27 days until Opening Day …
Drafting a H2H points league team isn’t easy, necessarily, but it’s pretty straightforward. You just want to have the most points every week, and outside of some considerations about roster construction – be careful not to fill up your DH spot too early unless it’s an absolute steal, consider taking some SPaRPs to fill out your pitching staff – there isn’t much more to it than just drafting the guys you think will score the most points.
But Roto leagues? Now that’s a tricky beast. We have Roto rankings, but the truth is, after the first few rounds, rankings kind of go out the window. If your pick is up and the obvious best player on the board is a big stolen base specialist, but you already have Elly De La Cruz and Trea Turner, the obvious best player on the board probably isn’t, at least not for your team.
Strategy matters so much more in a Roto league, because you have to balance those 10 categories (or more if you’re in one of those weird leagues), and doing so is a delicate balance. Taking Brice Turang might solve a stolen base deficit, but if you aren’t careful, it could leave you with an even bigger hole at one of the four categories he won’t be much help in. Alternately, taking a couple of early-round closers could put you in a position where you don’t have to worry about one of the biggest headaches in Fantasy, but because they throw so few innings, you could find yourself overmatched relative to your leaguemates when it comes to the other pitching stats – to say nothing of what you sacrifice on the hitting side by taking multiple closers early!
It’s tough, but we’re here to help. Over on CBSSports.com, I wrote about the numbers you need to win in both 12- and 15-team Roto leagues, and below, I’m going to provide you with some sleeper targets for the later rounds to fill any possible category deficit. It’s all about finding that balance.
I’m also answering some of your questions below. If you want to be included next Friday, send them my way at Chris.Towers@Paramount.com with the subject line “Ask FBT” to be included, and I’ll be doing a few more mailbags throughout the rest of Draft Prep season to try to help you out as much as I can – I may even respond to you directly if I don’t get to them in the newsletter. So, send them my way. I’m here to help.
Roto Category Sleepers
Batting Average Sleepers
Jung Hoo Lee, Jacob Wilson, Yandy Diaz
You could obviously throw Luis Arraez (174.6) in here, but he’s also the most obvious batting average specialist in the world, so it feels like cheating. Lee and Wilson might have the skills to do a passable Arraez impersonation, though. Neither excelled in their brief MLB action last season, but Wilson was running sub-10% strikeout rates with surprising pop in the minors, while Lee managed to strike out just 8.2% of the time and put up around an 85th percentile expected batting average. He’ll also likely hit either leadoff or third for the Giants, so if he can hit .285 with double-digit pop, he could be a really interesting player in all formats.
Home Run Sleepers
Jorge Soler, Isaac Paredes, Michael Toglia, Brandon Lowe
Paredes (179.7) just feels like one of the most underrated players in Fantasy right now. His production collapsed in Chicago, but that was arguably the worst park in baseball for his pull-heavy swing; Houston should be one of the best. Per BaseballSavant’s xHR stat, he would have hit 79 homers if he played every game in his career in Houston – his total at his old home in Tampa would have been 74. Remember, he had 31 homers and 98 RBI with the Rays just two seasons ago.
Run Sleepers
Jonathan India, Jurickson Profar, Yandy Diaz
India is just one of my favorite later-round targets in any draft. The move from Cincinnati to Kansas City might knock his home run production in half, but I think we could see career-best production from him in three of the other four categories. He figures to lead off for the Royals ahead of Bobby Witt and Salvador Perez, and Kauffman Stadium could help inflate his batting average – .275 might not be asking too much. With his on-base skills, India could score 95 runs, and finding runs contributors outside of the top 200 is nearly impossible.
RBI Sleepers
Eugenio Suarez, Nick Castellanos, Alec Bohm
Castellanos and Bohm both feel like classic undervalued picks as everyone focuses on chasing upside in their drafts. There’s probably no path to a top-30 finish for either of them, but Castellanos just had 23 homers and 86 RBI despite an unusually cold April, while Bohm has driven in 97 runs in consecutive seasons and is treated like a total afterthought. Bohm isn’t much of a power hitter, but he’s a rare late-round pick who will help you in average and RBI.
Stolen Base Sleepers
Victor Robles, Tyler Fitzgerald, Victor Scott
Scott has serious upside if he can earn an everyday job with the Cardinals, but I want to focus on Robles. Projection systems and Fantasy players are rightly skeptical of the gains he made last season, but he showed flashes of those same gains in 2023’s brief time on the field, combining better swing decisions with better contact rates and better quality of contact, which he then carried over to his incredible half-season with the Mariners. He won’t hit .300 again, but a .260 average (.257 xBA last season), 10 or so homers, and 40 steals is within the realm of possibility, and his defense and contract should keep him in the Mariners lineup. I don’t think there’s that much of a difference between what I expect from Robles and the mid-round trio of Pete Crow-Armstrong, Xavier Edwards, or Brice Turang.
