2025 Fantasy Baseball: Salary Cap League Strategy and Results from NFBC Draft

On Friday, March 14th I entered my first official salary cap draft of the 2025 fantasy baseball season – a $150 Online Auction Championship at the NFBC.

For those that are not familiar, it’s a 15-team format that utilizes 23 roster spots – 14 hitters (2 Catchers, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, Corner Infield, Middle Infield, 5 OF and Utility) and 9 pitchers. Each team is given $260 to spend during the salary cap draft and the entire 23-man starting roster must be filled out during the salary cap draft. There is then a seven-round reserve draft afterwards. In addition to competing for league prizes in this 15-team league, there is also an overall component in which this team will be competing against all other leagues for overall prizes as well.

Over the years in this space and in our draft guide I have already delved deeply into basic strategy for salary cap drafts, but for this article I wanted to give readers a deeper insight into my personal process for these types of drafts. In fact, I’m writing up this first section the day before the draft.

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NFBC SALARY CAP DRAFT STRATEGY

Let me start out by saying that I’m not the type of drafter who has dollar values for every particular player that will be available in the draft and who goes into the draft simply looking for discounts and to accumulate as much “value” as I possibly can. I’m someone who believes strongly in getting my guys, and I’m willing to go down fighting with the players that I think are the best options on the board. Entering this draft, or any draft for that matter, I usually start with about 25% of the player pool crossed off my board and around another 25% that I’d only really be interested in at a steep discount.

Going into the draft, my plan is to allocate around 59% of my budget on the hitting side ($140) and 41% ($120) on the pitching side. That’s slightly more skewed to pitching than the current industry standard, but as you’ll see the thought process behind it below, hopefully you’ll understand.

When building a draft plan for a snake draft or an auction, I usually start out by working backwards. Identifying the lower cost options that I’m comfortable building my team around and then filling in from there to see where I need to spend up or allocate my dollars elsewhere. This year, there are several low-cost starting pitching targets that I want to come out of the draft with – Bowden Francis, Justin Verlander and Matthew Boyd.

For this planning exercise, I’m going to look at average auction values (AAV) at the NFBC since the calendar flipped to March to give me an idea on what types of prices I’ll need to budget to acquire the players that I want. What’s super helpful about that tool is that it provides not only the average, but also the minimum and maximum bid that each player has gone for. At the time of writing this, there data is made up of 18 salary cap drafts that have run during that timeframe.

On average, Verlander has gone for $1, with a maximum of $2. We have seen his price start to rise though, as he’s moved inside of the top 300 according to average draft position (ADP) since the Main Event drafts have kicked off, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it wound up taking $3 to get him. It just depends on when he’s nominated in the draft and what type of budget remaining the other players have that may be interested. We’re going to put $3 in for him on the sheet and work from there.

Boyd is a bit more interesting. He has averaged $2 but has gone anywhere between $1 and $4. That one $4 bid could just be one manager with $4 left over to fill his final SP spot at the end of the draft and he didn’t want to leave money on the table. It could also mean that there’s genuine interest in Boyd from a particular sect of drafters. We’re going to take the AAV and mark him down for $2. I’m pretty confident that for $5 total we should be able to acquire both Verlander and Boyd.

Working up from there, we get to Bowden Francis. He’s a player that I’m much higher on than the market this season and a player that is a must have for me in this draft. Like Boyd, he’s currently running an AAV of $2, though that comes with a min of $1 and a max of $5. There’s also one draft where he wasn’t even taken which boggles my mind. We’re going to go the conservative route again and mark him down for $4.

So we have three targets among our seven starting pitcher spots. What about the two RP spots? My favorite target at the position at the moment is Tanner Scott. I trust that Dave Roberts is going to deploy him as their primary closer and that he’s going to rack up a plethora of saves while being backed by the best offense in all of baseball. His AAV at the moment is $13 with a min of $11 and a max of $18. The top closers on the board are pulling in much higher totals than Scott’s maximum with Emmanuel Clase, Josh Hader and Devin Williams all averaging $22 while Edwin Diaz, Mason Miller and Raisel Iglesias each average $21. We’ll put $18 down for Scott but hope that we don’t have to go quite that high. That also means we could jump into the bidding for Devin Williams if we can get him in that $18-$20 range.

