(*) MASTER NOTES: What's THIS man glaring at?

Last week in this space, Ron Shandler offered a sound, well-constructed argument as to why he would never draft a pitcher, even Clayton Kershaw, in the first round of a draft. And I totally agree with his reasoning.

This week, I started my first draft of the season, a 15-team, 50-round, draft-and-hold style league offered by the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. I drew the 15/16 turn for my draft slot, and with the 15th pick, I took... Félix Hernández.

How can I agree with Ron's argument against pitchers in the first round, and still take Felix? It's all about context.

Central to Ron's position was the idea that you can find good pitching from unexpected sources in-season. That's completely true, but doesn't help in my league's format: this draft-and-hold style league drafts 50 rounds, and then has no free agent activity in-season. I'll draft as deep a crop of starting pitchers as I can, perhaps as many as 15 in the 50 rounds. But not having the access to supplement that group with in-season FAAB pickups means that it's not an option to churn through back-end SPs every week based on matchups, grabbing hot hands off the waiver wire until you find a Matt Shoemaker, Jacob deGrom or Collin McHugh that sustains their success.

To put it another way, on last week's Baseball HQ radio show, Todd Zola used the phrase "bully hitting and manage pitching." In leagues with access to free agents all year, that's absolutely how I prefer to approach my roster construction. But this draft-and-hold format hamstrings my ability to manage the pitching staff all year. So, locking up the certainty of an elite starter, and in Hernandez's case a highly-reliable one, becomes a more reasonable move in the format.

Ron's other key point is that there is a necessary loss of critical counting stats on the hitting side by passing on a first-round bat. But again, some details of the format seem to mitigate that concern.

The NFBC also offers leagues that allow weekly free-agent moves. Same format, 15-team mixed leagues with 5x5 scoring. The only difference is roster size: 50 rounds/no pickups vs. 30 rounds/weekly pickups. To quantify the differences between these formats, I ran a quick study: I collected the 2014 overall standings from the NFBC's "Main Event" format (30 rounds, weekly pickups) and their "Draft Champions" format (50 rounds, no pickups), and compared the stat total needed to finish in the top 20% of each category:
 

category    pickups    draft/hold    %diff
========    =======    ==========    =====
HR            237          229       -3.5%
RBI           956          933       -2.5%
SB            155          151       -2.6%
Runs          989          954       -3.7%
BA          .2674        .2675        0.0%
            
ERA         3.321        3.331        0.3%
WHIP        1.191        1.186       -0.4%
Wins           99           98       -1.0%
Sv             89           89        0.0%
K            1415         1379       -2.6%

The differences are marginal, but still interesting: on the hitting side, removing the access to the FA pool actually reduces the aggregate batter production in the player pool by a couple of percent. Meanwhile, the pitching targets stay darn close to level, except for a predictable erosion of strikeout totals. In short, the format is just a little more forgiving with the hitting counting stats, which adds a little more fuel to the contextual justification for Hernandez.

The point is: in this day and age, there's very little that can be considered universal advice. Context matters—always. A draft-and-hold format dictates different choices than a traditional rotisserie format. A head-to-head format has yet another entirely different set of wrinkles. Simulation leagues are a different beast altogether.

And that's why, at BaseballHQ, we're focused on giving you the tools to make your own decisions. As the saying goes, we want to "teach you to fish" rather than just hand you some fish. Sure, we provide the analysis and tell you what we think it means, but in the end your context will determine your decision-making.

Speaking of which, Opening Day is still a couple of months away, making this a great time to jump in with a subscription to Baseball HQ. If you sign up in March, you really have no choice but to ask us to hand you some fish. And we can do that, of course: you can generate a customized draft guide for your league, grab a few lists of our favorite sleepers, and head to your draft. But if you jump in now, there is time to immerse yourself in everything we have to offer, and let us "teach you to fish" before your draft.

Join us for the 2015 season. We have a lot of winning to do together.

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