MLB Draft Strategy: 2018 Tout Wars Review

Over the course of the next four weeks, I will be examining some different drafts I have done or will be doing in order to highlight different (and sometimes better) draft strategies and approaches for better success. Often, we go into a draft or auction with an idea of what we want to do, however, sometimes in focusing solely on our own goals, we miss ways we can gain a competitive advantage over our league-mates. This is the first of those pieces.

One may wonder, why would you use a fifth-place finish to highlight how to win a league? The answer is simple: it is process rather than results.

In this format, two wins were awarded to the team with the most hitting points, two wins were awarded to the team with the most pitching points, and then four wins were awarded to the team with the most overall points. My strategy was I would spend $200 of my $260 budget on starters, ignoring relief pitching and building an offense of cheap guys with upside. The main targets offensively were going to be catchers. My goal was to exploit the point system that disproportionately favored starting pitching to take the pitching and overall categories each week and hopefully put together a strong enough offense. Here was the team I ended up with:

You may look at that team and be a bit grossed out. I had some really nice offensive buys, but I was plagued by injuries and under performances. At one point, I had 17 players on the disabled list. So, why am I saying that the process was right? In spite of overwhelming setbacks, I still somehow finished in 5th place. So, what would have happened if some of those setbacks wouldn’t have happened? Let’s take a look:

In this table, you can see what would have happened if I had taken different pitchers instead of the ones I had ended up with. I only replaced pitchers that went for less than the ones I bought at auction and ones that didn’t overly exceed their value. Now obviously I am cherry picking the players. However, this shows the strategy would have worked if I employed it with even just average or chalk players.

Conclusion:

Points leagues are all about what projections you use and how you run them through the points system. If I hadn’t then I would have tried the same standard approach that all the other people at Tout Wars did last year. Obviously, people took notice. In spite of only finishing fifth, the Tout Wars Board have changed the point system.

The other big change was how wins were awarded. While you still get two wins for winning hitting and two wins for winning pitching, the participants will only get two points for winning the overall. The change in point scoring has swung the raw point totals from it being a pitcher friendly league to a hitter friendly league. When I ran the numbers for the new system, I was surprised to see that Max Scherzer earned about as much as Josh Bell under the new format. Now, if you plan on competing in both pitching and hitting every week, you will have to build a balanced roster, not matter which side earns more points. However, if I was in this league again (I will be joining the NL Only league,) I would Labadini the heck out of this format. For those that don’t know what the Labadini Plan is, here is an excerpt from this year’s draft guide that I wrote about it:

Labadini Plan:

This is a personal favorite of all the strategies. Named after Larry Labadini, who tried it in LABR in 1996, it calls for you to spend $251 on your offense and $1 each on all your pitchers or in a draft you draft only offense until you have filled up every offensive slot. I love this strategy because it is so unique. You will crush everyone in offense and hopefully get lucky with a $1 reliever that turns into a closer, then you can trade some offense for a starter or two to help catch up in some of the pitching stats because you should have a pretty great lead in offense by the halfway point. With the glut of starting pitchers these days, this is a fun out of the box idea.

This is, pretty much, the inverse of what I did last year. Try and win hitting and the overall every week and steal enough of the pitching weeks through streaming pitchers. With the addition of a playoff system that includes the top six teams in the standings, this strategy should at worst make the team a playoff team and one that would be highly feared if it regularly swept both hitting and the overall each week.

Whether that is coincidence or them trying to prevent people from doing what I did, they have drastically changed how pitchers score points. Points leagues (and all non-traditional Roto leagues) are about the format. Using the rules and scoring system to your advantage is how you set yourself up for an easier path to victory.