My favorite RP2 target all draft season to this point has been Ryan Pressly, and I don’t see a reason why that needs to change now. His AAV sits at $9 and we’re hopeful that we can get him for anything close to that price. Fallback options if we are forced to pivot could be Kenley Jansen ($10 AAV) or perhaps Kyle Finnegan or Carlos Estevez who are each going for $8.

Now we have the bottom half of our rotation and both of our closers mapped out. Let’s get to the offense and see if there are any cheap must haves that we can pencil in before figuring out where we really want to allocate our funds.

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• Matthew Pouliot,

• Matthew Pouliot,

The first option that stands out to me is Joey Bart. He’s someone that I have been targeting everywhere as my second catcher this year and the market price continues to fall on him, making him a nice potential value option. His AAV in these drafts has been $3 with a minimum of $1 and a max of $6. We’ll pencil in $4 for now, hoping that we can get him on the cheaper side and reallocate a few of those dollars elsewhere. With that being said though, I could always see myself moving up the board to get a better option as a second catcher if I think the value is there. That’s one spot where I’ll probably have more flexibility than some others.

Another player that I’m very high on at cost that’s going for a large bargain according to my board is Paul Goldschmidt. His current AAV is $10 with a min of $7 and a max of $14. As a potential corner infielder for me, I’d love to get him around $10, but at $14 I’m not sure I love it quite as much. We’re hoping to land in the $10-$12 range, so we’ll mark him down for $11 and adjust from there.

The reason that I’m mentioning Goldschmidt as my CI option as because I plan on having my first base position filled already with Freddie Freeman. To me, he’s one of the best five category contributors on the entire board and perhaps the top overall first baseman. I thought it was odd when he slid to the middle of the second round to start the draft season and now he’s falling even further to the end of the second or into the third round on average. That’s utter lunacy. His AAV is $25 with a min of $22 and a high of $29. We’ll use that $29 number as our target to ensure that we get him, but hopefully it’ll come a few dollars cheaper.

The next big target for me on offense is Matt McLain. We have start to see his price rise a bit in recent weeks, but still not to the place that it needs to be for me to look another direction. His AAV is currently $18 with a min of $14 and max of $22. Once again, we’ll work off of that max value and adjust from there if we have to.

Since I was able to (hopefully) land my final three rotation targets at affordable prices, I’m willing to pay top dollar to acquire one of the top two options on the board at the position, either Paul Skenes or Tarik Skubal. I have Skenes a hair ahead of Skubal on my board currently, but they are very close. Both have an AAV of $37 right now while Skenes has gone as high as $39 and Skubal has touched $40. We’ll use the $40 as a guide.

For the purpose of this auction, I’d be perfectly fine dropping down instead to Corbin Burnes to be my SP2. I think pitching closer to his home in Arizona will do wonders and we’ve all seen what the revamped cutter did at the end of the 2024 season and it has carried over into Cactus League play. His AAV sits at $24 with a min of $21 and a max of $26. I’m fine putting $27 down and going to there if I have to while still hoping to secure him at a discount.

In between my two aces and the arms that I want to acquire at the bottom of my rotation sits Robbie Ray. He has been dominant in each of his first three Cactus League starts and the price on him has started to soar, so it will probably take more than the AAV and probably more than the max bid to get him. We’re going to try to fit that in though. Right now his AAV is $10 with a max of $15. We’ll pencil in that $15 and adjust from there.

That’s eight targets on the pitching side with nine spots to fill. Adding up those estimated amounts gets me to $118. Assume the last SP is a $1 guy, and that will give us $119 on the pitching side, just under the $120 that we had budgeted above. I’d be thrilled to get that staff though, and I think some of the estimates are high. Any excess dollars that we wind up with there can be reallocated to the offense.

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Now to find some additional targets on offense.

