What Worked This Season

It was a disappointing end to the 2022 season for me as I wrote up in my “What Missed” article. Stepping back, I shouldn’t be complaining with my first five-figure season (over 200% ROI), winning my LABR and TGFBI leagues, and almost the TGFBI overall (screw second). Here are a few things that did work.

Picking a Lane

On July 3rd, Fred Zinkie and I had 19 pitching points (75 possible) in our NFBC Super.

How we got to that point was a combination of bad choices and injuries. While making sure we met the minimum innings threshold, we had to focus on securing the ratios (and Saves) or stream for Wins and Strikeouts. We went heavy relievers and ended up with 43 pitching points.

While it wasn’t enough points to win the league, we ended up in second place.

Streaming Hitters for the Whole Season

One focus of The Process is to treat the game as a weekly contest. This is especially true for maximizing at-bats every week to get the counting stats. As a showed in the Missed article, I was able to get a decent number of Runs and RBI with just average home run totals.

Stat: Overall Rank

• Runs: 76%
• HR: 54%
• RBI: 77%
• SB: 70%
• AVG: 80%

In my second-place TGFBI team, I lead the entire contest in at-bats. It wasn’t just me performing well while leading with at-bats. All the top-10 teams in at-bats finished in the top-100 (three in the top 4).

With everything that could go wrong with a league, any team should be able to grind out decent Runs and RBI totals.

Spend Offseason Time Focusing on Starters After 300 ADP

The talent, upside, and role of these late starters can make or break a team. Being able to add the likes of Nestor Cortes, Kyle Wright, or Tyler Anderson late in a draft can make up for earlier misses.

My biggest recommendation when targeting late starters is to completely ignore ERA and look at the pitcher’s talent. Here are some pitchers with their 2021 ERA.

Starter: 2021 ERA

• Kyle Wright: 9.95
• Tyler Anderson: 4.53
• Miles Mikolas: 4.23
• Merrill Kelly 켈리: 4.44
• Brady Singer: 4.91
• Martin Perez: 4.74
• Michael Wacha: 5.05
• Andrew Heaney: 5.83
• Edward Cabrera: 5.81
• Taijuan Walker: 4.47
• José Quintana: 4.47

All those starts had an ADP over 300 but provided at least $4 of production according to our auction calculator.

Waiting on Saves and Steals

With my TGFBI team, I took Scott Barlow in the 10th round as my first closer and a few late darts who missed (Michael Fulmer, Andrew Kittredge, and Ryan Tepera). While I needed to grind for Saves, it did allow the rest of my team to shove.

Every dominant team I’ve ever managed had one or more deficiencies to start the season and took steps to address the problems with in-season management. One NFBC Online Championship team that I managed to a 13th overall finish was way in steals. A boost from Jon Berti shot it up the standings (180 overall points in week nine, 2124 points by the season’s season’s end)

There is nothing wrong with being behind on draft day in these two categories because they are the ones that can be made up with just a player or two.

Saving Some FAAB for the Last Month

I can’t overstress keeping around $40 to $50 of FAAB for the season’s final month ($10 for each week). Some fantasy players and/or analyst push for having over $100 or more for those last few weeks. That total amount is a huge waste of resources in my opinion. Getting players who can help for the entire season should be a priority. I’m just advocating for 4% to 5% of the total $1000 FAAB budget to make some focused late-season additions. In $100 FAAB leagues with no $0 bids, the total might need to be $10. This total is not so much for breakout players but for being able to churn a roster ensure no dead spots.

During the last month, a team’s needs are obvious (e.g. behind in Saves) and their FAAB can be focused. I stress at least $10 per period because for the following two reasons:

1. At the season’s end, players get shut down and replacements need to be rostered. Just having a few surplus dollars to fill voids is huge.
2. Many fantasy managers will be making just $1 bids at the end and it’s nice to go to $2 on the better players, especially if a team doesn’t have the tie-breaker (i.e. higher in the standings).

The following table shows how I was able to move up in three overall contests where the other top teams were still competing to get a nice overall finish (more money).

Late-Season Push