Baseball Draft Kit: Lessons from 10 Years in the NFBC

The National Fantasy Baseball Championship ("NFBC") is a high-stakes national competition that I consider the best fantasy baseball contest in the business. The NFBC has leagues at many price points, but the two most popular contests are the 15-team league Main Event and the 12-team league RotoWire Online Championship. Both of these contests reward teams for winning their respective league, but also feature an overall competition with the champion winning $125,000 (Main Event) and $100,000 (Online Championship). Drafts are held online and live and I can't recommend the live events highly enough. For all the details on prizes and the numerous contests available, head to nfbc.stats.com.

Last year was my 10th season playing in the NFBC and it has exponentially increased how much I enjoy fantasy baseball. I play in some other leagues, but the majority of my time and energy is dedicated to my teams in this contest. I have had some great seasons, a couple bad ones and a few middling ones, but no matter how I finish, I find myself always learning something, so I thought I would share some lessons I have learned to hopefully help you succeed in the NFBC.

Don't Draft Hyped Minor League Pitchers

There is no one way to draft and while there are always outliers and exceptions to every rule, I am a big believer in this lesson. With only seven bench spots in the NFBC, it is extremely difficult to fill one of those spots on a pitcher who starts the year in the minors. While you may have a guess regarding a timetable, there is no way to know exactly when a team will call a pitcher up and until they do, it's just a dead roster spot. Further, there is a strong likelihood that the wait, however long, will not be worth it once your pitcher does get the call.

Looking at 2016, the three most hyped rookie pitchers slated to start the year in the minors were Jose Berrios (ADP 277), Lucas Giolito (ADP 292) and Tyler Glasnow (ADP 299). Not only were all three worthless on your bench while you waited for their callup, but they then proceeded to crush ratios, followed by getting hurt or getting sent back to the minors. Using a top-20 round pick on this type of player is just too risky and comes at a time in the draft where you are passing up valuable players. If you want to use a late pick on a rookie; that is fine as there is then little damage to drop them early on if needed. The only rookie pitcher (I don't count Kenta Maeda) who significantly helped teams last year was Michael Fulmer, who was on zero draft radars in March and was added through the Free Agency Acquisition Budget ("FAAB") in every Main Event league.

There is No One Way to Draft Saves

There is no trading in the NFBC which affects the drafting of closers dramatically since you cannot just plan to trade for saves as needed. In order to compete overall, you cannot tank a category like you can in a standalone league. The overall winner in 2014 only used one closer for most of the season, but also nailed every other category to a degree likely never replicated. I go into the season with a goal to be in the 80th percentile overall in saves. Last year that number was about 90 saves so I will use that as my ballpark target heading into this season.

A common mantra in many pre-season expert columns is "don't pay for saves," but in a league with an overall component and no trading, at some point you will have to. Saves do always come into the league via free agency, but in a 15-team league, many of the skilled setup guys will be already on a roster and every reliever within a sniff of a closer's job will get bid up heavily in FAAB. So while grabbing the next Edwin Diaz is fantastic in theory, many teams find themselves chasing saves and overspending in free agency all season long.

My usual strategy with closers is to typically avoid paying for an elite guy (I usually just like other players in round four or five when they go off the board), but to try and secure two closers that I consider top-15 options who are safely settled into their ninth-inning role. One item to note on the top-end closers is that they aren't just providing saves for your team; their elite ratios and big strikeout numbers make a significant impact in those categories as well. Saves can be tricky at the draft table as closer runs can dry up the closer pool rapidly. Every league is different, but I keep a very close eye on the closer market once the sixth round starts and make sure to not end up with a poor second closer as I have in the past. I also like to draft a third reliever in rounds 20-22; someone with good skills who I think is in a situation where the incumbent could lose his grip on the job fairly early in the season. There is no blueprint for drafting saves, but in a 15-team league like the Main Event, make sure you have a plan going in, but also be flexible and willing to adapt to your specific draft.

Improve Your Strengths Too

This is the single biggest lesson that I have learned during the last two seasons. In 2016, I started red hot with my pitching staff over the first two months. During that stretch, I got a false sense of the depth (and talent) of my pitching staff as I was cruising using the same seven starters each week. I focused all my FAAB dollars and researching energy on hitters and did not work hard enough to identify potential solid arms that could help me later in the season. As my pitching staff inevitably suffered injuries and performance slippage, I found myself suddenly very thin on starters and had to grab shaky pitchers every week. My ERA was among the best in the entire contest at 3.06 after nine weeks, but went into a free fall, ending the season at 3.76. The MLB season is long; never assume you won't need depth (especially on the pitching side) and work on your entire roster, even your areas of strength.

Save $75 of FAAB for September

There are many ways to spend your $1000 of FAAB, but most people agree that you want to acquire contributing free agents early in the season in order to get the most impact from them. I agree with that, but I tend to play it by feel early in the season depending on my team's needs and what talent comes up on the waiver wire rather than forcing something early in the season. While I tend to not be the person who bids $600 on someone early in the year, I have seen that strategy work many times, but you have to hit on the right guy you spend it on. However you spend your money during the year, whether it be a lot on a couple guys or a lot of $30-40 bids, I am a firm believer that however you get there, you should have approximately $75 for the four FAAB periods in September.

I learned this lesson in the 2016 season and it likely cost me my Main Event league as I was repeatedly outbid on the starting pitching I needed down the stretch and ended up stuck with my fourth of fifth choice every bidding period. You are going to need to focus on some stat categories in September and with late season callups, jobs tend to open up and opportunities are there for playing time and stats. With $75, you have a shot to be competitive and potentially control the endgame. Further, in September, if you have regulars that are not in the playoff mix, they are more likely to rest or sit longer than usual for a minor injury. You need to be able to react and adapt in the last month and I firmly believe that becomes a lot easier to do with some FAAB to play with.

Grind All Year

In order to win a league or compete overall against the competitive players in the NFBC, you need to focus on every roster period. In the dog days of summer, it is tempting to set and forget your team, but I have now played in multiple high-stakes leagues that flipped on a few categories during the final weekend. This grind includes consistently taking advantage of the Friday hitter switches the NFBC allows in order to take advantage of platoons, matchups and venues. This focus becomes even more important starting in August when many players start to concentrate on their fantasy football drafts. Every stat period counts the same and any extra numbers you can squeeze from playing a better matchup over a weekend or finding that free agent with plus matchups in a week can mean everything in the end.

The NFBC is my absolute favorite contest in the fantasy landscape and is exceptionally well run and organized. Hopefully you will play this year and if you make it out to a live NFBC event in Las Vegas, make sure to come say hi, I will be the guy drafting Stephen Strasburg a round too early (always!).

This article appears in the 2017 RotoWire Fantasy Baseball Guide. You can order a copy here.