The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational for 2021 was the largest competition yet, with 29 leagues (15 teams per league) and 435 participants within the fantasy baseball industry led by Justin Mason. It’s a standard 5×5 rotisserie league format where fantasy managers start 23 players (14 hitters, nine pitchers) out of a 30-man roster. FantasyPros asked experts about their roster construction and strategy to those who participated in the 2021 TGFBI leagues. All rosters can be found at The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational’s Twitter, @TGFBI.
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Brad Camara — TGFBI League 27, Team 2
It was my first TGFBI debut and I ended up drawing the second overall pick in the draft. My strategy from the second spot was to select a top hitter and take the best two available pitchers in the next two rounds. Starting pitching, saves, and stolen bases are at a premium, and I wanted to walk away from the draft addressing these categories early on. I ended up selecting Ronald Acuna, Jack Flaherty, Clayton Kershaw, Josh Hader, and Cavan Biggio with my first five picks. In a 15-team deep-league format, fantasy managers should consider these scarce categories when building their teams.
Drafted Aaron Hicks. Great value in round 16 of @TGFBI expected hit third in the Yankees lineup pic.twitter.com/tz6TLc1Tw3
— Beerad30 (@Beerad30) March 5, 2021
As you can see on my roster, I drafted players with extra positional eligibility (Garrett Hampson, Biggio, Kevin Newman), upside, and potential bounce-back candidates. I am not only trying to win the league but win the overall contest, as well. When building the roster, my goal in a 15-teamer was to reach a certain target (935 HRs) for each category and select players that would help me obtain those goals. With having an overall included in this type of league format, fantasy managers can’t punt a single category. That’s why reaching those targets for each category is so important during roster construction. Overall, I felt like my team has good balance and plenty of upside, which is what I was aiming for in this type of format.
Corbin Young — TGFBI League 6, Team 10
My pre-draft strategy for my first ever TGFBI included three high-end starting pitchers early within the first 5-6 rounds paired with two hitters that provide speed. I hoped for Trevor Story or Jose Ramirez at pick ten and ended up with Ramirez. Then I sprinkled in Luis Castillo, Lance Lynn, Kyle Hendricks, and Starling Marte in the first five rounds. I’m fine with grabbing starting pitchers earlier because I find a bunch of hitters I love from rounds six and beyond.
Given the shaky closer landscape, I wanted to land one of Ryan Pressly or Raisel Iglesias since I tend to miss out or pass on Aroldis Chapman and Liam Hendriks. For hitters, I focused on playing time and avoiding injured players if possible. I planned to take Christian Vazquez, who I love as my first catcher with a handful of steals. However, I ended up waiting and taking Buster Posey as my C1. I regretted missing on my second closer targets of Rafael Montero and Richard Rodriguez. That said, I ended up speculating with guys like Diego Castillo, who I think will give me wins, saves, and strikeouts. Then, I also nabbed Jordan Romano and Jake Diekman in hopes of some saves or I’ll cut and cycle through.
My general arc in my drafts involves starting pitchers early, hammer bats with a closer and an SP4 in the middle, then find a ton of SP5/6 with boring bats later in drafts. At a certain point, I realized the need to grab my guys and not expect someone to be there later with the number of sharp minds in the draft.
Lucas Spence — TGFBI League 22, Team 3
The first two things that stood out to me early on in the TGFBI draft are that 1) there is certainly a premium in the early rounds in regards to starting pitchers, and 2) the relief pitcher market feels like a complete wasteland to me, clouded with a ton of uncertainty. I elected to forego relievers in the early part of the draft and stack my offense. After snagging Tatis, Jr. with the third overall pick, I knew I would need one, if not two, starting pitchers with my next two picks. After missing out on Flaherty by one spot, I went ahead and grabbed Scherzer and then was very tempted to take Blake Snell with my next pick, and in hindsight probably should have. With that said, I’m very high on Devers this year and wanted him on my team.
I then realized that the early run on staring pitchers left a bunch of premium bats on the board, so regardless of lineup needs (which explains why I drafted three third-basemen), I just kept grabbing guys that I really like this season (Abreu, Moncada, Castellanos, K Bryant, I Happ, Winker) to fill my offense while strategically picking my spots and grabbing SPs that I think will pile up wins on contending teams with solid ratios and strikeouts this season (Ian Anderson, Corbin, Kluber). There is always a premium on the catcher position in two-catcher formats, but much like closers this season, I find the catcher crop overall underwhelming. I grabbed Gary Sanchez in hopes of a bounce-back season just to have some power at an otherwise shallow position and then threw a dart at Francisco Mejia near the end of the draft, given how much Mike Zunino has struggled of late.