Lawrence Butler is a player that I have been actively targeting throughout the draft season. The problem, is that his price is on the rise. I can probably fit him in around is AAV ($24) but if he starts to approach his max ($29), I probably have to bow out. I’m going to give me a shot at him for $26 and see what we can do.

My top shortstop target, especially in the mid-range, is Bo Bichette. I think in his walk year he’s poised for a major bounce back season. Expect a return to his elite batting average and counting stats and I even believe that he’s going to start running again to bolster that free agent contract. We’re looking to get him around his AAV ($14).

Back to the outfield, we’re a big believer in everything that Victor Robles showed with the Mariners last season and will gladly take him anywhere near his AAV of $9.

So what does that leave us with at the moment? We still need to fill our top catcher, third base, middle infield, three outfielders and utility. All for a grand total of $26. Yikes.

Let’s hammer out the catcher position because that’s the important one here. We would love to be able to get up to Willson Contreras at $19, but if we’re building with the huge pitching staff that has Skenes as an anchor, it’s probably not in the cards. If we wind up pivoting and take Burnes as our ace, more spending on the catcher position would be in play.

Instead, we’re going to drop down the list a bit and look at Cal Raleigh. It’s still expensive, but he’s going to provide huge power production at the position and a handful of stolen bases. He’ll be an average drain, sure, but with Freeman and Bichette in tow to help offset that, I think we can make it work. Raleigh for $15.

There’s a plethora of middle infield options that I like for $1, so I’m not terribly worried about that one. I also like a lot of cheap outfielders at the end of drafts, so I’m confident I can pick up three guys that I like there for $1-3 each if necessary. Same goes for utility. To me, that makes third base the next focus.

This one could depend on what my team needs are at the point in the draft that I’d be looking at the position. If I’m short on power, Eugenio Suarez ($8) may be a good fit. If I need unconventional speed, Matt Shaw ($6) is awfully intriguing. If I’m forced to shop in the bargain bin, Ryan McMahon ($3) and Max Muncy ($2) look appealing. In fact, Muncy at $3 may be the play that goes into the plan, and if I have extra dollars to allocate, I can move up from there.

For that middle infield spot, we’re probably looking in the range of Gleyber Torres ($4), Trevor Story ($4), Thairo Estrada ($3), Colt Keith ($3), Hyeseong Kim ($2) depending on what we can afford and what we need. We’ll put Story on the board as the placeholder.

That would leave me with three $1 outfielders and a $1 player at utility. Not ideal, but we plan on having excess that we can move there once we lock in a couple of discounts. The bargain bin that I’m hoping to shop from in the outfield includes Michael Conforto ($4), Parker Meadows ($3), JJ Bleday ($3), Trevor Larnach ($2), Daulton Varsho ($2), Max Kepler ($1), Jake Fraley ($1), Tommy Pham ($1) and a host of others. If I can climb higher up the list, my interest would be on Kerry Carpenter ($6).

Here’s a visual of the draft plan heading into the draft

SALARY CAP DRAFT RESULTS

And we’re back! Most times, even the best laid plans turn out very differently than the final product due to unforeseen events that happen over the course of a draft. While there was a bit of that here, the finished product actually looks strikingly similar to the plan that was outlined above.

To make sure of the direction of the team, we called out Paul Skenes as our first bid (seventh overall in the draft). If we couldn’t get him for $40, we knew we would have to make a play for Tarik Skubal instead. If we couldn’t get Skubal, we’d pivot and shift some funds over to the offense, so just knowing whether or not we could get one of those aces was paramount.

Fortunately, we were able to acquire Skenes for $38 and we were off and running.

In the second round of nominations we picked up Lawrence Butler as our OF1 for the $26 that we had allocated. So far, so good. The next round of nominations brought us our first closer in Tanner Scott, though we were able to snag him for $14 instead of the $18 that we had dedicated to the spot. Between that and the $2 we saved on Skenes, we now had an extra $6 to move around.

