"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.
The worst values in CBS drafts
- Wyatt Langford, OF, TEX - CBS ADP: 105; Avg. ADP: 169.2
- Noelvi Marte, 3B, CIN - CBS ADP: 138; Avg. ADP: 187.2
- Jackson Chourio, OF, MIL - CBS ADP: 100; Avg. ADP: 145.4
- Bo Naylor, C, CLE - CBS ADP: 199; Avg. ADP: 238.4
- Jeimer Candelario, 1B, CIN - CBS ADP: 190; Avg. ADP: 227.8
- Aaron Civale, SP, TB - CBS ADP: 200; Avg. ADP: 237.0
- Riley Greene, OF, DET - CBS ADP: 124; Avg. ADP: 160.0
- Byron Buxton, U, MIN - CBS ADP: 206; Avg. ADP: 240.8
- Vinnie Pasquantino, 1B, KC - CBS ADP: 123; Avg. ADP: 157.2
- Gavin Williams, SP, CLE - CBS ADP: 150; Avg. ADP: 180.8
I'll take the blame for a few of these: I'm ranking Greene and Buxton much higher than their average, and my rankings are in the CBS draft room, so that's probably playing a part here. Though, I do want to be clear here: I think I would draft every single one of these players at their CBS ADP with the exception of Civale and Marte (and I could be talked into Marte if it looks like he's going to have an Opening Day role for the Reds).
Which is to say, it's not quite right to call these "the worst values in CBS drafts." I think these players are all well worth drafting at these costs, so this is more about acknowledging that, if you do want them and you're drafting on CBS, you'll have to pay up for them, relative to other sites. Where the "best values" are largely high-floor, low-ceiling players, these guys are mostly the exact opposite; there are plenty of ways things could go wrong for this group, but their upside makes them worth chasing. And it's especially true for the five who are still drafted in the second half of CBS drafts. In a shallow league, especially, I'm willing to reach.
Below you'll find the worst values for each draft site. Find out which players are likely to give you the best bang for your buck in my best values on each draft site article.
The worst values in ESPN drafts
- Steven Kwan, OF, CLE - ESPN ADP: 69; Avg. ADP: 178.8
- J.P. Crawford, SS, SEA - ESPN ADP: 148; Avg. ADP: 249.0
- Keibert Ruiz, C, WSH - ESPN ADP: 104; Avg. ADP: 180.4
- Luis Arraez, 2B, MIA - ESPN ADP: 55; Avg. ADP: 125.6
- Brandon Nimmo, OF, NYM - ESPN ADP: 90; Avg. ADP: 158.0
- Lourdes Gurriel Jr., OF, ARI - ESPN ADP: 152; Avg. ADP: 214.4
- Lucas Giolito, SP, BOS - ESPN ADP: 146; Avg. ADP: 206.8
- Jung Hoo Lee, OF, SF - ESPN ADP: 165; Avg. ADP: 223.4
- Ketel Marte, 2B, ARI - ESPN ADP: 47; Avg. ADP: 97.0
- Masataka Yoshida, OF, BOS - ESPN ADP: 108; Avg. ADP: 155.6
I'll be honest: I don't have much to say here. This is just a list of points specialists, for the most part. It's interesting that there are no pitchers being "overvalued" in ESPN leagues, given that pitchers tend to be viewed as more valuable in points formats. However, last season, pitchers made up just 10 of the top-25 scorers in this format, and only 14 of the top 40.
The worst values in Yahoo drafts
- Kerry Carpenter, OF, DET - Yahoo ADP: 183; Avg. ADP: 225.6
- Brandon Pfaadt, SP, ARI - Yahoo ADP: 187; Avg. ADP: 223.8
- Tyler O'Neill, OF, BOS - Yahoo ADP: 212; Avg. ADP: 247.4
- Shane Baz, SP, TB - Yahoo ADP: 197; Avg. ADP: 230.2
- Robert Stephenson, RP, LAA - Yahoo ADP: 208; Avg. ADP: 241.0
- James Outman, OF, LAD - Yahoo ADP: 152; Avg. ADP: 184.0
- Justin Turner, 1B, TOR - Yahoo ADP: 176; Avg. ADP: 207.6
- Giancarlo Stanton, OF, NYY - Yahoo ADP: 217; Avg. ADP: 248.4
- Josh Jung, 3B, TEX - Yahoo ADP: 99; Avg. ADP: 126.4
- Carlos Correa, SS, MIN - Yahoo ADP: 204; Avg. ADP: 230.2
With the exception of Baz, I don't really mind any of the values here. Baz is tough to draft just because we already know he won't be ready for the start of the season and may not be pitching in the majors until June – not because he's hurt, but because the Rays have decided delaying his start to the season is the best way to manage his innings. Before Tommy John surgery, Baz was arguably the best pitching prospect in baseball, but he also had a 4.02 ERA in nine MLB starts, with some struggles keeping the ball in the yard. There's significant per-inning upside, but it may only come out to 100 innings, and you'll have to keep an IL spot free for him until the summer. That's not worth a top-200 pick when there are pitchers with more upside like Shota Imanaga, Bryce Miller, Nestor Cortes, or Triston McKenzie (among others) going behind him.
Jung is a player I find myself drafting quite often, even around his Yahoo price, too. That hasn't really been necessary lately – I got him 129th in TGFBI and 148th in Tout Wars (an OBP league, to be fair) – because he's coming back from that calf injury suffered at the start of spring. It's always risky to take a player who is currently hurt – more so than players who have lengthy injury histories but are currently healthy – but Jung is progressing well and was cleared for baseball activities over the weekend. He'll have to avoid a setback there, but Jung was hitting .273/.323/.490 with a 33-homer, 204-run-plus-RBI pace through 109 games last season before suffering a fractured left thumb in August. If he can stay healthy, I think that's a pretty reasonable expectation for Jung.
