Fantasy Baseball Archives | DraftBuddy.com

Fantasy Baseball Best Ball League Comparison

February 16, 2021 By Draft Buddy Leave a Comment

I am in the market for a fantasy baseball best ball league to get some practice drafting before “real” league drafts start in a few weeks. Not sure what a best ball league is? They are leagues that draft just like a normal fantasy draft. The difference is, there is no in-season management. No starting lineups, no waivers. Set it and forget it.

Advantages of Best Ball

Although best ball is not entirely, “forget it” because you can check in to track your progress. Usually, there are some small stakes on the line, too. This is advantageous over a pure mock draft with no stakes. Mock drafts provide some practice opportunity, but unless you have a solid group of mock draft participants involved, expect some bailers by the round 3-4 turn.

Drafting helps me get a good feel for when to expect players to be selected, beyond reviewing ADP data. Plus, forcing draft decisions provides a reality check to my fantasy baseball rankings. This benefit is probably solely my own, but best balls also help ongoing Draft Buddy testing.

Queue the age jokes, but I do prefer a slow draft. Monitoring a slow draft instead of blocking off three hours for a live draft works well for me for entertainment and time management. I like taking some time to think about my choices, and it helps me get notes down to write a commentary about the picks.

Finding a Best Ball League

My ideal best ball fantasy baseball league uses roto scoring, includes 12 teams, with a reasonable size starting lineup and fairly deep rosters. NFBC Main Event leagues are 15-teams, and start 23 players from a roster of 30. For best ball, slightly fewer starters and 40 rounds (at 12 teams) result in a good size player pool.

I don’t want to break the bank on best ball leagues. A modest entry fee of around $25 is good for me. With these parameters in mind, I went searching and created the following comparison chart:

Fantasy Baseball Best Ball League Comparison

	Fantrax	Best Ball 10s	RT Sports Draft Masters³
Scoring	Points	Points	Points	Roto
Teams	12	12	10	10
Lineup	22: 1 C/1B/2B/3B/SS, 5 OF, 3 UT, 9 P	12: 1 C/1B/2B/3B/SS, 2 OF, 1 UT, 4 P	16: 1 C/1B/2B/3B/SS, 3 OF, 1 UT, 7 P	24: 2 C, 1 1B/2B/3B/SS, 5 OF, 1 CI, 1 MI, 2 UT, 9 P
Roster	40	32	26	24
Draft Timer	Live or Slow: 2 hours¹	Live or Slow: 1, 2, or 4 hours	Live or Slow: 2, 4, or 8 hours	Live or Slow: 2, 4, or 8 hours
Entry	$10 and $25	$5, $10, $25, and $50	$20, $50, and higher	$20, $50, and higher
Prizes	$25 entry: $250 1^st, $25 2^ndor alternates²	$25 entry: $250 1^st, $12.50 2^ndor alternates²	$20 entry: $100 1^st, $50 2^nd	$20 entry: $100 1^st, $50 2^nd

Comparison Chart Notes

¹ The timer is not readily apparent on the game lobby main page. Click into the league and scroll down under draft to see the timer details. Although, drafts that indicate they start, “day after filling” seem to be slow drafts.

²There appear to be three payout options for each of these. Best Ball 10s identify them as Classic, Top 3, and 2X, but they are essentially the same for both – a top-heavy 1^st and 2^nd place prize structure, a more distributed top 3, or a double-up, where finishing in the top half returns an (almost) equal prize to each team.

³ RTSports Best Ball Championship is identical in format to the Draft Masters fantasy points leagues, except the payout structure. All competitors go into a large pool with overall prizes paid out $10,000 for 1^st, $5,000 for 2^nd, $2,500 for 3^rd, $1,000 for 4^th or 5^th, and $100 for 6^th through 50^th. This is offset by smaller league prizes of $60 for 1^st and $40 for 2^nd. There is a maximum of 5,000 teams eligible to compete in this contest.

What About NFBC?