In the fourth round of nominations I became intrigued as the bidding started to stall out on Logan Gilbert. I had him down as a $30-$32 player, but we had just $27 budgeted for Corbin Burnes as our SP2. I took a chance and went to $28 and managed to land Gilbert at a pretty significant discount. We now had our SP2.

Also in the fourth round of nominations we made a play for Willson Contreras, though he went out of our range at $19. Instead, we went $1 above our budgeted amount and pulled in Cal Raleigh to be our top catcher for $16.

In the fifth round of nominations, our top hitting target finally came up for bid. We had budgeted $29 to acquire Freddie Freeman, but it only took $26 to get the job done. That’s another $3 to reallocate.

We took at shot at using those excess funds on Andres Muñoz as a second closer but came up $1 short when he went for $18. Two picks later, Corbin Burnes came up for bid. He had originally been in our plan as our SP2 for $27, but that changed when we picked up Logan Gilbert unexpectedly. The draft plan called for Robbie Ray to be our SP3 at $15, so it would take all of our surplus and then some if we were going to make a run at Burnes, and we would be sacrificing Ray in the process. We entered into the fray and were shocked to come away with Burnes for only $24. Skenes, Gilbert and Burnes is an absolutely amazing top three, though we would be limited now to the original low-cost targets that we had planned at the position.

We continued to push the pace two picks later, grabbing Ryan Pressly as our RP2 for the $8, $1 less than we had budgeted for him. Obviously love the way the team is coming together at this point, though we have spent a large chunk of our budget and would need to pull back the reins at some point.

We sat on our hands for a couple of rounds and then nominated Matt McLain during the seventh round. He was our top hitting target remaining and I wanted to find out if we were going to be able to acquire him or if I would need to pivot to other options. We had budgeted $22 for the spot and only needed to go to $20 to secure him. That’s a huge win in my book.

01:29

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The next big play that we attempted to make was Bo Bichette. We had planned to acquire him for somewhere close to $14 to man the shortstop position for us – and went as high as $17 – but it wasn’t enough to seal the deal. We would need to pivot elsewhere at the position.

That pivot materialized in the next round, landing Willy Adames for $12. He’s a comparable player to Bichette – if not better – and we got him for $2 less than our original budget for the position. We’ll take it.
We took a run at a couple of players over the next few rounds, but nothing fit into the budget. It was particularly hard to watch Bryan Reynolds go for just $13.

The next bid ended up being another unexpected one. Rather than using our last big spend on offense at the CI position (where we had Paul Goldschmidt slotted for $11), I liked the way that Luis Garcia Jr. fit our current team construction better and grabbed him to be our middle infielder for $11.

We then had to watch Robbie Ray go for just $12, with nothing that we could do about it. That one hurt.

We took a run at Matt Chapman, but he went for $14. We went to $10 on Adolis Garcia but came up $1 short. We also went to the $9 on Jurickson Profar but couldn’t pull the trigger to go to $11. We tried to land Gavin Williams, but he went over our range at $9. A couple of picks later we did add Bowden Francis for the $4 that we had allocated for him.

I tried to muster the courage to go an extra dollar to land Eugenio Suarez, but couldn’t do it with the limited funds remaining. I regret that one for sure, letting him go by for just $6.

Tried to get Parker Meadows, but didn’t want to go to $4. Goldschmidt did end up going for the $11 that we had originally budgeted for him, but we couldn’t get there. Went to $6 on Randy Arozarena but someone else wound up with a nice discount at $7. Tried to get Scherzer for a few bucks but he went all the way to $7, which had my worried about my ability to acquire Justin Verlander and Matthew Boyd.

In the 15^th round of nominations we finally got our second outfielder, getting Victor Robles for $8, $1 under our budget. That was a really big get for us, as we needed that speed and outfield was starting to look like a problem area with us needing three more in addition to Robles.

In the 16^th round our second catcher target Joey Bart came up for bid. We thought budgeting $4 there made it extremely likely that we could get him, but he ultimately went for $6. Part of the problem here, is that there were two teams in the auction that had way too much money left to spend, and even if they landed all of the top options on the board, they were going to finish with a large surplus. That meant that I couldn’t really nominate anyone that I actually wanted, as I risked losing them to the two big spenders.

