2019 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: 12-team points mock draft

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Pitching is extremely important in points leagues partially because no one scores more than the best pitchers. But that effect has been highlighted by the chasm that has formed between the best pitchers and anyone outside of the top-25. 

The change has been enough to change my philosophy over the past few years. I’m now fine with Max Scherzer in the first round, and I’d really like to have an ace in the first three rounds. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans. Often in points leagues pitchers fly off the board at an unreasonable pace, and it’s not worth passing up the upside of Francisco Lindor late in the second round.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling to get to Round 4 without a pitcher in this format, but it doesn’t mean you can’t love your pitching staff when you’re done. You do have to rely on healthy upside (Steven Strasburg in Round 4), and I prefer to make sure I land at least one elite closer (Blake Treinen at the end of the first closer run in Round 7). 

Before I get to the rest, it’s probably worth one reminder: You don’t have to have the best pitching staff in the league if you have a lineup that starts with Jose Altuve, Lindor, Andrew Benintendi, Gary Sanchez, Jose Abreu, Mitch Haniger and Eloy Jimenez. In points leagues you can stream mediocre pitching, so I stockpiled (and reached for) star upside the rest of the draft at pitcher. Here they are:

Robbie Ray (Pick 117) — You remember Ray, right? The guy with the 2.89 ERA in 2017? That wasn’t real, but the K percentage above 30 each of the past two seasons was. We’ve already seen Ray’s upside, and it’s enormous.

Shane Bieber (Pick 124) — Bieber’s ERA wasn’t good last year. It was almost as bad as his luck. But he has incredible control and gets a lot of ground balls. If he maintains last year’s strikeout rate, he’ll be one of the biggest breakouts at pitcher this year.

Nick Pivetta (Pick 141) — Like Bieber, virtually all of the peripherals suggest Pivetta is a good, maybe great, pitcher. This staff has certainly turned into a bet on regression at this point, but they’re two of the most likely candidates in baseball.

Rich Hill (Pick 148) — Unlike Bieber and Pivetta, we have great reason to believe HIll will be a borderline ace. We just don’t know how many times he’ll toe the rubber before he hits the IL. I’m hoping it’s long enough to let an upside pitcher on my bench settle into his role.

The upside pitchers I landed late were: Jesus Luzardo, Zach Eflin, Carlos Rodon and Touki Toussaint.

You don’t have to spend on pitching to have a great staff. But you do need to stockpile upside and hope your elite offense can carry you if things go sideways.

The experts who participated in this draft are:

1. Adam Aizer, CBS Sports (@AdamAizer)
2. Chris Towers, CBS Sports (@CTowersCBS)
3. Chris Mitchell, Fantrax (@CJMitch73)
4. Heath Cummings, CBS Sports (@heathcummingssr)
5. Tom Ogonowski, Future Studskis (@ProspectFiend)
6. George Kurtz, RotoExperts (@GeorgeKurtz)
7. R.J. White, CBS Sports (@rjwhite1)
8. George Maselli, CBS Sports
9. Paul Sporer, RotoGraphs (@sporer)
10. Scott White, CBS Sports (@CBSScottWhite)
11. Matt Williams, Fake Teams/Turn Two Podcast (@MattWi77iams) 
12. Steven Fain, Fantasy Life Blog (@scuba_steve888)

And here are the full results:

So which Fantasy Baseball sleepers should you snatch in your draft? And which undervalued pitchers can help you win a championship? Visit SportsLine now to get Fantasy Baseball rankings for every single position, all from the model that called Scooter Gennett’s huge breakout last season, and find out.