2021 Fantasy Baseball: The POSB Draft Strategy

Mar 15, 2021

Targeting power and speed with a fade in batting average is called the POSB draft strategy

Maybe the most straightforward draft strategy to execute is POSB. This theory is built on drafting power and speed, with batting average being a secondary consideration. The goal is to dominate home runs and stolen bases, hopefully leading to high scores in runs and RBI.

Fading Batting Average

In most drafts, fantasy owners shy away from players with batting average risk. There is a minefield out there with low-average power littering the player pool after round 10 in 15-team leagues. With this draft style, it's a gold mine.

By buying weaker pieces to the puzzle, a fantasy owner can open up some early rounds to make sure they build their pitching staff base. In the ideal situation, an owner would like to finesse this plan, so they don't finish last in batting average. In any given year, a high strikeout rate hitter can still post a respectable batting average. In a season with deep starting pitching inventory, batting average could be depressed, helping this draft plan win.

A Baseline for Batting Average

What is a negative batting average? Over the recent fantasy baseball seasons, a fantasy team's batting average needs to finish over .270 to rank in the standings' upper levels. Any baseball player who hits .250 or below would be a drain on your overall team's batting average.

In any given season, it's possible that three or four low average hitters breakout in batting average in the same year, helping this type of drafter to finish higher than expected in batting average. You can flip a weak asset in a trading league if he gets off to a hot start. In a 12 or 15 team league, you can still win by punting one category.

Plus Power Hitters and Speed Only Players

An owner with this thought process has to avoid too much flash and dash. He can accept weaker pieces, but he has to be careful not to own too many players that offer just pure speed. In seasons with lower expected offensive stats, a one-dimensional speed hitter should have more value as a fantasy owner can commit more roster slots to power hitters.

In the past, I've seen many fantasy owners land two to three elite power hitters while then taking a speed-only player. A power early plan can turn in the wrong direction if the drafter chases stolen bases while accepting minimal home runs by multiple players.

How to Win

For this theory to win, a fantasy owner must establish an edge in three areas – power, speed, and starting pitching. The key to the plan is identifying the falling pieces in the draft that offer the skill set to execute your plan.

Once a fantasy owner has some ideas about how he wants to backfill their roster, he can start looking at the starting pitching tradeoffs to decide which rounds you want to use to build your pitching staff.

This drafting style will often overlap the PAPS style, so a fantasy owner must be careful that those owners don't steal his key players.

A fantasy owner looking to execute this draft plan will be looking for proven players with longer resumes. When some owners are looking for young players with upside late, this owner squirrels away older veteran players. You may shake your head at the draft table, but this fantasy owner has a chance to win if many of his late veteran options produce expected stats.