Fantasy Baseball Auction Strategy: Pitchers

As I broke down in my fantasy baseball auction overview, auction leagues offer an enhanced strategy and fun element that drafts just can’t match. Following up on my approach for hitters, this Fantasy Baseball Auction Strategy: Pitchers will give you
Fantasy Baseball Auction Strategy: Hitters

A fantasy manager must separate hitting from pitching when starting to gameplan for an auction. Each area is 50% of the game, but finding a blend of spending that fits your game style is necessary. My Fantasy Baseball Auction Strategy:
2023 Fantasy Baseball Auction Overview

Rotisserie, draft, AL, and NL-only…there are countless formats to enjoy fantasy baseball. Auction leagues are growing in popularity and have strategic and fun advantages other formats don’t provide. Our 2023 Fantasy Baseball Auction Overview is a great start for building a championship roster via your auction. Before entering the 2023 fantasy baseball auction overview, please familiarize yourself with my 2023 fade list. Also, my 2023 bounce-back players , deep sleepers, breakout hitter of the year, and extensive preview of all 30 squads are invaluable resources. Finally, our 2023 MLB breakout pitchers list digs deep to give you an edge on draft day. Auction Overview The fantasy baseball market has many formats and league sizes, especially in auctions. I’ve played in American and National League formats with 12 teams plus 15-team mixed leagues. Each setup could also have keepers (players held for more than one year) or trading, which changes all players’ value during the auction. Over the last 20 seasons, I’ve played in the high-stakes fantasy market where there is no trading, which puts pressure on a fantasy manager to develop a winning plan before the auction. When doing an auction league with no trading, a fantasy manager has a small margin for error. No other team will be knocking on your door looking to take your third closer off your hands via a trade. If your roster is out of balance (strong in some categories and weak in others), you can’t trade hitting for pitching or even speed for saves. An auction can be won in many different ways, but many managers can lose the battle during the auction due to a questionable game plan or even a lack of foresight. Every year the player pool will change slightly. The goal of a manager is to evaluate the inventory and develop a strategy that can be executed at the draft table. If I come away with enough pieces to the puzzle, I can manage my way to a championship. Whatever game plan I decide to use, I must be ready to adjust if I don’t get my key players. A fantasy manager can roster any player they want in an auction, but it comes with a price. In most baseball auction leagues, each team starts with $260 to buy 14 hitters and nine pitchers. The goal is to accumulate the most league points in five hitting (batting average, runs, home runs, RBIs, and steals) and five pitching (wins, ERA, WHIP, strikeouts, and saves) categories. In a 12-team league, a first-place finish in a category would be worth 12 points, second place is 11 points, and so on until reaching 12th place (one point). The winner of each league is determined by adding up all 10 categories. Calling Out Players to Improve Your Team-Building Chances A common mistake fantasy managers make is hoping the players they want don’t get called out early. It sounds good in principle, but the problem is that all the other good players are coming off the board while I sit back, holding my money. If I wait and miss on my targeted players, I will have fewer options to build my team. Getting my key players called out as quickly as possible is essential. For example, if I want a player in the auction and believe he is the key to building my foundation, I would like to call him out on my first opportunity. By doing this, I find out how much he will cost (higher or lower than my predicted price point) or if I need to start looking for someone else to develop my team around. The quicker I know where I stand on critical players, the better my chance of executing my plan or adjusting on the fly. For example, I wanted to build my team around Ronald Acuna, and I believed he could hit over .300 with 30+ home runs and 30+ stolen bases with a target value of $43. If I miss on him, I will need to find another player with a step down in overall expectations. I should have a secondary plan to shift to another player with a similar skill set with less upside, but I would then save some of my spending budget. My next tier for power and speed could be Julio Rodriguez in this example. If Acuna gets called out early and sells for more than I’m willing to pay, Rodriguez would be attainable if his salary falls within my expected budget and his targeted salary. Suppose Rodriguez gets called out first, and someone buys him for $41 while I sit on Acuna as my first key player. In that case, I will have a further drop-off in the player pool if Acuna is purchased by another manager above my budgeted salary target. The situation worsens if many top players get called up before Acuna, forcing me to shove all in, no matter the cost, or revamp the foundation of my team build on the fly. This freelancing style could lead to an imbalance in roster construction in a non-trading format where a trade can’t fix a shortfall in a category. In this example, a detour off of Acuna may push me to Juan Soto, bringing less upside in speed but a potentially high ceiling in batting average. This decision would force me to find stolen bases differently while ensuring not to give away his power edge. If the drop-off from Acuna led me to Trea Turner, I would set my foundation in steals with 25-home run power and strength in batting average. However, my second targeted player should bring more home runs with a chance at hitting for average with a 100/100 type skill set. Again, if Soto, Turner, and Rodriguez get called out in the auction before Acuna, I would need to get more creative with less inventory to build my offense. The other option is not missing your targeted core player or players by overpaying with
MLB Comeback Player of the Year

Betting on veteran players after down seasons due to injuries can sometimes lead to some surprising stats. Many drafters will avoid these types of players while looking for someone with a higher ceiling. A change of scenery or even a
2023 MLB Breakout Pitchers

Each fantasy baseball season, the goal is to find the best impact arms late in drafts to complement the foundation of your starting rotation. These types of breakthrough pitchers come from the minors most of the time. A veteran arm
2023 MLB Breakout Players

After uncovering my breakout hitter of the year, I wanted to tag a player at each other position. The goal is to find potential values later in drafts. Before we reveal the 2023 MLB Breakout Players, please familiarize yourself with
The Breakout Hitter of 2023

Winning in fantasy baseball comes from a successful draft plan, lineup management, and many winning free-agent pickups. At the same time, it is vital to find the breakout hitter of 2023 to help push your team over the finish line.
2023 Fantasy Baseball Deep Sleepers

The fantasy market has many formats, creating pockets of upside depending on league size. The thought behind the 2023 fantasy baseball deep sleepers is identifying possible players that may help in 2023 in redraft formats. The goal is to track
2023 Preview: San Francisco Giants

Legendary fantasy expert Shawn Childs will be breaking down all 30 teams ahead of the 2023 MLB season. This is the kind of deep-diving, advanced information you can only get from FullTimeFantasy. Next, Shawn’s 2023 Preview: San Francisco Giants. Also,
2023 Preview: San Diego Padres

Legendary fantasy expert Shawn Childs will be breaking down all 30 teams ahead of the 2023 MLB season. This is the kind of deep-diving, advanced information you can only get from FullTimeFantasy. Next, Shawn’s 2023 Preview: San Diego Padres. Also,