NFBC did not make the comparison chart because it does not provide any leagues at a price point under $50. At $50, they have two options: NFBC 50s and $50 Rotowire Online Championship Qualifier. Neither are true best ball leagues. Rotowire OC is actively managed with free agent pickups and starting lineup decisions during the season. NFBC 50s do not have free agent pickups, but lineups are set weekly.

On the plus side, both are rotisserie scoring, and each offer 1, 2 and 4-hour slow draft options. Both use the same standard NFBC format starting lineup of 23 players: 2 C, 1 1B/2B/3B/SS, 5 OF, 1 CI, 1 MI, 1 UT, and 9 P. Each are 12-team leagues. Rotowire OC drafts are 30 rounds, allowing for a 7-man bench. NFBC 50s draft 50 rounds, providing 27 bench spots, to help deal with attrition since there are no free agents adds and drops.

There is a Best Ball Cutline Championship contest run by NFBC. This is the closest they’ve got to a true best ball. It is fantasy points scoring. They are 10-team leagues. The starting lineup matches NFBC Main Event format, and teams draft a roster of 42 players.

There are two in-season waiver periods which gives some opportunity to recuperate from a key injury or two. The Cutline is a bigger investment at $150 per entry. There are discounts for multiple entries, and a nice carrot at the end with a large prize for 1^st place overall.

Best Ball League Decision

Between my ideal fantasy baseball best ball league format, and the comparison chart, nothing truly hit the mark. The biggest issue is roto does not jive well with best ball. The only roto option uses the entire roster, which is not awesome.

Half the fun of fantasy prognosticating is predicting breakouts for players with low projected playing time who become major contributors to your fantasy squad. In a start-all format, the waiting for that breakout can kill your chances to compete. In a format with a starting lineup and bench, then it isn’t too bad if a player has to ride the pine for a while.

Okay, so fantasy points it is. The starting lineup in the Best Ball 10s is light. The starting lineup in the RT Sports Draft Masters is pretty good. If they expanded rosters to 30 then the starters-to-bench ratio and depth of player pool improves. Those leagues are only 10 teams, so the draft is 260 players deep. At Fantrax, which are 12-team leagues and 40 roster spots, the draft is 480 players deep.

That difference pushes me to Fantrax to start. Once that gets underway, there is a good chance I’ll sign up and try one or more of the other formats.

Import Fantasy Baseball Projections to Draft Buddy

February 12, 2021 By Draft Buddy Leave a Comment

Projection Pal is now available to download and work with the 2021 version of Draft Buddy. The purpose of Projection Pal is to help import fantasy baseball projections into Draft Buddy.

While Draft Buddy includes access to a variety of sets of projections, sometimes members want to add projections from another source. That is where Projection Pal comes in.

It is not as simple as copying the projections off the web and dropping them into Draft Buddy. Pal formats the data and makes sure it lines up with the correct players in Buddy.

Demo Video

Here is a video posted to YouTube that demonstrates how to import fantasy baseball projections to Draft Buddy.

The projections I chose to demonstrate are from Razzball, which are Steamer projections but with playing time and other adjustments by Rudy Gamble. They are very good projections. They include quality starts, which Steamer does not, and Rudy does an excellent job projecting playing time.

You can download Projection Pal from the Draft Buddy download page. As a bonus, the Pal files I uploaded include the Razzball projections, so most of the work is done for you. However, that is as of the day I posted the files (February 10th). For updated projections, you will need to follow similar steps as the video.

Projection Pal Tips

Projection Pal is not the easiest tool to use for everyone. Projections data can take many different forms, making it potentially tricky to work with.

Keep in mind Pal is a completely optional add-on for Draft Buddy. You do not need to use it. Buddy already includes multiple sets of projections that we update for you on a regular basis. But, if you are keen to add a certain set of projections not already in Buddy, get using Pal. Here are some tips:

Make sure the Draft Buddy filename specified on the setup tab in Pal matches exactly to your copy of Draft Buddy, including the .xlsm extension.
If you try to use the web import functionality in Pal (which isn’t in the video), then don’t spend too long if it isn’t working. Instead, highlight the projections in your web browser, and try to copy and paste them into Excel.
All of the projections data you want to import into Draft Buddy needs to be on the right of the player names on the Raw tabs.
Don’t worry if the Clean tab is showing #N/A errors before you click the Copy to Buddy button. Pal may need to clean and set the data before those formulas pull the proper numbers for each player.

