Every year we head into our fantasy drafts with the goals of building the most complete team possible but as the draft unfolds we often will find ourselves missing out on players and needing to decide on what the ultimate strengths and weaknesses of our team is going to be and what categories we are looking to stack vs what categories we are willing to punt in our drafts.

Punting categories during the draft can work to your advantage if you have the plan in place ahead of time. Doing your research and understanding your league format can really give you an edge on how drafts are playing out, what stat categories are deep and which are shallow that may be worth targeting.

Let’s take a look at the common categories that we often need to decide on whether or not it’s best to punt.

Saves

This feels like the most obvious one that fantasy players find themselves in a coinflip over. Is it worth the early round picks to lock up the elite closer or are you waiting until your final few picks to grab a reliver that can notch you some saves or may have upside? Heck, it feels like more often than not you can find your saves on the waiver wire following your draft. Just take at the 2019 saves leaders and you see guys like Ian Kennedy with 30 saves and Liam Hendriks with 25.  Kennedy finished among the top 10 in saves while Hendricks racked up 25. Both closers didn’t really take over the role until June of the season. Now, the top end closers also certainly did their jobs in 2019 with Kirby Yates , Roberto Osuna and Aroldis Chapman leading the way but at their ADP cost is it worth it just to win a saves category? Sure, if they pitch enough elite closers can help in other categories as well but for the most part they maybe pitch three times a week so it’s tough to see the value in standard head-to-head leagues here and thus why punting saves in a typical route to go.

Stolen Bases

The stolen base category has become a bit of a lost stat in recent seasons. In 2019 there were only 20 players who had at least 20 stolen bases and only eight that had at least 30. Those numbers are down from the 2018 season which saw 11 guys with at least 30 stolen bases and 28 players with at least 20. The facts are that most of the stolen base players are not ones you are targeting in your draft with the exception of the elite multi-category players like a Ronald Acuna Jr., Christian Yelich , or Mookie Betts which are not being draft for their stolen bases but their overall elite upside. Last year’s leader in stolen bases was Mallex Smith . He hit a robust .227 with a .635 OPS.  He was more than likely drafted among the final few rounds of drafts, if drafted at all, and his miserable season likely saw those who did draft him release him to waivers at points throughout the season. He was a single category contributor that murdered the rest of your stats. The majority of stolen base guys are those single category plays and there is a reason most of them are found at the end of drafts or on the waiver wire. If you target steals in your draft you better have a great foundation around them or be looking at those multi-category contributors otherwise this is a safe spot to punt.

Home Runs

Ok, I’m not exactly telling you to punt on home runs but home runs are so prevalent in today’s game that I don’t think you need to be spending up to get them either. Last season 10 players hit at least 40 home runs and 58 players hit at least 30 home runs. We know baseball is messing around with the ball and there is word that maybe they will be making adjustments yet again this season. Maybe that will have some impact, but when mid-to-late round players such as Jorge Soler , Kyle Schwarber , Franmil Reyes , Josh Bell , Joc Pederson , Max Kepler , Trey Mancini etc., are all hitting 35 home runs then what is the point of looking to get those mashers in the early rounds. Home runs are part of the game and being able to get them in later rounds makes it a no brainer to wait on power these days.

Batting Average

To punt batting average you are likely more or less talking about with individual players than your entire roster. The way offense is in baseball these days we see players hitting at higher averages than we are used to. In 2019 there were 55 players that hit at least .280 and 74 players that hit at least .270. When building out your roster there are fewer reasons to take on a player with a low batting average given the offensive production of the league as a whole. For example, the 30 home runs from Rougned Odor are nice, but at his .205 batting average you can find another 30-home run hitter that is hitting .260. The need to punt average to get upside in another category just isn’t the case anymore.

Wins

Does your league still use wins as a category? That’s probably the first mistake as the category has less to do with the pitcher than it does the offense that surrounds him. If you can find a starter that has a solid WHIP with a decent ERA and strikeout upside then you have yourself a player that is contributing to three of the four categories that he can score in. This is the approach worth taking as often you won’t need to find yourself sweeping a pitching category in your head-to-head leagues. In roto-leagues, the overall win totals may not put you at the top of the rankings but focusing on better overall starters will keep you in the middle of the pack, while hopefully you find yourself sitting towards the top third in the other pitching areas.  In 2019, just 12 starters won more than 15 games. What we did have, however, is 24 pitchers finish with more than 200 strikeouts which is more than the 2018 season which had just 18.  Only nine pitchers had an ERA under 3.00 in 2019 due to the increased offense around the league and of those nine starters, only three had more than 14 wins. Winning baseball games is just no longer the standard for determining elite pitching and ultimately this is why the wins category is getting phased out of most fantasy baseball formats.

So, whether you choose to punt or not is ultimately up to the strategy you choose and how your draft turns out. The best course of action here is to be prepared, mock draft different strategies and have an understanding of the ADP so you know which positions and categories are available in later rounds should you decide to punt on them early in your draft.