"Know thyself."
Those words were emblazoned in gold on the walls of the Temple of Apollo in ancient Greece, but if we were to build a temple to Fantasy drafts, I would suggest a slight tweak:
"Know thy league."
I put this principle to action last weekend in my LABR AL-only draft. At the First Pitch Florida conference, I was asking folks for tips on the draft, a Salary Cap draft and my first mono league in a few years, and pretty much everyone had the same thing to say: "Don't overbid for stars. This league plays it close to the belt." And sure enough, that's pretty much what happened. Bobby Witt and Julio Rodriguez were the only player who went for more than $40, and only two other players (Kyle Tucker and Juan Soto) went for even $40.
It was a tight room, and I knew how I wanted to play it: I was going to spend about half of my budget aggressively early to lock in some stars, and then I was mostly going to sit out the middle class. I picked up five of the first 30 players while spending $112 of my $260 budget, and then I drafted just three of the next 106 players. That left me with $114 for the second half of the draft, and gave me the flexibility to get pretty much anyone I wanted from that point on without having to settle for the kind of $1 players that can really leave you short-handed in an -only league.
I'm usually a much more aggressive bidder, and I'm willing to play the $1 game typically. But knowing that this was a league where the drafters tend to spread their money around meant that there probably wouldn't be many good $1 players to choose from, and I ended up with only Freddy Fermin as a $1 player – every other player on my roster was at least $3, because I was able to go an extra dollar or two for everyone I wanted it.
(If you want to see my team and my thoughts on how it came together, we talked about it on Monday's episode of Fantasy Baseball Today, which you can watch here.)
You need to know how your league typically approaches the draft. Do pitchers tend to be overpriced in your league? Do your leaguemates tend to go way over budget for the brightest stars? Are they prospect-hounds? Knowing who you're drafting with and how their tendencies play out can give you an edge on Draft Day. And that also applies to the draft room you're picking in.
The default rankings and in-house projections play a huge role in how drafts tend to go based on which site you're using. On the CBS Fantasy platform, rankings from Scott White, Frank Stampfl and myself are built into the draft room, and you'll see the guys we like more like Wyatt Langford, Jackson Chourio, and Byron Buxton are going to be more expensive in CBS drafts than on other sites, and that's true to varying degrees no matter where you're drafting.
I took a look at Average Draft Position data at CBS, ESPN, and Yahoo, compared them to FantasyPros.com's consensus ADP, and looked at who costs the most or least at each site, relatively speaking. I've got the 10 most- and least-expensive players at each site, with some thoughts on the biggest outliers and most notable names.
Consider this your cheat sheet for drafting at each site. And, if you want more help, email me at FantasyBaseball@CBSi.com with the subject line "AskFBT" with your biggest questions for a special mailbag edition of the newsletter later this week – hit me up with your draft questions, your keeper dilemmas, your trades, or just to berate me about why I have a certain player ranked too high or too low. We'll pick some of the most interesting questions for a mailbag before this big draft weekend.
Below you'll find the best values on each draft site. If you'd like to know which players may not give you much return on your investment, check out players I believe are the worst values on each draft site.
The best values in CBS drafts
- Keibert Ruiz, C, WSH - CBS ADP: 227; Avg. ADP: 180.4
- Kenley Jansen, RP, BOS - CBS ADP: 201; Avg. ADP: 161.2
- Nick Pivetta, SP,RP, BOS - CBS ADP: 213; Avg. ADP: 183.4
- Steven Kwan, OF, CLE - CBS ADP: 205; Avg. ADP: 178.8
- Masataka Yoshida, OF, BOS - CBS ADP: 181; Avg. ADP: 155.6
- Clay Holmes, RP, NYY - CBS ADP: 156; Avg. ADP: 131.2
- TJ Friedl, OF, CIN - CBS ADP: 180; Avg. ADP: 155.8
- Brandon Nimmo, OF, NYM - CBS ADP: 182; Avg. ADP: 158.0
- Ian Happ, OF, CHC - CBS ADP: 174; Avg. ADP: 150.4
- Luis Arraez, 2B, MIA - CBS ADP: 149; Avg. ADP: 125.6
You'll notice some similarities between players here, especially Ruiz, Kwan, Yoshida, and Arraez, all of whom are contact specialists without much power – and only Kwan has much speed to offer. What's interesting about that is that all four of those guys might actually be better in a standard CBS points format, which is overly represented in our ADP. Case in point: Kwan was the No. 111 player in Roto leagues last season, and the No. 37 outfielder; he was the No. 18 outfielder in points leagues, just behind Luis Robert, thanks to his exemplary plate discipline. Those guys are all probably fairly low-ceiling players, given their lack of power, but they're solid starting options who are all nice values at these prices.
I think the same is true of Jansen, who has yet to pitch this spring while dealing with a lat injury and who has trade rumors swirling around him, in case you're wondering why his value is so low. The trade rumors don't really worry me, to be honest – there hasn't been more than about a week where Jansen hasn't been a closer since 2012, and I'm not sure any team is going to trade for him to have him be a setup man. The lat injury is a concern, especially because there have been very few updates about it, though I do wonder if there might not be a quasi-hold-in going on here – Jansen is staying ready on the side, but avoiding pitching in games while the trade discussions are ongoing. I'm operating under the assumption that Jansen will be ready for Opening Day, and while he's no longer an elite closer, he's more than good enough to be a solid No. 2 option on any Fantasy team.