In the 17^th round we pushed for Ryan Mountcastle and Kerry Carpenter but came up short on both. Carpenter wound up going for $8. Later that round our original target at middle infield, Trevor Story, went for $5. Since we pivoted to Garcia though, we had that spot already locked up.

We made a strong bid to land Matt Shaw as our third baseman, but couldn’t go to $8 to get him.

At this stage, we still had 10 spots left to fill (C2, 3B, CI, OF3, OF4, OF5, UTIL and three pitchers) and only $25 to get it done. That would mean waiting and hoping to score some late discounts while the two managers with all the money grabbed anyone and everyone that they wanted.

We bid on JJ Bleday for one of those outfield spots, but bowed out when he got to $4. Tried to get Josh Jung to play third base, but also stepped away when he got to $4. We did wind up getting Max Muncy to play the hot corner for just $2, which is $1 less than we had planned on in the budget.

01:43

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We followed that up with a $2 Matthew Boyd that fit exactly what we had wanted to do with that spot. The more of these spots that were getting filled with players and amounts that we had budgeted in the original plan, the better that I felt about the draft in general.
Made several attempts to acquire a second catcher and missed on all of them. That was going to end up being a disaster spot. I’m usually a drafter that pays up for both catcher spots, so having to grab a $1 option at the position and figure it out will be a new challenge for me.

In the 21^st round of nominations we grabbed our third outfielder finally with Michael Conforto for $5. We then tabbed Kyle Higashioka as our second catcher for $1, though that position is going to rotate most weeks as I churn the waiver wire until something sticks.

Somehow also in the 21^st round, we were able to snag Jesus Sanchez as our OF4 for only $2. That’s a nice discount in general, but even moreso because of how it happened. One of the managers that had all of the money remaining (like $64 or something with one OF spot to fill), nominated Sanchez for $1. I thought going to $2 would be a futile exercise as he would just go as high as he needed to, but it counted down and we scored a deal that we never thought we would get.

In the 22^nd round I picked up Colt Keith for $3 to be our UTIL to start the season. He’s 2B eligible and will gain 1B within the first two weeks of the season though and I liked that extra flexibility in addition to loving the player in general.

We nominated and scored Justin Verlander for $1 later in that round. We added Kris Bubic to round out the rotation for $2 and added Trevor Larnach for $2 to the outfield mix. We settled for Josh Bell as our CI for $1, though it wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t last long on this team.

Overall, we had 18 specific names penciled into the original draft plan. Of those 18, we acquired 13 of them. That’s pretty good. We also added a few of the late OF names that we had mentioned, but didn’t put particular names into the draft plan.

Unfortunately, we committed the cardinal sin of leaving money on the table in this draft. It’s something that I absolutely hate doing, though the way this particular draft played out with those two whales left at the end, it was almost unavoidable. I left with $4 in my pocket and would certainly like to go back and dedicate that to a $4 second catcher instead of what I wound up with.

DAVID SHOVEIN’S NFBC ROSTER

Our biggest weaknesses are obviously the second catcher position, corner infield and the back half of the outfield. This pitching staff should be able to compete with anyone though. I started to attack some of those spots in the reserve rounds, adding Mitch Garver as another early season catcher option. We also added Jake Fraley and Max Kepler to the outfield mix.

Every team in a 15-team draft is going to have weaknesses somewhere though, and I’m most comfortable having to find a couple of guys in the outfield. I truly believe that this team should finish in the top third of this league and could put itself into the mix for overall prizes if things break the right way.

Here’s a look at how the rest of the league fared.

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Team 1

One of the managers in the league who left a substantial amount of money on the table ($43), it’s difficult to envision this squad doing enough to compete. Spending just $14 on starting pitching is certainly a choice. The offense looks alright as a whole, I just can’t see this team competing for the podium at the end of the season.

