NFBC Targets: ADP 400-450
We pull up some targets for NFBC Draft Champions Drafts
The place to get your fantasy baseball drafting fix in the pits of winter is The NFBC. They offer a variety of league types and entry fees, and you can draft any time you want from November through March.
One of the more popular league types over there is the Draft Champions leagues. These are big boys. 15 teams, 50 rounds, draft and hold. You draft 50 players, and those are the 50 you have for the season. No waivers, no trades, no drops or adds. You do have a bench, and you set your lineup weekly during the season, but you’ll finish with the same 50 guys you started with.
If you’re going to give one of these leagues a shot, you have to have plenty of late-round targets ready to go. These drafts go 750 picks deep.
I have played a couple of these every. year just for the fun of drafting in the winter. Overall, I have not had success. But I’m going to give it another shot this year, and to help myself, I’m starting this post series. We’ll go through the late round in 50-pick chunks for 400 to 750. Today, we begin with targets in the ADP 400-450 range.
I’ve got five hitters and five pitchers for you.
Hitters
Jared Triolo (1B/2B/3B), Pittsburgh Pirates
We have a few different player types in the late rounds of the deep drafts. You probably want to draft a mixture of upside and safe playing time. What you don’t want is to have a spot in your lineup taking zeroes or total loser stats for weeks at a time.
Triolo qualifies as the safe type. He has eligibility at 1B, 3B, and SS. So you can plug him into those spots, plus middle infield and corner infield. That’s a big help when injuries hit throughout the year.
There’s nothing great about Triolo’s fantasy game. The reason he’s in the Major Leagues is because of his defense (he’s won a Gold Glove in the minors and in the Majors). But he started getting regular reps after the Pirates traded Ke’Bryan Hayes to the Reds, and his offense improved with that consistent playing time. Those two things might not be related, but it’s something that happened.
His second half stats (post All-Star break):
192 AB, 29 R, 4 HR, 14 RBI, 8 SB, .280 AVG
Nothing special, but that’s a 10-20-.280 (ish) pace, and that plays pretty darn well for a 15-team league. Will it repeat? Probably not, he’s never hit that well before. But he does have some speed, he’s always been willing to steal bases, and the raw power isn’t awful by any means. He has league-average bat speed and a 103.3 EV90 last year. He’s far above the Steven Kwan’s and Jacob Wilson’s of the league.
So you’re getting a guy who will play a bunch with the ability to hit you a homer every couple of weeks and steal some bags along with a decent batting average. And you can use him all across your lineup. That’s a strong target in my book.
Carson Williams (SS), Tampa Bay Rays
You might not even have to use a top 450 pick to get him, as you can see above. Sometimes he’s going between 450 and 500. And this isn’t a guy I’d reach for, although plenty of people have (he’s gone inside the top 400 a handful of times).
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