How to balance offense, pitching in fantasy drafts

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D.J. Short and Scott Pianowski discuss whether it's worth drafting a pitcher every three rounds in fantasy baseball drafts this year, or if stacking up the offense is the better decision.

Video Transcript

D.J. SHORT: I'm picking right now. And I think people are scared off by Vlad Jr.'s knee right now, but I'm going to take him right here number 12. And then I get to pick again, and I'm going to take the first pitcher off the board and go with Corbin Burnes. Because by the time it gets back to me, I think some of the other aces I might like will be gone, so I'm going to take the first pitcher. And I think that is interesting to not see a pitcher taken in the first round, whereas three years ago, there was probably three starting pitchers off the board in the first around. What do you think that speaks to, Scott?

SCOTT PIANOWSKI: Yeah, I think that's going to be pretty standard that the first pitcher will go around where you took Burnes. Now, in our format, it's a little bit more pitcher heavy than in a lot of other formats might be. I think we're starting 9 offensive players and 8 pitchers if I have it correctly.

So if somebody had priced in Burnes or Cole into the first round, I would have been fine with it. But I'm probably going to try to take a pitcher-- make sure I take at least one pitcher every three rounds, so I don't fall too far behind in that category, in those categories. A lot of times I get so offensively focused that I wake up, and I'm like, "Oh, man. I'm-- I'm a pitcher behind everybody. I'm a closer behind everybody. I'm going to try to be a little bit more proactive with that."

I also love your Guerrero pick. Toronto, they got the fences coming in. I know they've been raised as well. But I think that's going to be a net gain for the offense. And so many players in this offense are still on the front nines of their careers. We haven't seen the best Guerrero season yet. Bo Bichette just got drafted. We haven't seen his best season yet. This is going to be a destination offense for Fantasy in 2023.