Team 2

At a glance, this feels like a middle of the pack team. He overspent at the catcher position compared to AAV, but as we saw when I targeted Bart, there simply wasn’t much left and he didn’t want to get left out in the cold. His front three starting pitchers feel incredibly light. I also don’t think this squad has the requisite speed needed to take down the league.

Team 3

Now this team is interesting to me. They dedicated a huge portion of their budget toward their offense, going with a 70/30 build, and they did so with a stars and scrubs approach up there anchored by Elly De La Cruz, Gunnar Henderson and William Contreras. Just judging by ADP, he assembled $20 of surplus value on offense, which is a gigantic figure. What intrigues me about this team though is the pitching. Despite the limited budget there, he assembled a high ceiling staff full of high strikeout arms. If they all hit and avoid the injured list, this team should be very competitive not just for the league prizes, but could make some noise in the overall.

Team 4

At a glance, this team feels like it should finish in the upper half of the league, but I’m not sure that it has enough juice to win the whole thing. The offense is very solid as a whole, though it does feel light on power – which can be a very difficult category to make up. I like the top two starters, but the rest of the rotation scares me quite a bit. I think he’s going to wind up battling his pitching ratios for most of the season which may hold him back from really competing.

Team 5

Just looking at the difference between AAV and the prices that they got, it would appear that Team 5 did well for himself – especially on the pitching front where he got a surplus of $14 by hammering the arms in the middle of the draft. I’d be a bit leery of trusting Roki Sasaki to be my ace, but that’s just a personal preference. He chose to spread the wealth on offense with a steady, balanced approach. Wyatt Langford is his most expensive hitter at $26, and I’m actually bummed that I didn’t go the extra dollar there. At the time I was still waiting on Lawrence Butler and didn’t want to give him up to make a play for Langford. This should be a competitive team.

Team 6

This is another team that’s fascinating to me. He devoted over 75% of his budget to the hitting side, and even paid a premium for most of his hitters – and it definitely shows. That outfield has the potential to be legendary if all three of the perennially injured players (Trout, Robert Jr. and Buxton) remain healthy. The pitching side has me concerned though. Obviously it’s going to be a bit weaker if you’re only devoting 24.24% of your budget there, but purposely taking Max Scherzer as your SP3 is a choice. There’s a ton of injury risk in all five of his starting pitchers, and I’m not sure that going with four closers was the best strategy if underspending on pitching. I see major concerns in wins and strikeouts and the ratios are no guarantee either.

Team 8

Now this is a scary team to compete against. Team 8 utilized a similar split to me, with 51.15% dedicated to offense and 48.85% on the pitching side. He went full stars and scrubs on offense, with Juan Soto, Kyle Tucker and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. carrying the team and no other player over $7. I have to hope that the rest of his offense struggles and that he’s unable to find viable replacements for those that don’t perform enough. The pitching is terrific, as you’d expect with that much dedicated to it. Four strong horses atop the rotation and if deGrom says healthy that group is going to be awesome. Best closer duo in the league so far with Hader and Williams. This is a very good team and should compete for the league prizes at a minimum.

Team 9

At first glance, Team 9 has plenty of power to spare on what looks like it could be a very strong offense. My only concern is speed. Even with Jacob Young, it feels light overall in the category, and if Young ends up losing his job with the Nationals it could wind up being a real problem. The starting rotation is alright, though the particular players that he chose aren’t exactly my cup of tea. Saves feel like they’re in a questionable place as well. He grabbed both arms from the Diamondbacks in the hopes of getting the closer there, so for his sake I hope that there’s clarity to the role early in the season, because you don’t really want to be starting both of them at the same time.

Team 10

The first thing that you notice with Team 10 is that he left $11 on the table, but made up for it a bit by gaining $11 in surplus value. Would’ve been fun to see what he could have done with another $11 in play though. The offense is outstanding, as there is plenty of power and speed up and down the order with no one or two players being counted on to carry the load. The pitching on the other hand is a work in progress. I like Logan Webb and Robbie Ray each quite a bit, but relying on them to be my SP1 and SP2 would make me panic. He also chose to ignore the closer position almost completely, grabbing a $1 Jason Foley as an endgame option. He’s going to have to dedicate quite a bit of FAAB towards finding saves while also attempting to add arms to a rotation that still needs strikeouts. Either that or he punts saves completely and rolls eight or nine starters all year.

