My Perfect Draft - 2024 Fantasy Baseball
I go through my hypothetical but realistic perfect draft for 2024 fantasy baseball leagues
I stole this idea directly from Adam Levitan, who writes this for fantasy football every year. He goes round by round and gives who he would pick in a perfect, but realistic world. Every year I just save that article a few hours before my fantasy football draft and go directly off of his picks. It has turned out to work pretty well over the last few years, although fantasy football is a much simpler game than fantasy baseball.
Baseball drafts are much tricker than football drafts since each pick influences your targets the rest of the way. In football, you just want points, in baseball, we want to fill categories and we have two completely different player types to draft (hitters and pitchers). So this will be tougher to than for a football post, but I’ll do my best.
The perfect draft would just be to have the first 30 picks of the draft, of course, but we’ll make this as realistic as possible using ADP as the guide.
If you read the draft guide and have been following along with my stuff, you won’t find too much new or surprising here, but it’s a fun and worthwhile exercise anyways.
We’ll do this in the context of a 12-team standard roto draft.
Round 1: Mookie Betts
Before the recent Acuna stuff, it was clear that the perfect draft would start with Acuna at 1.1. That’s still probably true, but it doesn’t feel as great now with questions about if his knee will hold up and if it will lower his steal attempts even while he’s playing. So I’ll give myself a middle-round pick here and say I pick #6.
The “perfect draft” this is tough to do in the first round because it’s so dependent on what pick you have. Betts is my #6 overall player, so I would not take him before pick 6. I prefer Acuna, Witt, Rodriguez, and Carroll to him, but let’s just say we have 6th pick and take it from there.
Betts is a really nice get since he’s in a top tier by himself at second base. It could prove to be a pretty big advantage to get elite production at second base, because there just aren’t many big upside names at the position right now.
Betts doesn’t give me a ton of steals, and he is not really a 40-50 homer threat either, he’s elite in runs, fine in steals, and very good everywhere else.
Round 2: Francisco Lindor
Since I started the draft with a guy that is not exactly ELITE in homers or steals, I would like to come back with someone in round two that does a bit of both as well. Lindor went 30-30 last year and performed like a first round pick. I don’t think he’ll do repeat that, but 25-20 feels like a floor for him.
My second round pick does largely depend on who I took in the first, however. My round two rules would be that I’m not taking a pitcher (unless I took Acuna at 1.1), and I’m trying to maximize homers and steals with my first two picks. So if my first pick is Carroll or Witt (better for steals than anything else), I’m looking for a big home run hitter in the second. If I end up with a lower-steals guy like Betts/Soto/Judge, then I’m hoping to end up with Ramirez/Turner/Lindor in the second.
Round 3: Zack Wheeler
This is the round I want to start my pitching staff, and Wheeler is the guy I’d most like. His ADP is 25 and my third round pick in the hypothetical would be pick #30, so maybe he wouldn’t make it to me. At that point I would be looking to go for Luis Castillo. I would feel pretty good about one of those making it. If they didn’t, I think I would go for another hitter and then cross my fingers that Pablo Lopez/Yamamoto/Kirby make it back to me in round 4.
Round 4: Tarik Skubal/Tyler Glasnow
If I were in a five outfielder league without an outfielder at this point (I would be wanting to use Betts at 2B), I’d be panicking a little bit, and I might take someone that I’m not overly excited about like Adolis Garcia or Randy Arozarena. Or I could look for Jose Altuve here and move Betts to the outfield.
But in a standard league with just three outfielders, I’m okay with waiting longer there and going back-to-back pitchers, provided one of these two massive upside names is there. I think either one of these guys could be the SP1 overall this year, so to get them with a safer option like Wheeler or Castillo has me feeling really good about my pitching.
Round 5: Nolan Jones
To take a guy with a 30% K%, a 68% Contact%, and a .396 BABIP last year doesn’t seem like me at all, that’s basically been my #1 type of player to avoid over the years, and it has served me well. So maybe this is stupid, but I need an outfielder bad in this build and I’m still looking to add a lot of homers and steals to the mix.