Win Sleepers
Jose Berrios, Michael Wacha, Nathan Eovaldi
Wins are arguably the toughest category to predict, and if you don’t believe me, ask Logan Gilbert, whose nine wins in 2024 were tied for 60th in the majors, behind the likes of Ryan Walker (one start), Hector Neris (zero starts), and Miles Mikolas (5.35 ERA). But if you’re going to find them, they’ll probably come from pitchers who pitch relatively deep into games on good teams, and all three of these guys could qualify.
Strikeout Sleepers
MacKenzie Gore, Luis Gil, Taj Bradley, Nick Pivetta, Spencer Arrighetti, Jesus Luzardo
Now strikeouts? Those are easy to find in the later rounds. Strikeouts from pitchers who won’t kill your ratios? Well … strikeouts are easy to find in the later rounds. Now, the nice thing is, strikeouts tend to be correlated with upside, and each of these pitchers has it, and if they put it all together, you’ll get good ratios in addition to the strikeouts. And if not … well, be prepared to play matchups or hit that “drop” button.
ERA Sleeper
Drew Rasmussen, Christopher Sanchez
ERA is a super-noisy stat, and if you’re projected to have a good one, you’re probably just projected to be a good pitcher. But Sanchez is a good example of an exception. He drops close to 200th overall in many drafts, I guess because a lot of drafts don’t believe in the 3.32 ERA he put up last season. That and the low strikeout rate. But he does an excellent job keeping the ball on the ground and generating weak contact, and has run strong walk rates in consecutive seasons, so I buy the low-to-mid-3.00s ERA here and think he can be a sneaky addition to any pitching staff.
WHIP Sleepers
Nestor Cortes, Cody Bradford, Bowden Francis, Max Scherzer, non-closer relievers
Those “non-closer relievers” are also going to be good sleeper choices for ERA help, and of course, potential saves. Guys like Cade Smith, Griffin Jax, Matt Strahm, and Kirby Yates could put up ERAs in the low-2.00s with strikeout totals that push 100, and if they become closers, they could be top-10 options at the position. It’s harder to justify using a starting spot on a non-closing reliever in a 12-team league, but these guys are really valuable in 15-team leagues – and are useful in a pinch in any format where you care about ratios.
Saves Sleepers
AJ Puk, Edwin Uceta, Calvin Faucher, Jason Foley, Chris Martin, Orion Kerkering
So, here’s the problem: You’re picking from a couple of distinct groups. You have the non-closer relievers, who you’re hoping can get a handful of saves, with the potential for huge upside if something happens to the guy ahead of them on the depth chart. Then, you have names like AJ Puk, Edwin Uceta, or Chris Martin, who we’re pretty sure are very good relievers, but whose role is unclear at this point – and you could put guys like Porter Hodge and Lucas Erceg in that category, though we’re pretty sure they won’t be closers, at least to start the season. And then, you have the guys who seem likely to be closers, but either aren’t very good or aren’t on good teams – Calvin Faucher and whoever wins the White Sox and Rockies‘ closer competitions would probably fall into this category. Personally, I’d prefer not to lean on bad pitchers if I can avoid it, but I don’t mind throwing a late-round dart at a Faucher or Seth Halvorsen, just in case they surprise.
Ask FBT Mailbag
Paul, who has a three-parter:
- Can you talk more about salary cap drafts, strategies to succeed in one, pitfalls, etc.?
- I’m sure you have covered this, but tips on points leagues would be helpful. Why, for example, would you draft player X earlier or later in points leagues?
- Finally, in 5×5 leagues, while balance certainly is essential, do you have a strategy for which categories you fortify first?
I wanted to focus on this three-part question so I could point you to the FBT podcast, where we’ve spent the entire week answering exactly these questions. We had an entire episode dedicated to Salary Cap/Auction drafts on Monday, another for H2H points and categories leagues on Tuesday, and Thursday’s was all about Rotisserie leagues. These are big questions you’re asking, and it would probably take me 500 words to really answer each one – actually if I’m being honest, I’d probably squeeze 1,000 words out of them, at a minimum, knowing how I write. Instead, we’ve got an hour-plus with perspectives from Scott White, Frank Stampfl, and myself to point to, so I’ll save myself the hand cramping by linking to those!
That being said, and because I can’t help myself, I do want to give some thoughts to No. 3, here. I wrote about category targets for both 12- and 15-team leagues Thursday for CBSSports.com, and there are a couple of takeaways that always come through when I do that exercise: Doing better in hitting categories is more strongly correlated with winning a league than pitching categories, and steals are the least correlated hitting category with winning your league.
I don’t think either conclusion should be particularly surprising, for similar reasons. The pitching categories are all less correlated with one another – strikeouts tend to lead to better ERAs and WHIPs, but not in the same way that home runs directly lead to runs and RBI. So, if you are good at home runs, you’ve got a very good chance to be good at runs and RBI too, in a way that is less true for ERA, WHIP, wins, and strikeouts. And then, of course, there’s saves, which are more or less completely separate from the other categories on the pitching side. Steals are, similarly, not directly connected to any other stat. A successful steal will marginally increase your chances of scoring a run, but they’ll do absolutely nothing for your batting average, RBI, or homer categories.
