Fantasy baseball is all about value. Usually, in a rotisserie or head-to-head categories league, most people are looking to build a balanced roster. You tend to spread auction money and draft picks on different types of players to make sure you acquire enough of each of the category’s statistics to be competitive in every category.
Now with the addition of overall contests in which you must draft a balanced roster to be competitive overall, the focus of the industry has been on balanced drafting. In your average 12-team 5×5 league, the winner (on average) usually accumulates 100 total roto points. This would mean that to win you would be targeting third place in each of the 10 categories if you employed a balanced approach. However, when you punt a category, it can throw off the balance for the entire league, which gives you the advantage. Let’s take a closer look at the fantasy baseball draft strategy, punting categories in order to win.
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Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: Punting to Win
The premise is simple: If you ignore one category during your draft and auction you can load up on the others. Instead of attempting to finish third in 10 categories, you are looking to get first or second in nine and the one point for last in the punted category. The strategy allows you to load up in the other categories without chasing another statistic.
This is a strategy that has a bit more risk as you need to nail the other categories, but if done correctly, punting can be a strategy that allows you to simplify your draft targets by eliminating one (or more) of the categories from your equations while throwing off the values of players for the other members of your league.
Punting Saves
We all know the variance in saves from year to year. Closers are traditionally the most volatile position in fantasy baseball. It is estimated that in any given season about 40-50% of Opening Day closers lose their jobs. Punting saves allows you to put money in other places in your pitching staff and offense. You do not want to ignore relievers because they can fall into closing roles or at least help keep your ratios down but stay away from the expensive established guys.
Saves often become available in 10- and 12-team leagues, though last season it was not as easy as it had been in the past. Whether it is because of guys losing jobs or because there is always a team in every league that drafts too many closers, saves are usually easier to acquire after the draft. To be transparent, I am not the biggest fan of this strategy in 12-team or deeper leagues.
Punting Stolen Bases
With the rule changes in baseball, stolen bases have become a lot more plentiful. In 2022, there were 5,215 stolen bases in Major League Baseball. Last season, there were 5,944, which is a massive increase. This means they are much easier to find on the waiver wire and you don’t have to necessarily punt them completely if you punt them at the draft table, especially in shallower formats.
Brice Turang, Jacob Young and Brenton Doyle were widely available off the waiver wire in 10- and 12-team leagues. The nice thing about punting stolen bases is that the category is not necessarily connected to another category in the way that home runs are connected to RBI.
Punting Average
Just like saves, batting average has a ton of variance from year to year. Some players have a pretty consistent average year-to-year, but that is less common than players whose batting average varies. For instance, Matt Olson‘s batting averages in the last five seasons have been .247, .283, .240, .271 and .195. Good luck trying to project his average for this year correctly.
Punting batting average takes that variance out of the equation. In this process, you devalue batting average in your ranks or values. The plan is not to finish last, but load up on the other categories while hopefully allowing the variance in batting average on balls in play (BABIP) or other factors to do enough for your average that you place somewhere in the middle third of the batting average category.
This is my favorite category to punt for a couple of reasons. First, as mentioned above, there is just a ton of variance in the category. Second, batting average is hard to find late and usually comes at a cost to your other categories. You might be able to find Luis Arraez late, but he doesn’t provide help anywhere else. Warning: I do not recommend punting on-base percentage (OBP) because it can be hard to compete in runs-on-base percentage as they are often tied together.
Punting Wins
Wins is a category I have punted in the past because they are so hard to predict. However, it comes with its own set of issues as wins are often a category that you can attempt to make big pushes in through streaming and often the guys who you try to trade for that are good for wins are very expensive. It can be done but it is my least favorite of the ones I will try.
The Double Punt
The idea is simple. Punt two categories that do not correlate (i.e. batting average and saves.) This allows you to stock up in the other categories and either allows you to later trade for them or allows the variance of ratios to work themselves out, hopefully, in a favorable way. You can also punt related categories (i.e. home runs and RBI or ERA and WHIP), though this is much more risky as usually these categories are also connected to the remaining ones.
While I have used this strategy with success in a few different formats, it is hard to employ. I reserve it most for head-to-head leagues or in keeper leagues, a particular category is already being kept by your competitors.
Punting has become a less popular strategy over the last few years, however, with the changing of rules in 2023 and the industry’s focus on balanced rosters that relate to overall contests punting can be an unexpected and fun way to throw off your competition and win your league.
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