NFBC Message Boards

I posted the same post in the Fantasy/MLB Talk Forum in the "Santana/Peavy" thread of mine from 5 years ago, but this Forum gets most of the reads.

I ran across a thread from five years ago which discussed starting a draft with two SP. Take a look at some of the great comments in there about strategy. Some people said that drafting two SP's could not win, and that was in a satellite draft.

WOW, how times have changed. I saw several teams start SP/SP this year in the main event, and a TON of teams start with two SP's in the first three rounds.

Really, does strategy change, or the player pool change, that much in 5 years? Or does the recency effect of strong pitching change what is an "acceptable" for the "norm" in drafting a main event team?

Interesting stuff.

More seasons mean more data points as to what drive successful teams. The NFBC wonks here don't sit still. They don't subscribe to the same ESPN FANTASY pundit drivel about waiting on pitching They are constantly re calibrating and it looks like after the top 30 offensive players are off the board the next big group really blur.

Back to back SP is still a bit unconventional. I've yet to try it. You'd really like to pepper in a stud hitter. A SP in rd 3 is still top of the line.

In the past the wise guys knew they could cheat pitching. MOST drafts pushed SP back and if you didn't keep up on offense you got steamrolled. If people knew they could get a top 5 pitcher in rd 4 and a top 15 in rd 6 that's exactly what most would be doing.

Of course if you know with certainty a couple of 25th ranked pitchers will return top 5 numbers they by all means - pound the offense for 5 rounds. You'd be looking at a winning team for sure.

On my three teams, I went SP1/SP2 as follows:

Rounds 1/3 (Verlander/Darvish)
Rounds 1/6 (Verlander/Gallardo)
Rounds 2/4 (Verlander/Wainwright)

In each league, my plan was to go two starters in the first 4 rounds, and then wait it out for SP3 in the teens. When two teams loaded up on starters in my second league, I was forced to deviate from the strategy.

Like Steve said, tough to start out SP/SP and get enough offense to stay in contention. When running my numbers, going two starters early and then waiting almost always ended up getting me the best results.

I think players do a very good job of valuing hitters, making it very difficult to make up offense as you get further into the draft. This is particular true of power hitters (conversely, I think middling-power, top-of-the-lineup, high runs, good SB OFers are almost always undervalued).

I don't think players do nearly as good a job of valuing pitchers, and, as a result, I think you can still build a really good staff as long as you get one "anchor." I failed to do this in one of my MEs, and probably will be in trouble as a result. I would never go SP/SP. It isn't impossible to win an overall going SP/SP, but I think it's a poor strategy. You really need to get Mike Trout/Chase Headley level lucky.

I will be putting that theory to the test as well as I went Verlander/Kershaw in an OC draft and went Venrlander/Strasburg in the XII.

ALL-IN JD wrote:I will be putting that theory to the test as well as I went Verlander/Kershaw in an OC draft and went Venrlander/Strasburg in the XII.

You could have went Hot Dog Vendor/Mr. Met in that OC and still had a chance

LOL!! No idea what you are talking about!!

Although I agree that elite SP's have become an integral part of rostering a competitive NFBC team.I also agree with Mr Jupinka(aka The King) that going SP/SP puts you in a huge offensive hole that you may not be able to climb out of. Power has become so scarce in MLB that you are now hard-pressed to find even as many as twenty players projected for as many as 30 HR's with only a half dozen of those available later than Round 4 or so(Willingham,Napoli,I.Davis,Trumbo,C.Davis,Dunn).In my ME the guy at 15 went SP/SP/RP(Strasburg/Kershaw/Kimbrel) for first 3 picks and dug himself a Grand Canyon sized offensive hole that I don't think he can overcome regardless of how well his 1st 3 ptichers perform.

mlbbug wrote:Although I agree that elite SP's have become an integral part of rostering a competitive NFBC team.I also agree with Mr Jupinka(aka The King) that going SP/SP puts you in a huge offensive hole that you may not be able to climb out of. Power has become so scarce in MLB that you are now hard-pressed to find even as many as twenty players projected for as many as 30 HR's with only a half dozen of those available later than Round 4 or so(Willingham,Napoli,I.Davis,Trumbo,C.Davis,Dunn).In my ME the guy at 15 went SP/SP/RP(Strasburg/Kershaw/Kimbrel) for first 3 picks and dug himself a Grand Canyon sized offensive hole that I don't think he can overcome regardless of how well his 1st 3 ptichers perform.

The Grand Canyon offensive hole is indeed the problem. But almost nobody was even willing to try this strategy 5 years ago.

There is nothing wrong with an early SP strategy as long as it is interspersed with at least a stud hitter or two. I went SP early at rounds 3,5,6(Lee,C.C. and Latos) but also got Kemp and Bruce in rounds 1 and 2. I think you have to go somewhat early on SP to remain competitive but not at the total expense of premium hitting either. In my ME the top 4 tiers of SP were gone by the time I got Latos at 6.11. After the top 3 SP's were rostered wound up waiting on SP's again until rd.15 with Cahill and loaded up on hitters in bewteen(except for 2 closers rd 10/12). We'll see how this works out for me this year.