Draft Retrospective: 2020 RazzSlam (15th Place of 216)

Often, when an analyst reviews his or her draft, it is typically ahead of the season about to be played. That makes sense! We are planning for 2021, not 2020. It might behoove us, however, to review how drafts actually went. I’m guilty of doing the former and not the latter! With the dawn of the second annual Razzball RazzSlam best ball tournament upon us, I figured now is as good a time as any to rectify this.

Last year, I entered the inaugural RazzSlam having played, and subsequently bombed, in a couple of best ball drafts on Fantrax. I wanted to dip my toe in, get my feet wet, and other joint-aquatic/podiatric idioms, so I entered a couple of low-stakes leagues, figuring I could wing it. As foreshadowed, I fared poorly. I, in fact, could not wing it.

Having failed somewhat spectacularly for a guy who fancies himself at least somewhat knowledgeable and/or adept at fantasy baseball, I wanted to right my wrong by taking my preparation for RazzSlam seriously. I finished 15th out of 216 participants (18 leagues of 12 teams each), somehow not winning my league but ending up one of the highest 2nd-place finishers above some league winners. I’m proud! Because I expected another unmitigated disaster.

Hence, I figure it might be worth reviewing, with hindsight, one of my rare successful drafts. We played out the season already, so instead of trying to outline tips and tricks up front, it might be easiest to simply show you the draft results, each player’s stats, and the clear takeaways from my strategy — some intentional, some not.

Before we start: it’s worth noting that the grand totals above are not actually what my team compiled. Because of free agent auction budget (FAAB) bidding periods, my roster experienced some churn, however minimal it may have been. My success hinged on a solid draft but also making supposedly smart midseason acquisitions. I can confirm I did not necessarily do the latter, as you’ll see soon.

Observations and Takeaways

I succeeded despite effectively taking a zero from my 2nd-round pick. I don’t want to think about which other ace I could have drafted instead of Verlander that could have put me over the top, not just in my league but possibly overall. But, more importantly: no excuses! You can succeed despite early adversity.

I targeted pitching early. In a standard 5-by-5 rotisserie (roto) league, I wouldn’t be caught dead drafting my sixth starter in the 15th round. But in a format like the National Fantasy Baseball Championship’s (NFBC) best ball, pitching, especially good pitching, takes on greater value. It helps that I spiked a bunch of pitchers who performed exceptionally well — but it’s not like I got lucky, either, picking players I had already really liked, especially so at their average draft positions (ADPs).

That doesn’t mean you have to target pitching early. If you can find an ace outside the top-200, all the power to you. But good pitchers play up in this format. I picked my spots, taking Darvish, Lynn, and Maeda near ADP, but also reaching 40 and 25 picks, respectively, for Ryu and Hendricks. “Get your guys,” they say.

Speaking of ADP…

If you’re playing in RazzSlam, ADP will be weird. As I write this, only 62 NFBC best ball leagues have been drafted since the start of October, only 45 since the start of February. It’s not exactly a large sample. Moreover, the NFBC Best Ball Cutline Championship is a 10-team format; RazzSlam is 12-team. Not to make grandiose claims, but I bet a solid fraction of your draft room (whether or not your draft room is specifically part of RazzSlam or just any other best ball format) will also be mentally operating under the assumptions and parameters of a standard roto league. Don’t fall into that trap yourself!

Anyway, I also prioritized power (in addition to ace-caliber pitching). In points leagues, I typically prioritize hitters who minimize their strikeouts minus walks, thus racking up hits and setting a high floor, albeit possibly with a low ceiling. Again, in standard roto, I wouldn’t have been caught dead drafting Donaldson in the 7th round, Schwarber in 9th, or Encarnación in the 12th. But in this format, I prioritized them, for better or for worse.

Someone like Betts provides the best of both worlds — above-average power, elite plate discipline and hit tool — which makes him an ideal first-rounder. But someone like Fletcher (whom I did draft), despite having the makings to vy perennially for the batting title, does not have the weekly upside of a power hitter. Best ball optimizes your lineup for you, so if a power hitter goes off, you bank that! And if he slumps you can fall back on someone like Fletcher to provide that high floor in the event that [power hitter] misses his higher ceiling and falls flat on his low floor. (Schwarber and Encarnación, both of whom compiled double-digit homers but also sub-.200 batting averages, capture this idea perfectly.)

