomed to lists. Standings. Category leaders. Batting orders. Heck, even the positions are numbered 1-9 (sorry all you right fielders). I love a good list. But should you?
Let’s try an example. Off the top of your head, make a list of the top 10 pitchers for 2023. Say it in your head or, better yet, jot it down. If you wrote it out — congratulations! Contact Truss and be a DFS writer. Got your list? Great. Now, cross off seven of those ten pitchers. Any seven. Your choice. If you want to factor in ADP or dynasty or whether you like their Instagram feed, do that. Now you’ve got three pitchers. Those are your targets. Who did you choose?
Let’s say you’re like most red-blooded Americans and chose Gerrit Cole and the twin Shanes: McClanahan and Bieber. Their current ADP in 15-team mixed leagues is 1st round, 3rd round, and 4th round. So, the first five rounds of your draft will probably play out as follows: Gerrit Cole, Paul Goldschmidt, Shane McClanahan, Shane Bieber, and George Springer.
Great! You’re on your way to 600 Ks out of your top 3 pitchers. Where are your HR, SB, RBI, and R coming from? Did you get a closer? Well, at least you’ll get a bunch of W, right?
What if the Guardians and Rays go full tank mode? The Guardians favored sitting Bieber in 2021 rather than increasing his service time clock — the guy’s not a free agent until 2025! What if the Rays do the same with McClanahan? Since 2016, the Rays have had three pitchers surpass 180 IP: Chris Archer, Blake Snell, and Charlie Morton. And they all did it in different years. McClanahan doesn’t become a free agent until 5 years from now — is this the year that he tops 180 IP?
At least you’ve got Gerrit Cole, right? Well, don’t forget Cole’s notorious cold spells — over his last 14 starts in 2022, Cole posted a 4-6 record with a 4.12 ERA and 3.70 FIP. That’s super pedestrian and would have hurt most fantasy teams. Speaking of hurting fantasy teams, Cole’s final 5 starts — coinciding with the fantasy playoffs — featured a 2-1 record with a 5.22 ERA and 5.26 FIP. He allowed 9 homers in 5 starts. Oh yeah, he’s also the consensus SP1 this year with a first-round ADP.
Do you wanna rethink your targets now?
I’m not against any pitcher on principle alone. However, I’m against the cost of the pitcher, in terms of draft capital. Per my cornerstone research article: top SP are almost always found outside the first round of the draft. The top pitchers from 2022 were Justin Verlander, Sandy Alcantara, and Julio Urias — classic 3-5th round picks. In 2021, the top pitchers were Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler, and Julio Urias. The Dodgers Win luck strikes again! Buehler was a 2nd-round pick that year, while Scherzer was a 3rd to 4th-round pick and Urias was an 11th-round pick.
And for whatever it’s worth, 2022 was yet another year where the overall champion of NFBC Main Event, Cutline, RazzSlam, Draft Champions, and Best Ball 50 didn’t draft a SP in round 1. This isn’t causation, but correlation. But it’s a pretty significant correlation. The Main Event — which has been going for like 20 years — has never had an overall winner finish the season with an SP they drafted in round 1. Phil Dussault won in 2021 after drafting Jacob deGrom in round 1, but The Robot cut him halfway through the year.
There is overwhelming evidence that top fantasy baseball players, on the whole, don’t take starters at the top of drafts. This isn’t a “law” as in an inviolable physical law. This is more like EWB’s Law: “You’re more likely to win a league by drafting players who play in 150 games than players who play in 28 games.”
Fantasy baseball draft season is kind of like Black Friday: we’re told that there’s value (“ADP!”) and limited-time offers (the draft clock) and FOMO (“sniped!”). And as humans, we panic and react in ways that are non-rational. You set out to draft a perfect baseball team and instead end up with a team you hate because you’re drafting defensively. Every pick is a reaction pick — it’s not who you wanted to take, but who you had to take. You didn’t get “your guys” because everybody else took “your guys” and you didn’t have a Plan B.
Here’s a tip you can do right now: join a mock draft — even if it’s just a bot drafting against you — and draft a team you hate. Draft a team that is counter-intuitive to your playing style, and makes no sense to your mind. And then make that team the best you can.
I do this yearly by drafting a team with “pocket aces,” or two starters in the first two rounds. Some will say “pocket aces” are two SP in the three rounds, but you get the point — two top-tier SP. You can follow this up with, say, J.T. Realmuto in the third round, or Emmanuel Clase in the third round followed by a volatile hitter in the 4th round, like Jazz Chisholm.
For Razzball adherents, an SP/SP/C/RP start is anathema. But believe it or not, that’s actual market value. Team after team after team follow that formula of scarcity. Can you save a team from a suboptimal start? Many great players have no problem doing this.
I’ve seen some pretty suboptimal starts in this early draft season. Here’s the first five rounds for a team in a 15-team mixed that I just drafted against:
5 rounds, top SP, 2 C, a guy with wrist problems and a suspension, and Teoscar. How ya feeling there? Keep in mind that this is a 15-team draft, so nearly 30 players went off the board between Varsho and Teoscar. Do you think an upside bat was hiding in there, like Jazz Chisholm?