And it might not be perfectly sound strategy, but I generally have come to not worry so much about batting average anyways. There’s a lot of noise in the stat and there are always cheap guys to add on waivers to boost your batting average if needed, and you don’t find too many 30-20 threats late in the draft, so that plus the skills plus the positional need plus the backbone of Coors Field (the BABIP is very likely to be quite high again for Jones) makes me okay with taking on a little bit of risk here. And really, I’m not sure if the risk is really as bad as it seems like. He’s not going to lose the job, and the homers should be there (16% Brl%, 44% GB% last year), so we’ll take a shot on Jones.
Round 6: Matt McLain*, Oneil Cruz
I don’t known if I would pick McLain here right now, but if he gets back in the spring lineup soon I will start feeling a lot better about him. He missed more than the final month of the season last year with an oblique injury, and the same thing came up again this spring. So that’s a pretty big concern, but if he’s looking healthy he’s another guy that justified the risk. The 2B/SS eligibility is great, and he does feel like a very god floor hitter with the home ballpark, with his launch angle profile, and the upside is a 25-25 bat.
I also am pretty excited to get after Oneil Cruz this year as a guy I think could be a 30-homer, 20-steal, 90-run contributor. I don’t love the idea of pairing him with Nolan Jones since those two could both be pretty big tanks to the batting average, but my general strategy in the early rounds is to rack up as many homers and steals as possible without abandoning my pitching staff, so I like these two names for that purpose. If we’re last in batting average, there are ways to fix that.
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Round 7: Kyle Schwarber
I haven’t neglected homers by any means in this draft, but I don’t have a 40-homer threat yet. And yeah, I was already concerned about batting average, so Schwarber is the worst guy to pick with that in mind. But I don’t care, batting average be damned! Schwarber was the #14 hitter on my roto player rater last year, and by the projection systems he’s an easy top-20 hitter as well this year. So why is he going after pick 75 this year? I don’t get it.
We might be speeding toward taking a Luis Arraez type guy later just to bolster the batting average, which I hate to do, but it’s hard for me to pass on the 220 R+RBI and 35+ homers this late.
Round 8: Andres Munoz
The NFBC ADP I’m using isn’t very indicative of home league situations, so we probably won’t really have to pull the trigger on a closer this early. But if your league does function like this, I like getting Munoz at his current ADP a lot. I think the Mariners are going to win a lot of games this year, and there are no questions about his skillset.
Round 9: Triston Casas
It would now be time to get my first baseman. As I’ve written about a lot, I like waiting on Casas/Torkelson/CES/Hoskins at first base, so in this case I’ll bump up the ADP a bit to grab Casas. My 9th round pick in this hypothetical would be pick #102, which is Casas exact ADP in March, so we should be able to lock him in there.
Round 10: Bailey Ober
I’m reaching here for Ober at pick 115 (his March ADP is 132), but that’s because this is about the time I want to fire off several SP picks in quick succession. So if I’m targeting two guys with ADPs around 130, I have to go early on one of them. Ober is the guy with the most helium right now, so we have to be aggressive if we want to lock him in.
Round 11: Hunter Greene
My round 11 pick is pick #126, and Greene and Ober both have ADPs just slightly after pick 130, so it’s quite possible we can get them both between pick 110 and 130, so that’s what we’re doing.
Now we have four strong SPs and I’m ready for another hitter or two.
Round 12: Jarren Duran
Duran is another guy we love, and other people are picking up on him as well so the ADP has been climbing. He’s at ADP 148 in March drafts, so I’ll reach up to get him here at pick #139.
Round 13: Jake Burger
I would probably hesitate here since we have batting average problems already, but Burger did hit a decent .250 and lowered his strikeout rate a bunch when he got to Miami, so maybe there’s a .260-.270 batting average here to keep us afloat.
I need a 3B, and Burger is one of the best values in drafts at the position from how I see it. Alec Bohm is also here if we wanted a 3B with some batting average but I’d prefer the 30-homer guy.
Round 14: TJ Friedl
It’s our fourth outfielder, so we’re heavy there, but given the previous hitter picks we need to jump back in for some steals. Friedl works really nicely with the Schwarber/Casas/Burger type, he’ll score runs, hit for batting average, and steal (hopefully) a bunch of bags.