Which is to say, your focus should be on fortifying your core four hitting categories and finding ways to get steals without having to rely on the likes of Brice Turang who will hurt you in the other categories. If you have to eschew one category in drafts, it should be saves, with the knowledge that you will have to hit the waiver wire hard for them if you do.
Mike: You guys have done a great job identifying later-round targets but I find myself not liking any of the available players in the middle rounds. Who are some players you like in the middle rounds of a 12-team league? (Rounds 10-13/Picks 109-156).
Okay, here are my favorite players to draft from picks 109-156 in NFBC ADP in the month of February:
- Grayson Rodriguez, SP, Orioles (112.9) – The pieces are all there, now he just has to put them together. If his reintroduced sweeper can be a real putaway pitch, I think he takes the next step.
- Royce Lewis, 3B, Twins (116.2) – I know about the injuries and the second-half slump in 2024. I also know he’s played 152 MLB games and has 33 homers, 104 RBI, 81 runs, six steals, and a .268 batting average, and we’re paying a lot more for players who can do stuff like that.
- Bo Bichette, SS, Blue Jays (121.9) – Bichette’s price is finally rising, but I still think he’s undervalued based on one half of one injury-wrecked season.
- Zac Gallen, SP, Diamondbacks (129.3) – The disrespect. Gallen dealt with some lower body injuries that affected his ability to consistently throw strikes in 2024, but I’m betting on a bounceback as long as he’s healthy.
- Bryan Woo, SP, Mariners (145.6) – The injury red flags are glaring – he left seemingly every other start in the first half of last season with some kind of injury. And then in the second half, he started going deep into games, remaining as effective as ever. He’s got some “Baby Zack Wheeler” vibes if he can stay on the mound.
- Eugenio Suarez, 3B, Diamondbacks – Suarez was lost in the woods for a few years, but his skill set didn’t change as much as you might have thought. Rescued from Seattle’s impossible hitting environment, he returned to being one of the best cheap sources of power and run production in the game in 2024, and I think it’s real.
Jacob: What has been your approach this year with bench hitters? Have you been drafting a lot of them or do you keep it thin? Do you like players with a lot of versatility and can play multiple positions? Are you looking to add power on the bench? Or a speed-specific guy? Do you look at each individual team as you are drafting it, then decide how many players you need and what type of players?
All of the above? It depends on how the draft has gone prior, but as a general rule, I have two things I want from my bench: Upside and more pitchers than hitters. Neither is a hard-and-fast rule, but generally speaking, I’m trying to prioritize guys with questionable roles but high-impact skills – think prospects with early-season paths to playing time, like Bryce Eldridge, Chase Dollander, or Kristian Campbell. And this is especially true for drafts in late February or early March when teams still have 60 guys on their Spring Training rosters and roles are very much up in the air. Because, if Eldridge does manage to make the Giants roster and he goes undrafted in your league, he might go for a 30% FAB bid when the season starts; a bench pick in the draft is less valuable than that FAB could be.
As for the pitcher vs. hitter split, pitchers are just a lot more volatile, and I want a lot more bites at the apple there. If I’m drafting in early March, I know someone I draft is probably going to get hurt before Opening Day, and someone else will probably be hurt shortly after that. I’m going to need reinforcements; it’s a question of when, not if, in that regard. And I’d rather have as many pitchers with upside as possible, so I can get a look at them in their first turn or two through the rotation and see if what I’m looking for from them is there. That includes guys like Max Meyer and Triston McKenzie, who have seen early-spring velocity bumps, and it includes the likes of Clay Holmes and Reid Detmers, who I just think are intriguing talents who I want to get a look at.
The truth is, you’ll probably be cutting your bench picks before long, so there’s another type of player to target (at least in leagues with IL spots): Injury stashes. Sean Manaea would be a perfect one if he lasts that long because it’s basically like drafting an extra bench spot – you stick him in that IL slot, and, poof, you’ve got an extra roster spot to play with for that first FAB run.
Travis: Question: Are we reaching a bit for Kyle Schwarber this year if he’s batting in the 2 or 3 spot?
It’s a reasonable question, though I’m not sure it should really change how we feel about him too much. Each spot lower down in the lineup is generally worth around 20 lost plate appearances per season, though that number can be higher in a better lineup like the Phillies‘. Last season, the leadoff spot for the Phillies got a whopping 759 plate appearances, while the No. 3 spot got 717 – a 5.5% decline.
That’s not nothing, of course, but it shouldn’t dramatically change how you value Schwarber. He’ll score fewer runs if he hits third, but he’ll also drive in a bit more; the shape of the production will change, but the overall impact should be fairly similar. And then, of course, there’s this: Opening Day lineups don’t last. Maybe Schwarber stays the entire season in the No. 3 spot and loses roughly 5% of his plate appearances, or maybe he spends a week there and then an injury shakes things up and returns him to the top spot.
It matters on the margins, but Schwarber’s production is already being discounted in drafts – he was the No. 21 player in 2024, per the FanGraphs Auction Calculator tool, and is going significantly later than that in drafts. I don’t think it makes much sense to further discount him because he might bat one or two spots lower down in the lineup.