Coolwhip forwarded me this opening salvo, also in a 15-team mixed:
So, 2 sophomores, 2 closers, 5th round catcher, Logan Gilbert as SP1, the already injured Seiya Suzuki, and SP2 Jesus Luzardo — a guy who has 13 career wins to go with a 5.00 ERA and nearly 4 BB/9 over his last two years. Oh bee-tee-dubya — it took Luzardo two years to produce basically the same line as Martin Perez did in 2022 alone. It’s a glass canon team: this team can win only under a very small set of conditions, namely: Marlins outproduce their expected Win total (really unlikely), the sophomores don’t slump (unlikely), the closers don’t struggle (unlikely), and those outfielders don’t fall on their face. But taking as your SP1 and SP2 two guys who’ve barely put together full seasons? That’s flavor country.
I’m not here to scold or chide these players. We all start somewhere. Let’s see if I can give you some best practices for your March drafts.
Starting Pitcher Best Practices
Draft one of the consensus Top 10 SP as your Team SP1.
The deeper the league, the sooner you should do this. ADP tends to be 12-team leagues, so if you’re in a 16-team league, you’ve got a 30% premium on position scarcity. My pick for SP1 this year is Aaron Nola. He’s going around the 3rd round in normal leagues, and I took him in the 2nd round of a 15-team mixed tournament.
Your second SP should be an upside pick.
I don’t really care where you take your Team SP2, as long as it’s not Applebees. In RazzSlam — a 12-team best ball tournament — I took Joe Musgrove as my Team SP2 in round 10. Musgrove is an upside pick because he’s going at a 4-5 round discount right now after breaking his toe in a February kettlebell accident. Per the Dads coach, Musgrove might miss “1-2 games.” Well, OK, Tyler Glasnow might miss 2 months and he’s going at the same ADP as Musgrove. Whatever. Musgrove was hampered by bad Win luck last year after posting a stellar 20 QS / 29 GS ratio — so, 70% of the time he started, he went 6 IP with less than 3 ER. The bad Win luck led him to a SP31 finish on the Razzball Player Rater, Musgrove would have been a Top 25 SP in 2022 if his Win luck was on par with, say, Chris Bassitt. And that’s how the math goes, right? 12-team league x 2SP = 24 Starters taken. I’ve been grabbing extra hitters and targeting Joe Musgrove as SP2.
Don’t fret SP3-SP6…but don’t freefall either
In 12-team “standard” leagues, you’ll need about 6SP, depending on how you allocate your draft capital. But the truth is, after SP30 or so (or, your Team SP3), most pitchers are a crapshoot. Pitching in the MLB is hard. Very few pitchers have repeatable success. When I say that, you’re probably responding, “But Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer!” You know how many pitchers started at least one game last year? 368. You could draft an entire 16-team league with standard 23-man rosters of just pitchers who started 1 game in 2022. You wanna know the types of players who started half the season for their team? We’ve got the likes of Beau Brieske, Joan Adon, Adam Oller, and Jose Urena. Woof. So when I say, “Fade Pitchers,” I don’t mean, “Draft Adam Oller.” Apologies to Oller’s family for finding this article when they Google him. What I’m saying is, “Your SP3-6 all have about the same chance at success and failure, so don’t overthink it.” Adam Wainwright was SP9 in 2021. Anthony DeSclafani was a top 20 pitcher in 2021 and you probably can’t even find him on a draft board this year, can you?
In best ball leagues, you want to absolutely hammer the “efficient frontier” of SP around ADP 150-250.
Here’s where you’ll find the “workmen” of the league that return massive fantasy ROI. Because best ball leagues (and still massive swaths of the fantasy world) are reliant upon Wins as a category/scoring factor, you’ll find your points league winners in this ADP band. Over the past 3 years, here are some of the unsung Win masters and their overall Win rank: Adam Wainwright (5), Chris Bassitt (8), Jose Berrios (12), Marco Gonzales (15), Tyler Anderson (18), German Marquez (21), Cal Quantrill (23), Merrill Kelly (24)…and Taijuan Walker (25) followed by Jordan Lyles and Patrick Corbin. If you want to know why so many big tournament winners don’t take one of the top SP, it’s because the scoring systems are just fine letting you march out a cadre of Chris Bassitt and Jose Berrios-types on your way to big bucks.
Don’t forget Roleless Robs
This is more of an advanced strategy, but don’t forget that morass of pitchers who are neither starters nor closers who bring fantasy value. Adam Cimber notched 10 Wins playing out of the bullpen, while Keegan Thompson got promoted from his Roleless Rob role into the rotation to go 10-1 on the year. Guess where Thompson is back to this year? Roleless Rob! I know there’s controversy when people ask, “Should I start this miserable pitcher” and I respond, “No, just add a Roleless Rob,” but truth is, guys like Sonny Gray, Mike Clevinger, Michael Kopech, Nathan Eovaldi, Roansy Contreras, and Walker Buehler got outplayed in 2022 by random relievers you could have added on a whim. Honestly, I wouldn’t draft any Roleless Robs out of the gate unless you’re in a massive tournament. But always keep an eye on those guys who used to be starters and are currently relievers. We saw Michael King and Garrett Whitlock get off to a brilliant 2022 start before falling to injury. Could a guy like Eli Morgan or Griffin Jax go back to a starting role and succeed? We’ll just have to watch!
Thanks for hanging out with me, and I look forward to your comments below!
