Baseball Draft Kit: 2019 Primer

So what sort of scoring environment are we looking at for 2019? Let's take a look at what happened last year. As I often do in this space, I'll be examining the numbers from the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) to help review the statistical categories. The NFBC Main Event is a contest comprised of 34 15-team 5x5 leagues, with the players trying to win their individual leagues as well as the overall contest. The players are selected via a snake draft instead of an auction. Typically to cash (finish in the top 3/15) in your individual league, you have to average hitting the 70th percentile in each category, and the 80th percentile (82nd in 2018) to cash (finish 14th or higher) in the overall.

Last year's overarching theme heading into our drafts was the explosion of power in the game. 2017 was a record-setting year -- there were 6,105 homers across all teams, good for an average of 1.256 homers per game. To hit our 70th and 80th percentile targets, we needed 321 and 328 homers on our fantasy team, respectively. In 2018, those numbers declined. There were 5,585 total homers (1.148/game), resulting in lower percentile targets for our fantasy teams in the 15-team format of 286 and 293, respectively. Those put us closer to 2016 in the home run environment:

Not only did the total homers decline, but our ability to add home runs from the waiver wire or deep in the player pool also suffered. In 2017, there were 37 players who hit 30 or more homers. Five of the top 11 mashers came outside Pick 300 in the NFBC. Last year, there were only 26 hitters to reach the 30-homer plateau, and only three of those could be considered "free loot" -- Jesus Aguilar (Average Draft Position [ADP]: 507), Max Muncy (who went entirely undrafted in the Main Event!) and C.J. Cron (ADP: 400). You still needed to average 20.4 homers per active hitter spot on your roster to hit your 70th percentile goal, but that was down from 23.0.

Drafts are a series of choices and trade-offs. If you want to add J.D. Martinez instead of Jose Ramirez, realize that you are sacrificing some stolen bases to attack home runs and RBI. At some point you have to catch up to your targets in subsequent rounds, or else alter your strategy to account for the missing commodity. Thus, home runs and stolen bases often intersect in our decision-making process, given the different skills needed to acquire each. Ideally you can find a player that does both, but those are becoming increasingly rare.

Stolen bases as a whole declined in Major League Baseball once again, from 2,527 (0.52 per game) to 2,474 (0.51/game). We were on a much slower stolen-base pace in mid-August, averaging just 0.49 steals per game. Our targets accordingly dropped -- the 80th percentile mark went from 142 in 2017 down to 136 in 2018. The leaders from 2017, Dee Gordon and Billy Hamilton, also declined -- Gordon from 60 down to 30, and Hamilton from 59 to 34. Our new leader, Whit Merrifield, had 45 stolen bases. With the ever-declining number of pure stolen-base players and the declining output of those guys, it's become even more vital to find players that combine power and speed, and chances are you'll have to find most of these players earlier in the draft. Like last year, let's identify three different categories -- 20-20 players, 30-10 players and 10-30 players -- using 2018 stats.

20-20 BATTERS
Jose Ramirez (39-34)
Starling Marte (20-33)
Mookie Betts (32-30)
Trevor Story (37-27)
Tim Anderson (20-26)
Francisco Lindor (38-25)
Mike Trout (39-24)
Christian Yelich (36-22)
Javier Baez (34-21)
Ian Desmond (22-20)

30-10 BATTERS
(EXCLUDING 20-20 BATTERS FROM ABOVE)
Bryce Harper (34-13)
Alex Bregman (31-10)

10-30 BATTERS
Whit Merrifield (12-45)
Trea Turner (19-43)
Adalberto Mondesi (14-32)
Lorenzo Cain (10-30)

