Fantasy Baseball: Dumping Power Draft Strategy

As someone who has been thinking about this strategy since last fall and using it in mock drafts and public ESPN drafts ever since they started this February I have some comments:

1. You don’t want Rollins, Bourn, or Kinsler, those guys are going to hurt your average. Ideally, the lowest averages projected averages on this team should be Nyjer Morgan, Rajai Davis, or Dexter Fowler at around .273.

2. You don’t need any of the top speed guys. Crawford, Ellsbury, Ichiro, even Victorino will cost you too much when you need to use those picks/$ on pitching. Here is a list of speed guys to fill your OF with that are all cheap: Pierre, Span, Borbon, Morgan, Davis, Fowler, Coghlan, and even Maybin (if you are in a deeper league). I can tell you right now in a 10-12 team mix, you can get 5 of these guys on your roster to fill out your OF and they will cost you $7-12, for a total cost of $45-50 (out of the standard 260 budget).

3. You basically don’t want anyone for the batting side that will cost more than $12-14, and many guys who will be cheaper than that. I target about $130 at most for hitting, hopefully less than that.

4. This is a strategy that is very hard to pull off in snake draft leagues because the player pool you are targeting is so small and many of these guys go around the same round. But in an auction league, you’ll value these guys more than anyone else will and can pound everyone else into submission. Don’t get locked into just five of the guys I mentioned, at least one or two is going to get bid out of your range, let it go. Also, if Victorino falls low enough, take him instead. Furthermore, you want at least one of Pierre, Coghlan, or Span because they will have higher BA than the other speed OF, but you don’t want both Coghlan and Span because they won’t be running enough to get you the SB you need.

5. In an auction league, don’t nominate anyone you want for a long time. Toss out the highest valued guys first, the Pujols and such, and then when they are gone you toss out guys with high HRs and/or SB who also have lower batting averages. Early in the auction these guys will be overpriced and will draw off a lot of money on players that would never even touch. Watch out though if it looks like more than one other owner is holding back a lot of their money too, most likely they are looking to swoop in on good pitching after the money is spent on hitting. If that is the case, start nominating pitchers who are good or are sleepers but who have a lot of risk, such as Nolasco, Oswalt, or Josh Johnson, that will soak up some of that “smart” pitching money.

6. I would avoid Andrus and Everth Cabrera, their BA won’t be high enough.

7. At first base you need to get one of these three: Billy Butler, Todd Helton, or James Loney. If you are drafting at ESPN, watch out, they have Butler projected for 30 HR, which I think is a reach, but will have people bidding him up. Helton has injury risk, Loney is probably you’re best bet actually, and the cheapest.

8. At 2B, I would target Asdrubal Cabrera, the multi-position eligibility helps. He might cost you as much as $13 though.

9. 3B goes to Chone Figgins. Pay what you have to pay. You need him more than anyone else does.

10. SS goes Erick Aybar, Theriot or Alcides Escobar. Alcides is starting to get more press, and his position in the line up is not well established so he is probably overpriced. Aybar and Theriot are basically interchangeable to me.

11. CI goes to Martin Prado, no one is going to want him more than you do, and he’s usually very cheap. He qualifies at 1B, 2B, and 3B.

12. MI goes to Polanco, again, you want him more than anyone else. Within a week he will be eligible at 3B as well.

13. I’ve already told you what to do with your OF.

14. Catcher is Montero, you can’t afford one of the very top catchers, but you also want someone who is not going to kill your BA. So this is who you want. If he gets too expensive, just settle for Suzuki to get a few SB.

15. U whomever is cheap out of the OF, Aybar, Theriot, and Escobar.

16. For starting pitching don’t take Lincecum, I think he usually goes for too much. Make sure to throw out pitchers you don’t want to soak up some pitching money. Beckett and Hamels are underrated this year, I love them.

17. For closers, you want middle tier closers who are entrenched, not much of an injury risk, and who put up reliable numbers. Here are those that I target: Valverde, Wilson, Qualls (slight knee concerns), Street, Dotel (for a cheap one). I’ve often run the table on these guys and other than Dotel, the prices is usually around $7-11 each and you can get the whole bunch for around $40. Which, if you spend $130 on hitting will leave you $90 to spend on starting pitching.

Well, there you go, that’s my view of this strategy.