Team 11

For starters, I love the balance on offense from this team. Every single player on the roster could hit 15 or more home runs and there are five or six guys that should contribute 20 or more stolen bases. That’s the type of balance that I strive for in every draft. I’m not in love with the pitching staff though. Garrett Crochet is fine as an ace, but I’m not trusting Luis Castillo and Justin Steele as my SP2 and SP3 – and it gets even worse behind there. Love Raisel Iglesias as an RP1 but not taking a second closer is a bold strategy, especially after locking in Iglesias.

Team 12

The power is very strong on this offense, which is impressive considering it contains Luis Arraez and Maikel Garcia bringing the total down. That’s what happens when you build a killer base with Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber and Salvador Perez. The pitching staff is much more of a work in progress, despite having Tarik Skubal as an anchor at the top. He only drafted five starters and is counting on a full season from Shane McClanahan who is coming back from Tommy John surgery. He took several shots at a second closer to pair with Jhoan Duran, so he’ll need at least one of those three to land a job to compete in the saves category.

Team 13

I’ll be honest, this team scares me. Team 13 was assembled by a drafter who I have competed against for many years and whose game I truly respect, and it shows in the squad that he was able to assemble here. He was able to grab $36 of surplus value when compared to the AAV which is completely absurd. The pitching staff is a work of art, with five pseudo aces to lead the staff plus George Kirby waiting in the wings. The only thing he’s missing is a second closer, and I hope for my sake that Yates doesn’t steal the role in Los Angeles. The offense is very strong as well from top to bottom, with speed for days and plenty of power to go with it. This team should be in the mix at season’s end for sure.

Team 14

To put it gently, this team struggled badly with this draft. It’s unclear if he was dealing with some sort of personal emergency or just wasn’t prepared, but he left a whopping $64 on the table – 24.61% of his total budget. It’s just impossible to compete when you’re doing that. To make matters worse, he also overspent by $22 according to AAV, but some of that was having money to burn and no one good enough to spend it on. The pitching staff has some upside and if Strider can give him five healthy months, there’s a chance that he can make it work. I’m not sure how the offense survives though. The outlook there is very bleak. There’s nowhere close to enough speed, the power is light and there’s a ton of batting average risk as well. I’d be shocked if this team didn’t finish in the bottom third of the league.

Team 15

Team 15 is another squad that assembled a very strong unit on the offensive side of the ball. The power, batting average and counting stats are definitely there. I do have some concerns over them getting to the necessary total in stolen bases. On the pitching side, Zack Wheeler and Framber Valdez make for a very strong 1-2 punch at the top. There’s not a whole lot behind them though. I think the rotation will end up being a major concern. He also has just one solid closer with the hope that maybe Chad Green sees the save chances with the Blue Jays. This team feels like it should be somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Overall Breakdown

Here’s an overall breakdown of the spend and the hitting/pitching split for each team in the draft. I’ve also included the surplus value or deficit that each had against ADP and showed the ridiculous amount of money that was ultimately left on the table in this draft.

CONCLUSION:

While I felt awful about contributing my $4 excess dollars to that total, it’s hard to justify what Team 1 and Team 14 kept in their pockets. Both teams will have a very hard time digging out of the hole that they put themselves in after the draft.

I feel like the team that I assembled here is good enough to compete. My strategy is to plan out my draft beforehand and attempt to execute that plan. That’s very different than a drafter like Team 13 who attacks the draft with patience and takes the values that the draft gives them. That’s why he ended up with such a large surplus value against ADP and I had a small deficit. My guys are huge bargains based on my valuations, just not by AAV – which is why I targeted those particular players. In the end, we’ll find out which strategy was the best when we see the standings at the end of the season.
Thanks for following along. Hopefully you can take some insight from here into your own salary cap drafts over the next few weeks as we creep closer to Opening Day.