Living MLB DW Commandments: Dynasty Roster Saints
Following these commandments helped move my team from 16th to first this season
🚨 NEW WRITER ALERT! 🚨
I’ve brought a fella named John Allen on board. He reached out a little while back and expressed some interest in contributing. Like myself, John’s initials are JA, and he lives in Indiana. A match made in heaven. Unlike myself, John has a background in professional journalism and extensive experience in the dynasty fantasy baseball world. He’ll be handling a ton of very useful in-season content, but he gets a start here with a unique piece of offseason content.
What you’ll read below are some tales on how he went about patching up some struggling dynasty rosters last season. And he even incorporated the newfound MLB DW Ten Commandments, which I thought was cool.
This will be a fun read for the dynasty kids. Check it out, and drop a comment welcoming John aboard. I’m sure he’d appreciate it. Here he goes:
I spent last winter diving in headfirst to the Dynasty Baseball deep end, picking up 10 orphaned teams at different depths of despair.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I used MLB Data Warehouse’s Ten Commandments of Fantasy Baseball to lift one of those teams from 16th to the top of the mountain in this 25-team league. Here’s how I followed the commandments:
1. Play to your league rules.
In this roto league, the hitter categories were OPS, HR, RBI, SB and Runs. Nothing out of the ordinary. But the pitching categories held a nasty curveball. They were ERA, WHIP, Saves+Holds/2, Strikeouts and Innings Pitched. Not wins or quality starts, but innings pitched. And that is what drew me to this orphaned roster – Framber Valdez, Garrett Crochet, Ranger Suarez, Gavin Williams, Jose Berrios, Kodai Senga, and Matthew Boyd. They would allow me to finish well in counting categories, and then pitched well enough to finish near the top in ERA and WHIP.
2. Don’t look at smaller samples when larger samples are available.
Coming off Tommy John surgery, Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara was getting hammered (7.22 ERA in first half). To make matters worse, the Marlins just kept him in the game to get shelled, so if you had to play him, you were getting shelled. In mid-June, there appeared to be a light at the end of the tunnel and I got another owner to add him as a throw-in on a deal I was making for a closer. I got burned a couple times, but then Alcantara was pretty good (3.33 ERA) in second half). Not 2021-22 Alcantara good, but for the price, he was more than worth it.
3. K-BB% and SIERA will always be the best quick way to judge a pitcher.
Crochet was second to Tarik Skubal in K-BB% and SIERA. He was one of my team’s seven to finished in the top 50 for K-BB%. In a 25-team league, that should be 2 or 3, so it was a huge advantage.
4. Invest in stud prospect hitters in their second year.
I was more interested in Brewers prospect Luis Pena than his teammate Jesus Made before the draft, especially given their price tags. I got Pena and a pick for Giants starter Landen Roupp and Rangers utilityman Ezequiel Duran. Pena turned out to be important, because his helium rise in the first two months allowed me to secure Royals closer Carlos Estevez in a straight up deal that took me from the middle in Saves+Holds/2 to near the top.
5. Expect regression in everything.
I knew Blue Jays’ big free agent signing Anthony Santander was going to drop in 2025. I still traded for him, because I knew regression was coming for Rays’ slugger Xavier Isaac. So dealing Isaac and a pick for Santander did not produce in 2025, but I given his career arc, Santander has at least one more great-ish season left in the near future.
6. Buy struggling players and sell overperforming players early in the year.
In April, Freddie Freeman was looking closer to the end of his career and was on the block. While I already had Olson and Tyler Soderstrom at 1B, there was room for Freeman in the starting lineup with two utility spots (and then Soderstrom moved to OF). Giving up Matt Shaw, top pitching prospect Travis Sykora, Guardians slugger Ralphy Velazquez, and my first draft pick (3rd-rounder) Kevin Alvarez was needed to make the move.
7. Look to buy raw talent, give those players a longer leash.
Through 106 MLB games over two seasons, Soderstrom struck out 93 times in 314 at bats (29.6%). The problem in my mind was the A’s were yanking him in and out of the lineup. They just needed to give him the job and let his tools play. I wasn’t alone, as I received a lot of offers for him. I was rewarded with a .276/.346/.474 season.
8. Don’t be the first guy to draft a catcher or a relief pitcher.
Taking over an abandoned dynasty league team, I liked Cal Raleigh as my starting catcher. I thought he was a top 5-10 catcher in the 25-team league. I didn’t know – and no one did – that he was about to have a top 10 fantasy baseball season.
9. Ignore spring training.
I turned this commandment around, a little bit. In spring training, Giants infielder Casey Schmitt was hitting over .300 with good power and looking like a starter. Even at 26, I thought Schmitt was a guy who would be lucky to have a wRC+ more than the 109 he posted in 40 games in 2024. In the spring, I sent him and Twins’ Austin Martin for three future picks. Schmitt finished 2025 with wRC+ of 98 in 95 games, so maybe I will be wrong. But he couldn’t start on my dynasty team, maybe those future picks can, or they can get me someone who can.
10. Don’t take fantasy baseball too seriously.
Baseball is littered with outlier outcomes. Cal Raleigh goes from 34 homers to 60. Anthony Santander goes from 44 homers to 6. Michael Harris II puts together his first 20/20 season in a year in which he was unplayable for May (zero HRs) and June (hit .148). There are plenty of other things to take seriously in life. Fantasy sports should not be one of them.
All my teams were not saints when it came to following the commandments. In fact, one team finished last despite having Cal Raleigh on the team. I’ll confess those failures soon.