Since I did not partake in the early run on SPs, I targeted pitchers later that I feel could have breakout seasons (Ohtani, Montgomery) while later on stashing injured starters Nate Pearson and Luis Severino for later in the season if I can weather the storm early. I then addressed saves in the later rounds by taking a chance on two guys who have proven in the past that they can be top-10 fantasy closers (Neris and Leclerc) if they can secure the ninth-inning gig for their clubs, as well as taking a flier on Lucas Sims (if Amir Garrett fails to run away as the Reds stopper), Gregory Soto (the best reliever in Detroit), and Roberto Osuna (depending on if and where he signs). There are so many unsettled bullpen situations that I feel you can grab relievers late if you are confident that your guys will secure the closer role, but it’s admittedly a crapshoot, so I understand the thought-process for grabbing a premium closer early in the draft.
Having accumulated plenty of power in my lineup, I made sure to grab a high batting average player (David Fletcher) and a steals specialist (Hampson) to attempt to balance out the rest of my offense. Overall, my offense should produce – my season will be completely dependent on the health and consistency of my starting pitchers, as well as my ability to guess right and identify some late-round closers to accumulate some saves.
Carmen Maiorano — TGFBI League 6, Team 1
The first lesson here is to make sure that you set your KDS according to your preferences. In full transparency, I neglected KDS and naturally ended up with the first overall pick. If I could have a do-over, I would have tried to get in the middle of the draft, given that I think the early part of drafts are deep, and I wouldn’t miss the pitcher run in the second round. In hindsight, however, I am glad that I was on the turn, as that allowed me to draft perceived value, and not worry about who might come back to me in the next several picks. This strategy was first evidence when Zach Plesac and Dylan Bundy fell to me at SP3 and SP4. Some fantasy managers target those pitchers as their SP2, so I felt like I had pitching covered off after my first four selections. The rest of my hitting strategy entailed targeting veteran innings-eaters, since I’m a firm believer that innings will be significantly down across the board this year. Targeting pitchers who induce weak contact (such as Brad Keller and Zach Davies) who have a history of pitching 160+ innings should result in keeping my ratios intact while piling up strikeouts and wins.
On the hitter side, I wanted to make sure I grabbed a share of a 5-category contributor with a very high floor, which is why I went with Betts. After building my hitter foundation, I realized that I was low on steals, which made Garrett Hampson an easy pick in the 15th round. I think this year is finally the year for him, and I love his 2B/OF eligibility. Finally, I targeted less-heralded guys like the Adam’s (Eaton and Frazier) who could see plenty of at-bats near the top of the lineup. I stayed away from uncertainty, which may result in me missing on upside, but in a year with added uncertainty, I felt like I wanted to lock in plate appearances and innings pitched. Finally, I plan on using FAAB to target a third reliever. With Chapman and Holland, I should have enough of a foundation in saves to not have to chase them all year on the waiver wire.
Mike Maher — TGFBI League 28, Team 10
I ended up with the 10th pick in my TGFBI league and went with Christian Yelich at 1.10 and Bo Bichette on the way back. Jacob deGrom, Gerrit Cole, and Shane Bieber went 7, 8, and 9 right before me, otherwise I probably would have one with one of those top three pitchers with my pick. On the way back, I opted to pair Bichette with Yelich instead of going with a starting pitcher because I don’t like to sell out or overpay for speed in these drafts. If I can grab a few players like Yelich and Bichette who will contribute across the board AND steal a few bags, I’ll sign up for that every time. Two of my next three picks ended up being pitchers as I went with Blake Snell, Rafael Devers, and Stephen Strasburg.
The theme of my draft ended up being a bunch of buy-lows, though that wasn’t necessarily my strategy coming in. But look at these names and prices: Stephen Strasburg (5th), Keston Hiura (6th), Patrick Corbin (9th), Giancarlo Stanton (10th!!!), Trey Mancini (11th), Eduardo Rodriguez (13th). I even snagged Jake Odorizzi in the 18th round shortly before he signed with the Astros. Is there some risk there? Absolutely. But if even 75% of those players bounce back into what we know they can be, I’m going to be in the thick of this race.
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Brad Camara is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Brad, check out his archive and follow him @Beerad30.
