2022 Best Ball Strategy

by Greg Fishwick

Best Ball derives its descriptive label from golf tournaments of the same name. After teeing off, everyone in a foursome hits their next shot from where the “best ball” landed, their approach shot from the best ball among fairway drives, and so on. In fantasy baseball, Best Ball is a form of points scoring where the site provider selects each team’s best lineup from among all players rostered after each scoring period.

Why is Best Ball becoming popular?

Best Ball is a high-preparation, low maintenance, points competition. It’s an attractive add for fantasy GMs already preparing for other drafts who can accommodate a few additional FAABs in-season. Letting a site pick the optimum lineup after the fact is an easy sell, too. No more laboring over two-start pitchers, platoon players, Coors Field, or which teams have more games that week. And who’s gonna miss those interminable “winter meetings” e-mail exchanges about tweaking league categories? If you enjoy drafting more than managing, have trouble keeping up with daily transactions and/or weekly FAABs, or just want to try something different, Best Ball may be for you.

Not just another draft

Best Ball shifts the competitive balance between draft day and in-season management from relatively equal to extremely draft-reliant. With no lineup changes, your draft determines your destiny. Contest leagues typically have two or three FAAB dates and no trading. Scoring providers can usually adjust so that home league rules for FAAB and trades remain intact. And because BABS’ long-term, large-sample emphasis is best for drafting, BABS and Best Ball are a match made in heaven.

As described in the previous piece, Points game strategies for 2022, points game drafts are very different from roto drafts. Let’s look at how points drive strategy by using the NFBC scoring system for Best Ball and Best Ball Cutline contests as an example. Dig deeper by sorting NFBC ADP for those two contests.

HITTING
At bats           -1
Hits               4
Runs               2
Home Runs          6
Runs Battted In    2
Stolen Bases       5
--------------------
PITCHING
Innings Pitched   3
Hits Allowed     -1
Earned Runs      -2
Walks            -1
Strikeouts        1
Wins              6
Saves             8

Build a positive foundation

A fundamental strategy in Best Ball is building a foundation of positive points. The NFBC example above features nine ways to add points: five from hitting and four from pitching; and four ways to subtract points: three from pitching and one from hitting. It looks like SB (5) and HR (6) are very close in value. But HRs are also Hits (4), Runs (2), and RBI (2). Subtracting one point for the AB, a solo shot is a net 13-point event. That makes Power the first Asset screen. Since every hit is scored equally (no extra points for extra bases), the second Asset screen is Batting Effectiveness (Av). Only then should you shop for Speed (Sp). RBI will follow from Power and Batting Effectiveness, Runs will follow from Batting Effectiveness and Speed.

Pitching is more complicated because of its multiple negative point possibilities and the difficulty of finding Wins. The two BABS screens for building a positive pitching point foundation are Full-time SP workload for IP, and (K) Assets for the strikeout double-dip of one point per out as 1/3 IP and one point per K. The bad news, though, is that BABS projects only 18 SP for FT workloads in 2022. Targeting pitchers must also rely on limiting liability.

Limit liability

As seen in our example, Best Ball point systems almost always assign negative points. Luckily, limiting liabilities is a BABS specialty. She’s the only one identifying Skills Liabilities and quantifying Risk Cost. Limiting hitting liability is pretty straightforward: avoid those who lack Power (-P) and/or Batting Effectiveness (-A).

Again, pitching is more complicated. To avoid any of your nine “highest-scoring” pitchers subtracting points, first filter out those with (-E) Skills Liability to minimize earned runs allowed and runners allowed via walks and hits. Then filter out those with (-K) Skills Liability. Since that includes Kyle Hendricks, one of the 18 Full-time SP, he becomes less valuable than a Mid-time SP with (ER) and/or (K) Assets and low Risk Cost, such as Brewer buddies Corbin Burnes (pictured) and Brandon Woodruff. See Points game strategies for 2022 for a short list of some popular players with skills liabilities.

Strategy summary

Compensate for the lack of full-time, high-K starters by first filtering out (-E) and (-K) pitchers. Target the few full-time and mid-time SP with (Er) and/or (K) Assets and low Risk Cost. Then seek relievers with the most Assets, using BABS’ (Sv) column to shop for Saves points. Turning to mid-time SP with some Assets, recognize that taking on reasonable Risk Cost is better than rostering Skills Liabilities. Fill out your staff with high-Asset relievers who could get Wins and/or Saves as their managers follow the trend of spreading those stats. That also follows the oft-repeated advice to draft skills, not roles.

Prioritize Power over pitching, but don’t wait too long on your SP targets. The top nine pitchers on your roster are scored. If opponents consistently outscore you there, an overloaded offense can’t save you because only the top 14 hitters are scored—and two of them are catchers. The hitting Asset screens are Power (Pw) and Batting Effectiveness (Av), then Speed (Sp). Points game strategies for 2022 has short lists of hitters to target, suggesting that Jose Ramirez may be a better choice than Trea Turner and Trevor Story may be a better choice than Starling Marte.