Fantasy Baseball Today - 10-Team Leagues Strategy & Advice (3/25 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Starting point is 00:00:03 We receive lots of questions about 10-team leagues, so let's discuss on fantasy baseball today in five. Welcome into FBTN-5. Today is Saturday at March 25th. I am Frank Stanfield, joined by Scott White, and let's get into 10-team league strategy. Scott, what are some of the differences between 12-team and 10-team leagues? Yeah, and I think it's important to get into because, you know, I feel like the analyst class likes to talk about leagues much. than the user class actually plays in. And so it could be that the majority of people listening are playing in 10 team leagues are close to it. The biggest difference between them and 12 team leagues,

Starting point is 00:00:44 I would say is, well, just generally speaking, the shallower you go, the more you have to emphasize position scarcity because you need to make sure... It's harder to create advantages at position because there's more talent to go around, right? So you need to make sure that every position is filled by as impact,

Starting point is 00:01:03 of a player as possible. And so the way to do that is emphasizing position scarcity, drafting off my tiers, et cetera. That's one thing. Another thing about shallower leagues, the shallower of the league is the more you can sell out for upside and should sell out for upside. And I don't necessarily mean early in drafts.

Starting point is 00:01:24 Like I don't think you have to take O'Neill Cruz in round three because, oh, look at the upside. I don't think there's a lot of value in that. obviously the players going in round three are still very high in themselves. But when you get to the later stages of the draft, particularly filling out your bench, you don't really need to invest in boring guys who are just going to be similar to what's out there on the waiver wire. Anyway, it makes more sense to reach to grab like an Anthony Volpe 100 picks sooner than his ADP because, you know, the upside is considerable for him.

Starting point is 00:01:58 And if it doesn't work out, you can swap him out for one of those boring plays. on the waiver wire later. The third way that I think shallower leagues are different. Ten team leagues are different from 12 team leagues, particularly if you're talking about a head-to-head league where there isn't an extra middle infield spot to fill, there isn't an extra corner infield spot to fill, there's probably only three outfield spots to fill

Starting point is 00:02:25 instead of five outfield spots to fill. There's a smaller lineup to fill. I mentioned the position scarcity, the importance of that when that's the case. But also, the positions that we don't think of as being scarce look that much more plentiful. And specifically, I'm talking about shortstop, first base, and catcher, presuming it's a one-catcher league.

Starting point is 00:02:51 If you can get a true stud at one of those positions, like if you can get JT Real Muto, if you can get like a Paul Goldschmidt, it's probably the cutoff at first base for, it's worth paying up for as Vinnie Pasquantino for me. At shortstop, the cutoff would probably be O'Neill Cruz or Corey Seeger as it's worth paying up for for that upside. But unless you can get that high end of a player at those three positions, catcher first base and shortstop,

Starting point is 00:03:18 it's not worth paying up for at all. Like it's not worth, okay, I'm going to take Xander Bogart's here in round eight because he's the next shortstop in my rankings. there's only 10 shortstop spots to fill across the entire league. And there's more than 10 short stops deserving of filling that spot. So somebody like Dansby Swanson, it's not that much worse than Xander Bogartz. He might not be at all.

Starting point is 00:03:42 He might be there with your last four or five picks. So there comes a point at each of those positions where the differentiation of what's left isn't enough to make it worth paying up for. and you should just kind of like reverse position scarcity, position plenty, let's call it, where you're better off targeting positions that are going to run out because shortstop first base and catcher probably aren't.

Starting point is 00:04:17 The last point that I would make in 10-team or shallower leagues, don't be afraid to make volume trades. So in my home league, I've kind of, this has kind of been coined the old Frank two for one, right? Because I wind up with all this great depth and I try to clearly trade the lesser players for a better player by giving up volume in a trade. So specifically in 10 team leagues, you're going to find some great talent on the waiver wire or maybe a surplus throughout your draft. So I would say if you could turn two players into an even better player to stand out at that position, that's something I would look to do as well. I call that consolidating talent. That's the word I use for it, the term I use for it.

Starting point is 00:04:58 But yeah, I mean, it's kind of the same idea is that when there are fewer spots to get impact and the standard for impact is higher and the replacement level is higher, like the caliber of a replacement player is much higher, then you just want to go for the highest in talent you possibly can. And two-for-one trades, like you said, Frank, are a good way of doing that. Consolidating talent, the old Frank two for one, whatever you want to call it. Probably want to make some of those trades. For more extensive fantasy baseball coverage, listen to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the Odyssey app, or anywhere else podcasts are found.

Starting point is 00:05:38 Thanks for listening to Fantasy Baseball today in five, and we'll be back again next week. Bye-bye.

Fantasy Baseball Today - 10-Team Leagues Strategy & Advice (3/25 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

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