Last year was one of my more successful fantasy baseball seasons. I played in nearly 10 leagues, all different shapes, sizes, and contexts. Heck, I was lucky enough to play in the so-called "Listener League" at CBS with Scott White, Frank Stampfl, and Chris Towers. I even wound up winning that league. However, as successful as last year was for me, I was disappointed with how I got there. It felt more like throwing darts as opposed to knowing which darts I was throwing and why. There was little examination -- a post mortem -- to figure out which darts failed and why. In other words, it felt more lucky than good. I wasn't satisfied with that and thus, this year, my approach was to be far more systematic. Now that I can reflect on the draft season, here's how my strategy formalized.
1. Go into your draft with a clear strategy. This year, mine was the infamous "OF-3B-2B" stack.
My goal for every draft was to leave the first three rounds with an outfielder, a third baseman, and a second baseman. That's the formula. Of the three positions with the most scarcity, I was determined to address each of them early on. How you got there could vary -- maybe you were lucky enough to take Jose Ramirez first or you were gifted with the decision between Kyle Tucker and Juan Soto -- but under each and every circumstance, you had to stick to the plan. Second base, in particular, is pretty darn shallow. The bottom tier of the rankings happens to be filled with guys like Brandon Lowe and Jonathan India that could be good, but if they miss, and odds are they miss, then are you all that happy with your team? Needless to say, I have a lot of Ozzie Albies and Jazz Chisholm on my teams and I have zero regrets.
2. Create your own rankings.
One of the reasons it felt like I was guessing last year is because... I was. I followed the rankings lists of all of my favorite analysts and sprinkled in a few sleeper picks based solely on what I had happened to see in my Twitter feed. If you can find a reliable rankings list and time the sleeper picks just right, it's a viable strategy to being competitive. However, it's not something that is terribly sustainable. It leaves you chasing players, ideas, rankings and relying on other people to make roster decisions for you.
To trick, to me, is figuring out how to make those rankings. Do you rely solely on a projections system? If you do, how do you choose between the different projection systems? There are quite a few projection systems out there, but evaluating the merits of each is a far more intense undertaking than we think. So-called "draft-tools" and spreadsheets ascribe values to players, but unless you know how the analyst developed those values, and assumptions they made to get there, you're just relying on someone's best guess as opposed to your own.
As much as I like spreadsheets, we often fool ourselves into thinking objective methods are without subjective methods. All projections suffer from some sort of bias, assumptions. The danger of relying on these tools is doing so without knowing those biases or assumptions. It's for that reason I decided, for the first time in my "fantasy career," that I developed my own rankings (which allowed me, with my own judgment, to sort between the subjective and objective considerations).
3. Not getting sucked into prospects.
I am pretty guilty of taking the bait on prospects. There is a certain allure of the unknown. However, more times than not, the prospects rarely pan out exactly the way we think they will. We tend to consider prospects through the lens of their ceiling without realizing how hard it is to adjust to the game at the major league level. Even some of the best prospects -- using Corbin Carroll last year as an example -- take time to adjust. This year, I decided to avoid drafting a prospect over a veteran that could be considered more valuable. When drafting for a corner infielder, I was often left with deciding between players like Brett Baty and Yandy Diaz. The optimist in me -- the prospect hound -- was very tempted to take Baty. But doing so would be foolish when you consider how success Diaz has been over the past several years.
4. But, follow the prospects.
With that said, one of the things I highly encourage folks doing is to just follow the prospects as they embark on their journey through A-ball. You can learn a lot about the players you'll be drafting 2-3 years from now by following them today. You get to witness their journey through the minor leagues, observe the struggles, perceive their relative value, and by the time they show up in your draft queue, you will know what you're getting. Obviously, the value of this exercise is more valuable in a dynasty context, but there's a clear advantage you can give yourself if you have followed a player's development arc over time.
5. Draft early and often.
I can't recommend this one enough: draft early and draft often. This year, I was in some form of a draft between November and March. To be sure, there were errors, gaffs, mistakes, and heartbreaking picks. But for every pothole (see, e.g., Edwin Diaz), there was a rainbow -- I wound up with Jordan Walker and Miguel Vargas in several of my leagues (at steep discounts). The NFBC offers a variety of "cheap" $50 leagues that you can join to work on your draft skills... and, most importantly, I recommend doing 4-hour slow drafts. Give yourself enough time to ponder, obsess, and analyze your picks. After going through a few of those, you'll have a much better feel for the player pool and their relative values.
All of that said, I made mistakes this year. Many. The flaw of my approach this year? There's a certain tension between "getting your guys" and diversification. This year, I spent a lot of time identifying my guys and getting them. However, as soon as Edwin Diaz went down with an injury, so did about 4 of my teams. Diaz was a central part of my plan and he often would fall to me at a discount relative to ADP. I can't anguish over a plan failing over a fluky injury. The plan was good, the process was right, but it exposed my lack of diversification.