Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: 12-Team Rotisserie Mock Draft

Heath Cummings looked for balance and upside in this week's Rotisserie mock draft.

By Heath Cummings

Mar 5, 2019 at 4:21 pm ET • 2 min read

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I'm a firm believe in searching for upside in Rotisserie leagues because of the winner-take-all nature of the format. It's not enough to be in the top half of the league in August and then win a couple of head-to-head coin flips. You've got to dominate the competition.

Of course, to do that you have to compete in every category, which requires balance. You have to have power and speed. Strikeouts and ratios. And yes, I believe you have to have saves too.

There's no specific way to accomplish both of these goals because no two drafts are the same. But Round 10 is not a bad time to start checking out where you stand in the various categories. One way to do that is to use the stats page within your league and sort by team totals. Of course it's not perfect, because you have to pay attention to how many hitters and pitchers each team has at the point in the draft you check.

When I got to Round 11, I was in a familiar position. My offense was balanced in terms of categories, but I already had four outfielders. My pitching staff had two studs (Gerrit Cole and Jack Flaherty) as well as one closer (Roberto Osuna). This is the point where I like to start gobbling up upside pitchers. This draft was no different -- I took Robbie Ray and Shane Bieber with my next two picks and Jon Gray a few rounds later.

Upside is harder to find at hitter later, but it's easier if you remember guys don't have to be young and unproven to have upside. Adam Eaton could provide great value in the 16th round as the likely leadoff hitter for the Nationals, and Domingo Santana has a 30 homer-15 season under his belt but is still available after pick 200.

Here are the experts who participated in this draft: