Fantasy Baseball: 3 takeaways from 60-game MLB season
Fantasy Baseball, take three: You care even less about MOST prospects.
Last but not least, fantasy baseball players are going to need to put a premium on immediate return. And that means also fading your project prospects.
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When baseball first shutdown, I wrote another fantasy piece advocating the opposite approach. Mainly that was about not worrying anymore about innings limits on a Jesus Luzardo, or treating Chris Paddack as a true ace. Those specific examples still hold true. The elite rookies should absolutely still be drafted.
The caution here is about those names on preseason draft boards you had down as stashes on your bench. Yordan Alvarez, Juan Soto, and Gleyber Torres were all on my fantasy teams before their first MLB at-bat these past couple seasons. Mining for prospect gold is a big part of my strategy, as it is for millions of other fantasy baseball players. That needs to be tempered in 2020.
Hitting it big on draft day is going to be much more important this season. Almost as important as the need to react uber-aggressively on waivers when it comes to hot streaks and fast starts. You won’t have the luxury of waiting for the lesser prospects to secure playing time, or in some cases elevation from team taxi squads.
For example, let’s just transfer the 2020 situation to last season. In a 162-game season, I was able to keep Alvarez stashed for weeks. If 2019 was a 60-game campaign though, I almost certainly would have had to drop him for Tommy LaStella or Joc Pederson.
You will too.
Next. Creative Decisions Await For Rotations, Bullpens. dark
Anyway, I hope this little primer helps you get a jump on Fantasy Baseball Draft Season Part II. Unless, of course, you’re playing in my league.