10 top tips to win at fantasy baseball
Fantasy baseball takes many forms. The variety is what makes it such an appealing game. MLB fans can choose between daily or weekly lineups or between head-to-head and points.
Then there’s the small matter of scoring with roto, categories, or points. Do you prefer redraft leagues? Or does the long-term building of the dynasty format appeal to you?
Whatever league you’re playing in, most of these 10 tips to win at fantasy baseball should be applicable:
1. Stay The Course
The baseball season is long. Running a fantasy baseball team is a six-month-long commitment. If you’re in a daily lineups league, you need to check your team every single day from late March until the end of September (with a brief period of respite for the All-Star break).
In more casual leagues, it’s often the most committed players who come out on top. Every game counts. Picking up players off waivers and updating your lineup as often as possible is where leagues can be won on the margins.
2. Value Home/Road Splits
Home/road splits can be huge for some players. It’s not just the Colorado Rockies who put up better numbers at their home park, either, with plenty of pitchers and hitters producing drastically different fantasy returns depending on their surroundings.
Use this to your advantage. If a pitcher has struggled on the road over the last couple of years, bench him for his road games and take advantage of his lower ERA in his home ballpark.
In leagues where pitcher wins, RBIs, and runs scored matter, look at team home/road splits, too. A winning team often leads to more fantasy points.
3. Don’t Overvalue Spring Training
Sure, all baseball fans are excited by the start of spring training. It’s a chance to see highly rated prospects and check whether players really are in the ‘best shape of their lives’.
Statistics from spring don’t carry much weight when the regular season begins, though. Not only are they small samples, but spring also contains a massively varied level of competition. There’s only so much we can read into player performances in spring.
4. Look Out For Player Adjustments
Spring baseball isn’t useless for fantasy owners, however. We can examine swing changes, mechanics tweaks, and new pitches. Maybe a player has finally shaken off a lingering injury, unlocking them as a stolen base threat.
Of course, players make these changes throughout the season, too. It’s important to keep your finger on the pulse for any alterations that could enhance – or decrease – a player’s fantasy value.
During the season, it’s worth keeping a close eye on changes the quantity and usage of certain pitches. It can be transformative if a wipeout slider starts getting thrown more often.
5. Exercise Caution With Breakout Candidate
Yes, we all want to pick up the next breakout candidate. In later rounds – or at low prices in auction leagues – it’s worth taking a flier on a high-upside, low-floor player.
Even if a player had scorching hard-hit numbers and a low BABIP in the previous season, it doesn’t guarantee future success. It’s a good way to inform your fantasy decision, yes, but there’s still risk.
Getting players with upside is necessary for any fantasy manager. Just make sure you don’t overdo it.
6. Balance Roster With Proven Players
Next to those possible breakout stars, you need some proven players. These aren’t the most exciting fantasy acquisitions, but players with a long track record of production (and good health) are a necessity when constructing the foundation of your fantasy roster.
Paul Goldschmidt’s long peak is a perfect example. He wasn’t always the best first baseman in the majors, yet he was always in the All-Star mix and had some truly elite seasons. Goldy was a more reliable selection than some players who had better single-season performances.
7. Don’t Fall In Love With Prospects
It’s easy to read MLB Pipeline’s latest top 100 and believe you can pick up 10 All-Stars. There are prospects who are immediately elite as rookies, like Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2018 or Gunnar Henderson in 2023 after debuting in 2022, but they are the exceptions.
Most players need a period to adapt to the majors. Even if they start well, there’s often a slump or a spell in the minors to work on things. Others never make the grade. The very best prospects – like Jackson Holliday – are at risk of being below replacement level as rookies. Lower-ranked minor leaguers are even more of a gamble.
8. Examine Underlying Numbers
Production is what matters in fantasy baseball. Putting up numbers is how you’re going to win your leagues, so it’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at batting average, ERA, wins, and other traditional metrics.
We would recommend steering clear of these numbers when trying to project future performance. Baseball Savant and FanGraphs should be your go-to sites for researching players.
This is where you can find statistics that have a better chance of predicting fantasy production. Expected weighted-on base and expected ERA should be two of your staples when evaluating players.
9. Trust Trends
Has a pitcher’s velocity decreased each of the last two seasons? Has a supposedly elite hitter started to lift the ball less frequently?
Multi-year trends exist for a reason. This can be due to ageing, technical changes backfiring, or any number of other causes.
A lower sprint speed can be an early indicator of defensive decline, for instance, which could lead to less playing time. If a teammate needs more reps at DH, that might impact the number of plate appearances for a player you’re targeting.
10. Be Active All Year
Claim players, propose trades, cut guys, and discuss moves with the other managers in your league. You don’t know if you don’t ask. If you want to trade for a Cy Young contender, see what their current manager wants.
Keep working around the margins to upgrade the roster. This might mean streaming pitchers or picking up a hitter who has suddenly got hot at the plate.
Make sure you’re aware of roster changes in your fantasy league and in the real world. Changes to bullpen usage, platoons, or a different rotation order can all have an impact on your fantasy returns, too.
Interested in betting on win totals this season too? Check out my article highlighting Seven Best Win Total Bets for the upcoming MLB season.
