One of the fastest growing formats in fantasy baseball is Best Ball Leagues. These entail two of everyone’s favorite things: drafting and doing nothing.

Best Ball Leagues use points scoring where various stats are assigned a specific number of points. The hosting site optimizes the lineups based on their roster settings, so the maximum number of points is added to each team’s total every week. Some formats permit in-season adds and drops, but most carry the same roster all season.

In full disclosure, most Best Ball Leagues are pay-for-play, with entries ranging from a couple of bucks to a couple hundred. Some are rolled into an overall contest with a five or six digit payout, others are self-contained, paying the top spots or “50/50” where the top half of the standings are all paid the same thing.

A few months back, some strategy elements of points leagues were reviewed in Getting the Point. Those principles carry over to Best Ball Leagues. What follows are some suggestions intrinsic to Best Ball Leagues.

Know Thy Rules

Of course, this is inherent to any league, but since you can’t usually churn players, you are unable to fix mistakes. Position eligibility is one of the areas different between hosting sites. Some assign just one position per player, while others have a back end sophisticated enough to incorporate multiple position eligibility into their optimal lineup algorithm.

The scoring system itself is a vital consideration. Much of this is discussed in Getting the Point where useful points (points over replacement) are explained.

Roster composition is also a key. The number of hitters versus pitchers helps guide draft strategy. The number of catchers required in the optimal lineup is an important factor.

Composition of Reserve List

In traditional leagues, reserve spots are often earmarked for prospects, or speculative picks such as a setup man with a chance to garner saves later in the season. This is still a viable approach in Best Ball Leagues, but there is a risk associated with the reward. Stashing a prospect or speculative closer may pay off later in the season, especially since injuries will deplete a roster. The catch is you’ll have one fewer option to jump into your optimal lineup early in the season.

When drafting the second infielder at each position, it should be in the reverse order of how they were initially drafted. That is, the last position drafted to the “starting lineup” should be the first spot drafted to reserve. The presence of corner, middle and utility spots are a consideration, but if you draft Freddie Freeman, the assumption is he’ll be in the optimal lineup every week, so you don’t need a top backup. On the other hand, if you waited on second baseman (which is a solid idea since the pool is deep), you’ll want to draft another second baseman soon, hoping one of them has a solid week.

There is no set approach for deciding the number of hitters versus pitchers. It depends on the scoring, roster composition and depth of reserves. However, if a hosting site can handle multiple-eligibility players being slotted where they’re most useful in a given week, fewer batters are needed to cover all the spots, allowing drafting of more pitchers.

My rule of thumb is wanting “x” players eligible at each infield position, where the number depends on the format. Let’s use the NFBC Cutline as an example. This is a best ball contest under the National Fantasy Baseball Championship umbrella. The active roster consists of

• 2 catchers
• 1 first baseman
• 1 second baseman
• 1 third baseman
• 1 shortstop
• 1 middle infielder (2B or SS)
• 1 corner infielder (1B or 3B)
• 5 outfielders
• 1 utility hitter (any position)
• 9 pitchers
• 19 reserves

My goal is

• 4 catchers
• 3 first basemen
• 3 second basemen
• 3 third basemen
• 3 shortstops
• 9 outfielders
• 17 pitchers

One of the four 1B/3B not making the active roster at their position fills corner with the same for 2B/SS and middle. The top remaining batter takes the utility spot.

The above assumes no multiple eligibility players. If I draft Mookie Betts, he covers both 2B and OF, so I can roster 18 pitchers. Since injuries are a factor and you need sufficient healthy batters to fill an active lineup, you don’t want to go overboard and be too thin in terms of number of hitters. Adding up to three “extra” pitchers can be useful, especially since pitcher injuries hurt a best ball roster more than hitter injuries.

Embrace Variance

This could be the most integral element for best ball success. Clearly, the top players are expected to be in the optimal lineup every week. In formats like the Cutline, there will be competition for the corner, middle, utility, a couple of outfield spots and some pitching spots. League winners usually accumulate the most points in these lineup spots. Here is where it is crucial to embrace variance.

There are a handful of extreme hitting and pitching parks. Rostering batters from the former and hurlers from the latter is a great way to take advantage. Brendan Rodgers and Ryan McMahon should tally a lot more points the scoring periods in which they play the bulk of their games in Coors Field. Similarly, once you’re past the top pitchers, those with favorable home venues have a better chance to limit runs and grab a win.

Top Home Run Parks for Batters

• Reds (The Gream American Ballpark)
• Dodgers (Dodgers Stadium)
• White Sox (Guaranteed Rate Field)
• Rangers (Globe Life Field)
• Rockies (Coors Field)
• Angels (Angels Stadium)
• Yankees (Yankees Stadium)

Top Hits and Runs Parks for Batters

• Rockies (Coors Field)
• Red Sox (Fenway Park)
• Reds (The Gream American Ballpark)
• Royals (Kauffman Stadium)
• Rangers (Globe Life Field)
• White Sox (Guaranteed Rate Field)
• Pirates (PNC Park)
• Braves (Truist Park)
• Cubs (Wrigley Field)

Best Pitching Parks

• Mariners (T-Mobile Park)
• Mets (Citi Field)
• Padres (Petco Park)
• Rays (Tropicana Field)
• Athletics (Oakland Coliseum)
• Orioles (Camden Yards)
• Guardians (Progressive Field)
• Giants (Oracle Park)
• Cardinals (Busch Stadium)
• Astros (Minute Maid Park)

Platoon splits are another avenue to embrace variance. With everything else being equal, always choose the left-handed batter to fill later roster spots. Lefty swingers will have elevated points totals during the scoring periods in which they face a preponderance of right-handed pitchers.

For some reason, closers are often devalued in Best Ball Leagues. One reason could be the reliance on two-start pitchers to be in the optimal lineup. The issue is there are far fewer two-start weeks than many intuit. This isn’t always the case, but in a 26-week season, a starter gathering 32 starts will only get six double-dips. This equates to one every four or five weeks. If you have 17 pitchers in the Cutline, on the average just four will have a two-start week. Even if they all make the optimal lineup, there are five more pitching spots to fill.

Drafting multiple closers is a sneaky way to occupy a couple of those spots. It is important to draft a handful of the top closers to best embrace variance. This is possible in leagues where the room is fading the position. Closers rack up points via saves. The notion is saves often come in bunches, so if you have four closers, a couple will register multiple saves in a scoring period and grab one of the optimal lineup spots. Drafting only one isn’t as effective, since you’re essentially earmarking two of your nine pitching spots for closers with multiple saves that period, leaving seven for your top starters and handful of lesser guys with two-starts.

Gratuitous Plug Alert

The Fantasy Index MLB Draft Kit includes Excel spreadsheets to track several Best Ball formats. Each tracker is customized to the specific league using the Fantasy Index player projections. The players are displayed by rankings in an overall list, hitting list, pitching list and by position. The sheet does not recommend who to take, but it populates the rosters of every team in the league while removing drafted players from the available players lists. It is best suited for a slower draft where there are hours between picks (very common in best ball formats). Soon, there will be a tracker for Underdog Fantasy. Currently, the following are supported:

• NFBC Cutline
• NFBC 12-Team Best Ball
• Fanball 10s and 25s
• Fantrax Best Ball

There is also a version where you can plug in your private league’s scoring and roster configurations.

Todd Zola is an award-winning fantasy baseball writer and 2020 inductee into the Fantasy Sports Writers Hall of Fame. He's the content provider for the 2024 Fantasy Baseball Index Draft Kit, available now. To purchase, click HERE.