The best values in ESPN drafts
- Noelvi Marte, 3B, CIN - ESPN ADP: 286; Avg. ADP: 187.2
- Shane Baz, SP, TB - ESPN ADP: 321; Avg. ADP: 230.2
- Oneil Cruz, SS, PIT - ESPN ADP: 176; Avg. ADP: 89.2
- Tyler O'Neill, OF, BOS - ESPN ADP: 332; Avg. ADP: 247.4
- Kerry Carpenter, OF, DET - ESPN ADP: 310; Avg. ADP: 225.6
- Josh Lowe, OF, TB - ESPN ADP: 168; Avg. ADP: 90.0
- Aaron Civale, SP, TB - ESPN ADP: 314; Avg. ADP: 237.0
- Jazz Chisholm Jr., OF, MIA - ESPN ADP: 160; Avg. ADP: 83.4
- CJ Abrams, SS, WSH - ESPN ADP: 137; Avg. ADP: 61.0
- Jordan Walker, OF, STL - ESPN ADP: 199; Avg. ADP: 127.2
One thing you have to keep in mind here is that the default for ESPN leagues is a points league where you lose a full point for every strikeout as a hitter. That's double the penalty in CBS points default leagues, and you might know the guys above largely for their poor plate discipline. This is one of the most obvious ways in which the default scoring format of a provider can impact prices on that site.
That being said, I think there are plenty of excellent values to be found here. For instance, Abrams was the No. 68 hitter and No. 93 player overall in ESPN's default scoring system last season, and that's without accounting for how much better he was in the second half (1.74 points per game before the All-Star break, 2.84 after). This is something you'll see often in the transition between Roto and H2H points leagues: Players who are worse in points leagues nonetheless end up getting undervalued because people assume "worse" means "terrible." If Abrams can repeat last year's second-half success over 151 games, he would have been the No. 18 hitter last season even in this format.
The best values in Yahoo drafts
- Mitch Garver, C, SEA - Yahoo ADP: 400; Avg. ADP: 242.0
- Bo Naylor, C, CLE - Yahoo ADP: 356; Avg. ADP: 238.4
- J.P. Crawford, SS, SEA - Yahoo ADP: 321; Avg. ADP: 249.0
- Jarren Duran, OF, BOS - Yahoo ADP: 269; Avg. ADP: 200.8
- Junior Caminero, SS, TB - Yahoo ADP: 278; Avg. ADP: 219.8
- Trevor Story, SS, BOS - Yahoo ADP: 282; Avg. ADP: 224.6
- Jeimer Candelario, 1B, CIN - Yahoo ADP: 283; Avg. ADP: 227.8
- Lars Nootbaar, OF, STL - Yahoo ADP: 267; Avg. ADP: 214.4
- Wyatt Langford, OF, TEX - Yahoo ADP: 219; Avg. ADP: 169.2
- Brayan Bello, SP, BOS - Yahoo ADP: 287; Avg. ADP: 245.0
Alright, here's where we get fun. Yahoo's default scoring setting is a H2H categories league with no middle infield or corner infield spot, two utility spots, and eight pitchers (2 RP, 2 SP, and 4 P), so we've got very different rules to play by, and you can see it with Garver, for example – you also only have one catcher spot, so the guys ranked outside of the top 12 at that position tend to get pushed down significantly. But the thing is … I think Garver is a top-12 catcher this season! He's slated to be the Mariners primary DH option, and the hope here is that he'll be able to stay healthy now that he's not behind the plate so much. His production has fluctuated along with his health, but Garver is hitting .251/.346/.508 with a 37-homer pace over 162 games over the past five seasons. Do I expected him to play 162 games or do that if he does? Nope, but he doesn't need to come anywhere close to that to be a top-12 catcher – he was 14th in 87 games last season.
Among the non-catcher values – I like Naylor here as well, obviously – I think Langford and Duran stand out. Langford's price is rising, and I'd be shocked if you could actually get him at 219 if you logged into a Yahoo draft and took him right now, but if he's going 110th in NFBC drafts since the start of March, he's probably still going a few rounds later than that on Yahoo right now, at least.
Duran is a player I'm going to be drafting pretty much everywhere I play, it seems – and I'm increasingly worried about that. Duran only made his return from toe surgery a few days ago, and is already dealing with issues with that same foot, exiting Tuesday's spring game after being seen flexing the foot during an at-bat. The good news, as it is, is that it apparently wasn't the toe at fault, but an ankle that was "a little bit tight." The two injuries could be related, of course, but Duran sounds like he's expected to return to Grapefruit League action by Thursday, and he did steal a base during his second spring game, a sign that he's moving around pretty well. There's risk here, and maybe taking him around 150 overall like I have been lately is too early. But I'll take Boston's projected leadoff hitter around 200th every time, let alone near 270.