I wasted a lot of picks but still achieved impressive results. I wish I could say my draft “fired on all cylinders,” but you can see that, truthfully, it did nothing of the sort. The aforementioned power trio of Donaldson, Schwarber, and Encarnación were all quite lackluster. Murphy, my power-hitting catcher, didn’t even play. Many players in the back half of my draft — Kela, Maybin, Rojas, Allen, Pruitt, Cron — played barely or not at all. Which is all to say: your draft doesn’t need to be perfect — just good enough. It just needs to be better than everyone else’s in the room (with the exception of the scarce few transactions you’ll make at the midpoint FAAB periods).

I did not target saves. I wanted to grab at least one closer — that would’ve been Kela if he had not gotten injured. Ultimately, I ended up with only seven saves. One could argue that prevented me from performing better; I might argue that it helped me not perform worse. I’m not sure how other top-performing teams structured their bullpens, but I opted to grab many setup men with chances to earn saves but otherwise would earn holds and provide solid ratios. Smith, Keller, Watson, and Castillo did just that. Mostly, my starting pitching, supplemented by prudent late-round grabs of Hill and Dobnak, carried me.

I made a point of grabbing hitters eligible at multiple positions; I did my best to highlight these players above, but I may missed some, too (for example, Vazquez might have been C/1B, and Urshela might have been eligible at multiple infield positions). I didn’t ever check on my weekly optimized lineups, but I imagine that, if I had, I would’ve seen my multi-position hitters showing up in several different spots throughout the season. That flexibility helps!

I made my prospect pick(s) count. Again, perhaps obvious and universal advice. But some folks might fancy picking top prospects who may not debut until June or even September. In RazzSlam, you’ll have two FAAB bidding periods to grab those guys if you’d like. For me, I drafted just one true prospect: Bohm, who I perceived to be (1) on the cusp of debuting and (2) close to being big-league ready. He proved me right on both counts; my one huge mistake was dropping him on the first FAAB period to shore up my clearly lacking bullpen. He debuted within a week and went HAM the rest of the way.

I guess another way of looking at this is I relied heavily on underappreciated talent that was guaranteed at least a lion’s share of playing time. Instead of loading up on prospects late, I grabbed the likes of Grisham(!), Pollock, Cabrera, Alberto, and Dobnak all outside the top-300. They provided me much-needed reps when many of my early picks faltered.

Ultimately, I made a lot of mistakes — but I made many shrewd acquisitions elsewhere in-draft to recover from them.

Did you actually learn anything from this?

I’m not sure! Hopefully yes. At the very least, it jogged my memory about my strategy going in and the ways in which it succeeded and faltered — with an emphasis on faltered. It faltered a lot! And yet my roster persevered. I think that’s a great takeaway, one I’ll repeat: you draft doesn’t have to be perfect, just better than everyone else’s.

But, to reiterate another point, I’m not convinced the strategy I outlined here is necessarily optimal, especially seeing in hindsight all the draft junctures where I could have made better decisions. In fact, I know that smashing starting pitchers early is not the only way to win because Mike Petrop, the guy who squeaked out the victory in our league, didn’t take his first starter until the 9th round:

Alex and I went down to the WIRE last season. Just edged him out in our league ending 12th overall. Had a blast. All about late round picks! (Also didn’t take my first SP til round 9)

Swanson R17
Musgrove R18
Tucker R19
Verdugo R21
Alcantara R24
Davies R34
Keller R38 https://t.co/XMCbLEj1bt

— Mike Petrop (@BRotoFFMike) March 8, 2021

Derek Rhoads, now of Baseball Prospectus, has spent much of the last couple of years playing in tons of best ball leagues and analyzing the living heck out of the data he compiled from them. If best ball leagues are your cup of tea, Rhoads is a must-follow.

I feel like this is the kind of post that makes for great Q&A fodder, so let me know if you have questions or insights and let’s start a dialogue! Or not, I’m not your dad.