Take a good look at the list of those players. Sixteen players overall, and only two of them are going outside the top 100 in drafts, Anderson and Desmond, and only one more, Cain, is between 50-100. In the past we've established that pure stolen-base players are risky investments, and that's at the top with the likes of Gordon and Hamilton. It gets even dicier as we go down the ladder. Witness what happened with Delino DeShields Jr. last year -- as speed got pushed up late in draft season, DeShields started regularly going in the first 10 rounds of the Main Event, earlier than 150 overall. DeShields slumped at the plate, hitting just .216 with 20 stolen bases, scoring just 52 runs while hitting only two homers. It was a colossal loss to take him there. That reinforces a great point -- as a player becomes more reliant on his speed and not his bat for playing time, that playing time becomes more volatile. Jarrod Dyson used to be our perfect illustration of this point. By having him in your active roster, you ran the risk of him not playing at all, let alone suffering the consequences of him not providing help in any other categories. Just look at some of the 20-plus stolen base players from last year and try to estimate how much they'll play this year -- Michael Taylor, Travis Jankowski, Greg Allen, Rajai Davis and DeShields all are at risk of being part-timers. Don't get caught trying to get your steals late.

Saves are nearly the pitching equivalent to stolen bases, at least for our purposes in fantasy leagues. Except that they are even more specialized. Only one pitcher on a team can earn a save on a given day, and because they throw fewer innings than starting pitchers, they help less with strikeouts and ratios, though as starting pitchers continue to throw fewer innings than ever, the top relievers are starting to make a bigger impact there.

For the second year in a row, it took fewer saves to reach the 70th and 80th percentiles in the NFBC than it had the previous five years. Our save targets from 2012-2016 had been incredibly stable, with us needing about 82 and 88 saves, respectively, to hit those marks. In 2017 those targets dropped to 74 for the 70th percentile and 80 for the 80th. Last year was more of the same, finishing at 73 and 79 for each mark.

This happened despite the total number of saves in baseball rising from 1,179 to 1,244. Are we just worse as a collective whole in identifying closers, or has bullpen management started to change, making it more difficult to capture those saves? One could look at the Astros, Brewers and Phillies as three examples where chasing saves became a frustrating exercise for fantasy owners. Another explanation could be the stratification in the modern game -- often the closers on the extreme losing teams aren't used as often in fantasy owners' lineups, due to a lack of opportunities.

I think it makes sense to sacrifice drafting a top-tier closer, at least in the NFBC, where there are no trades. If we can't pass up the HR/SB combo hitters, that means we need to chase a little extra power in subsequent rounds of the draft, all while still getting our badly needed starting pitching. I've frequently drafted two closers among my top 10 picks in the pursuit of security, and I think it's time to re-think that strategy. Looking at the top-20 teams in last year's Main Event, none of them spent an early pick on the top closer in the draft, Kenley Jansen, and only one drafted the second-highest closer, Craig Kimbrel. Oddly enough, only one had last year's runaway top reliever, Edwin Diaz. The most commonly owned closers from that group? Blake Treinen and Bud Norris, with five owners apiece. The next most commonly owned closers from the top 20 teams were Brad Hand, Shane Greene, Brad Boxberger and Fernando Rodney, at three teams apiece. You can't entirely punt the category, but think really hard about the opportunity costs from taking that early closer.

Instead of an early closer, use that spot to get another top-tier starting pitcher. You have to go get those strikeouts, in every league context, not just the NFBC. In 2018 there were 41,207 total strikeouts across baseball, up from 40,104 in 2017 and 38,982 in 2016. As a rate stat, it's gone from 7.98 strikeouts per nine innings in 2016, 8.34 in 2017 and 8.52 last year. You needed 1,401 strikeouts to hit the 70th percentile and 1,443 Ks to hit the 80th percentile. That translates into 156 per active pitcher slot, just to hit the 70th percentile! That makes it really difficult to hit the mark if you're using three closers in a given week, and given that our targets are lower in saves anyhow, it's less necessary to chase those saves.

You're better off chasing those strikeouts (and wins) at the top of the starting pitching pool, where there's a lot less volatility in the pitcher's ERA and WHIP, and a lot more job security than at the bottom of the pool. In many years I've started the first 10 rounds off with two starters and two closers, and I think I want to instead have at least three starters in the first 10 rounds now, perhaps even four with one closer.

As you devise your draft strategy, just remember that each selection made comes at the cost of another category. We try to emphasize balance on your roster, especially in big overall contests, and hopefully this will help you prioritize how to get to your desired goals. Good luck in 2019!

This article appears in the 2019 RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Guide. You can order a copy here.