Round 15: Logan O’Hoppe
I really thought we’d be able to get O’Hoppe way later than this, and maybe in home league type drafts we will. But his March ADP is 157 and our 15th rounder would be pick 175, so I’m building in some of that leeway here.
Round 16: Hunter Brown / Bryce Miller
It’s a bit of a longshot that I’d be able to pull these two names in rounds 16 (my pick 187) and 17 (my pick 198), but this is a perfect world we’re imagining here. We could also end up grabbing these two in round 15 if the league is being slow on catchers, it’s quite possible that O’Hoppe will go way later than round 15 in plenty of leagues. So consider rounds 14-18 my Brown/Miller/O’Hoppe rounds.
Round 17: Bryce Miller / Hunter Brown
And if I can’t get them both, I’d be looking for a Bryan Woo or Shota Imanaga to fill in.
Round 18: Jeimer Candelario
I love the 1B/3B eligibility here and he’s a nice later-round batting average target that shouldn’t kill us anywhere. I could also see him having a bit of a power breakout season in Cincinnati, it will be the best ballpark he’s played in by far.
Round 19: Carlos Estevez / Kyle Finnegan
The Estevez ADP has been jumping up and down, so it’s hard to know when to pull the trigger on him. But he’s the closer right now for sure with Robert Stephenson hurt, and he could very well just keep that job all year long. There’s a lot of competition, so I don’t feel super great about it, but he’s a great option to start the year with. The backup plan here would be Finnegan, whose ADP is right around here.
Round 20: Ryan McMahon
I love the value on McMahon these days. An easy 20-homer guy with runs, RBI, and maybe even a half-decent batting average. He also functions as a 2B/3B which gives you the ability to move him all around the infield. Sign me up.
Round 21: Taj Bradley
At least one more young upside arm here. I like a lot of what Bradley showed last year and he’s been messing around with a splitter this spring. Great arm, huge upside, and if he’s terrible again we can cut him without a huge issue given it’s round 21.
Round 22: Anthony Rizzo
Let’s jump back in at the value veterans. We have a couple of first base options so far, but Rizzo makes for a nice backup plan there. We’re hoping he can get healthy, hit some homers, drive in Soto and Judge a whole bunch, and get us a non-awful batting average (he hit .248 in 2021 and .244 last year so there’s some hope for a .250 season).
Round 23: Matt Chapman
Landing in San Francisco sucked for him, but I still can’t get my head around the 271 ADP. The projections have him comfortably in the top 100 hitters, but nobody wants him. Take the boring veterans here.
Round 24: Giancarlo Stanton
Let’s just take the bombs while he’s healthy, and it’s late enough in the draft where we don’t even really care if he hits the IL. We’ll have a replacement ready for him.
Round 25: Griffin Canning
No chance he makes it to round 25 in my home league since everybody knows I have a large bulge for the guy, but his March ADP is 292 and my 25th pick is 294, so it matches.
It’s a beautiful team, and I would be thrilled to have anything close to this. My first drops would be Rizzo/Chapman/Canning if a must-add waiver guy pops up, but more than likely we’ll have an injury or two from this team and that will open up roster spots. So here it is:
The Team
C: Logan O’Hoppe
1B: Triston Casas
2B: Mookie Betts
SS: Francisco Lindor
3B: Jake Burger
MIF: Ryan McMahon
CIF: Jeimer Candelario
OF: Nolan Jones
OF: Kyle Schwarber
OF: Jarren Duran
UTIL: TJ Friedl
BENCH: Anthony Rizzo
BENCH: Matt Chapman
BENCH: Giancarlo Stanton
SP: Zack Wheeler
SP: Tarik Skubal
SP: Bailey Ober
SP: Hunter Greene
SP: Hunter Brown
SP: Bryce Miller
SP: Taj Bradley
SP: Griffin Canning
RP: Andres Munoz
RP: Carlos Estevez
And that’s it. My home league draft is in just eight days, and I am ready to be extremely disappointed with how unable I am to replicate this perfect draft in real life.