After your newly imported projections are in Draft Buddy, then you can save and close Projection Pal. Its job is done.

Now explore the options tab in Buddy, and re-run Compile Cheatsheets, to make sure the projections are reflected in your new custom cheat sheets.

2021 Fantasy Baseball Rankings Starting Point

February 10, 2021 By Draft Buddy Leave a Comment

For a custom fantasy baseball cheatsheet make sure to try Draft Buddy (Excel), which includes a draft tracker, or Last Player Picked.

Initial 2021 fantasy baseball rankings are up on the website for your viewing, critiquing, and sharing pleasure. Jump right to the rankings, or read on for an explanation of my methodology.

ADP Over Projections

I took a different approach to produce rankings this year. In the past, an initial set of rankings came from player projections run through dollar value calculators in Draft Buddy or Last Player Picked. Then, from spring training to Opening Day, make adjustments for changes in playing time expectations or risk-reward valuations.

This year, the initial rankings are based on Average Draft Position (ADP). Yep, straight ADP – where players are drafted on average. The ADP is from drafts taken place since early this year in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. NFBC hosts the sharpest fantasy baseball players so their ADP is the best available. Note most NFBC leagues are 15-team, 5X5 roto, and start-two catchers (if you are wondering why so many catchers are in the overall rankings).

Tiers I added manually to break up the position rankings for players drafted close together. Tiers help identify drop-offs at each position and guide draft decisions. Similarly ranked players in shallow tiers get a higher draft priority than players in deeper tiers.

Layer in Dollar Values

Still holding our available projections and dollar valuation models in high regard, I crunched those numbers and display them alongside the rankings. This creates some inconsistencies, because the projections may like a player more or less than his ADP.

For example, the first base rankings show Jose Abreu at $22, $1 more than DJ LeMahieu, even though LeMahieu is on average drafted a round earlier. There are examples of this all over the cheatsheets, and some are significant.

Realizing this, I found I like it. Now I can scan the rankings and see what players have the biggest discrepancy between their dollar value and draft cost. This could be an excellent way to identify overvalued and undervalued players.

Are You A Value Or Analytical Drafter?

I consider myself a value drafter. A value drafter is someone who has a good feel for how the draft is going or should proceed. They build their team trying to get the best deals possible. Traits include patiently waiting for value players to present themselves instead of reaching to make sure to acquire a particular player. The ability to adjust on the fly is important.

The opposite type of drafter is more analytical in nature. These drafters have rankings highlighting select players they are confident will outperform the consensus opinion on those players. Their plan is to draft those players, make the rest of the draft room go, “huh?”, and reap the benefits of being right.

I have a lot of respect for analytical drafters because many of them are very sharp. They cut through the Groupthink of fantasy analysis. That doesn’t necessarily make them the best drafters, however. Even if I think Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. is primed for an MVP season (I don’t, just an example), that does not mean I should pony up a second-round pick for him.

A little above his ADP is fine, but way above his ADP when it is unnecessary is an overpay and puts a lot more pressure on the analysis to be right. A value drafter has to fight the opposite problem sometimes, waiting too long to pull the trigger.

This is one of the many aspects that makes participating in fantasy baseball drafts a ton of fun – the decision making challenge.

Next Steps

An advantage of setting up my rankings this way is with respect to updates. Whether ADP or projections, I can push the new data on to my existing rankings and note the changes in player value.

The 2021 fantasy baseball rankings are already not perfectly aligned with ADP. That is because the ADP changed from the initial rankings. That’s good. It provides an ongoing opportunity to identify over and undervalued players leading up to each of my fantasy baseball drafts.

My first big draft is The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational, better known as TGFBI, scheduled for March 1st. It will be a tall task to finish as well as I did last year at 30th overall. This year there are 29, 15-team leagues, or 435 competitors.

I certainly could use some practice before then. So who is up for a draft?