The baseball regular season is rapidly approaching and we’re nearing the end of our mock draft army segments here at Fantasy Alarm. Below, you’ll see the seventh and eighth different strategy used to give FANation an idea of what your roster can look like when implementing different strategies on draft day. Our friends over at RealTime Fantasy Sports have allowed us to use their platform to conduct these mock drafts. This past week we did a couple more. The first strategy used was to ignore batting average and saves and focus on winning as many other categories as possible. The second strategy was to win ALL offensive categories and find gems later in the draft to keep us in the pitching categories. Follow along on the draft boards using team @ChrisBouv14 below. Let’s break them down!

Ignoring Batting Average and Saves

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Eliminating yourself from contention in multiple categories right off the bat is a risky approach. Doing this means you really have to win, or come very close to winning all of the other categories. Ignoring batting average isn’t a terrible stat to punt as you can still win the other four categories by creating a team of power hitters and speedsters. They’ll still get you your runs, home runs, runs batted in and steals even though they won’t put you in the top half of the batting average category. Ignoring saves allows you to load up on big time starters to get you wins and strikeouts and then several “ratio” guys that have low WHIP and ERA to give you the edge in four out of five pitching categories. Also, some of those ratio helpers may end up with a closer role as we get deeper into the season and then you’re only losing batting average. Let’s take a look at how this one fared for us.

The first several rounds fell right into our strategy. Bryce Harper at six overall, Manny Machado and Brian Dozier. Three guys that can get to the  30 home run, 90 run, 100 rbi and 10 steals mark in 2018 while having averages that can land anywhere from .260-.300. Even if they all hit .260 this season, were okay with that using this strategy. Four of the next six rounds gave us starting pitching in Jacob deGrom, Zack Greinke, Zack Godley and Marcus Stroman. That gives us a strong core of pitchers than can give us 800 strikeouts combined, near 3.00 eras, 1.20 whip and could all end up with 14-16 wins.

Other starters we selected were Alex Wood, Aaron Sanchez and Blake Snell rounding out the rotation with guys that have a ton of upside and Wood being the guy that stabilizes the ratios of Sanchez and Snell should they retain the high walk rates. The bullpen selections didn’t go exactly as planned as some closers fell to us late and we couldn’t pass that up. Sean Doolittle and Cam Bedrosian fell to us and we polished that off with some very good ratio guys in Josh Hader and Tommy Kahnle. Punting saves looks to be a very viable strategy with the volatility at the position and the amount of options to select late in drafts. It’s something to strongly consider.

Looking for more big homer and steals guys, we ended up with Yoenis Cespedes, Jay Bruce, Aaron Hicks, Mitch Haniger, Aaron Altherr and Cameron Maybin to round out the outfield. Jake Lamb, Ryan Zimmerman, Justin Smoak, Paul DeJong, Kolten Wong and Logan Morrison finished off the infield. Mike Zunino and Wellington Castillo gave us two catchers with 25 home run potential in the middle of their teams respective lineups. This roster build gives us huge home run and rbi potential with plenty of runs and steals to compete in those categories as well. It also gave us an upside riddled staff with plenty of ratio helpers in case a couple of them don’t live up to the hype received early this season. All in all it was an exciting strategy to implement in this mock and it seems like a team that could do some real damage.

Win All Offensive Categories and Punt Pitching

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Man oh man was this draft a blast! The idea here was to go for the jugular on offense and aim to win EVERY offensive category while using the depth at the pitching position to your advantage and load up on upside late. This puts you in position to win five offensive categories and if you make the right picks with your staff, you could still do some damage in the pitching categories. Just to give you an idea of how this went for us offensively, these were the first seven picks for our team. Jose Altuve, Cody Bellinger, J.D. Martinez, Marcell Ozuna, Jonathan Schoop, Khris Davis and Edwin Encarnacion. Average, power, RBI’s, power and more power.

The eighth pick for us was a little bit tough to make but was completely necessary. Having only Altuve to provide any real speed threat forced the hand here as we took Billy Hamilton to give us around 100 total stolen bases through eight rounds to go with all that power. Ian Kinsler, Oswaldo Arcia, Mike Zunino, Chris Davis, Todd Frazier and Evan Gattis put the finishing touches on this deadly lineup. It’s a lineup that projects to be top three in every offensive category while winning three of them outright.

The staff that we were able to build has a ton of risk but even more upside. Jose Berrios, Luis Castillo, Lance McCullers, Mike Clevinger, Danny Salazar and Patrick Corbin. Like I said, a ton of risk. Here’s what we COULD see however, six starters that can hit the 200 strikeout mark. This is a lofty expectation obviously, with health issues and workload concerns on the table for just about all of them. This strategy forces this kind of build because you’re looking for all the upside you can find late in your draft since you didn’t spend any early picks on the position. You could very well select a bunch of safer guys with less upside and finish middle of the pack in all of your pitching categories but who wants to finish fifth? There’s a ridiculous amount of depth at the pitching position and upside to go with that, use that to your advantage!

The bullpen started out very well as we landed Arodys Vizcaino, Yoshihisa Hirano and Cam Bedrosian, all guys that should be the closer this season for their respective teams. If it wasn’t for the computer crashing at the end of the draft causing several auto picks of guys that weren’t targets at this point, (use your queue people), the goal was to nab a few more under the radar ratio guys along the lines of the first strategy. Guys like Tommy Kahnle, Chad Green and Carl Edwards Jr. This was a pitching group that can finish top four at every pitching category with a little luck and hope that they can reach their potential this season and thats all we could ask for when using this approach. This one was a lot of fun and a little risky but hey, what’s life without a little risk? Try these out for yourself and see what you can accomplish using the same approaches.

It’s getting down to the nitty gritty folks. The regular season is almost here and so is draft day, so be prepared. Create your own cheat sheets, participate in as many mock drafts as you can and gain the edge on your league-mates. Email Howard Bender at mockdraftarmy@yahoo.com to get into some of the final mock drafts at RealTime Fantasy Sports and mock with some of the experts! Practice makes perfect, just ask Allen Iverson. Let’s go FANation!