John Chandler Media

Heard about the ‘Pocket Rockets’ draft strategy? ‘Trip Aces’ is even better

Boggs Tanaka - John Chandler Media

Fantasy baseball expert Bobby Sylvester of FantasyPros.com has been talking a lot this spring about a draft strategy he calls “Pocket Rockets.” It’s based on taking two dominant starting pitchers with your first two picks followed by a bunch of hitters that will maximize your standing in all hitting categories except for batting average.

Well, I’ve taken it one step further. Piggybacking on the poker theme, let’s call it “Trip Aces.”

It goes like this:

Three stud aces to start and then load up on hitters for the next 14-16 rounds, taking two rounds to snag closers when value presents itself. With your elite pitching foundation, you can afford to wait until the late late rounds to fill out your starting pitching.

The effectiveness of the strategy is related to the gradual trend toward reduced innings totals by most starting pitchers. Because of this, the high-end aces who are still reaching ace-like numbers are worth even more compared to the competition. As Mike Petrielo at MLB.com points out, only 13 pitchers reached 200 innings last year, the lowest number in baseball history.

Using this strategy will give you a massive advantage in four pitching categories – a bigger advantage on the pitching side than you can achieve on the hitting side.

It’s based on the belief that there is a larger pool of useful bats in the later rounds than there are pitchers. I also believe that the starting pitchers available in the middle rounds aren’t that much better than arms to be had much later.

You would be surprised by the counting stats you can accumulate from hitters in rounds 4 through 14 if you pick right. You don’t have to dominate any one category, just keep up. What happens is that when other guys are grabbing starting pitchers with limited ceilings, you’ll be able to find hitters that are reasonable facsimiles to early-round hitters.

And before you start arguing that pitchers are riskier than hitters, just go back and look at the early-round busts last year. Mostly hitters. Gary Sanchez, Corey Seager, Dee Gordon, Joey Votto, Josh Donaldson, etc. On the pitching side guys like Clayton Kershaw and Noah Syndergaard underperformed but no pitcher completely bombed. In 2017 the bust ratio was more even, but you get my point.

It works best with three true workhorses who have shown they’re capable of accumulating 250+ strikeouts in a season and play for a good team that will make 20 wins a reasonable target. With this in mind, my preferred Big 3 is Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole or Trevor Bauer. DeGrom will work if you’re at the back of the first round and Chris Sale is acceptable in the second round. But in the third round, I see Cole and Bauer likely reaching a higher strikeout total than Nola or Snell with wins being about equal.

It works best in a holds league where you can wait longer on relief pitchers. The RT Sports Fantasy Baseball Championship is a 5×5 Roto contest using OBP and holds. Below is my team using the “Trip Aces Strategy.”

In this particular draft, as in any, there were some key moments. I settled for Nelson Cruz in the 7th round but I had wanted Joey Gallo who was picked two spots before me. In the 11th round, I begrudgingly selected Max Muncy and his high OBP after my primary target, Victor Robles, was taken the pick before.

While I may have reached for guys like Marco Gonzales and Austin Barnes, I feel lucky to have been able to capture Shohei Ohtani (16th round), Jorge Polanco (23rd round), and Marcus Stroman (30th round) in slots lower than their ADP.

  • Max Scherzer (4th)
  • Justin Verlander (21st)
  • Blake Snell (27th)
  • Matt Carpenter (45th)
  • Lorenzo Cain (52nd)
  • Tommy Pham (69th)
  • Nelson Cruz (76th)
  • Willson Contreras (93rd)
  • Andrew McCutcheon (100th)
  • Matt Olson 117th
  • Max Muncy 124th
  • Ian Desmond (141)
  • Tim Anderson (148th)
  • Jesse Winker (165th)
  • Cesar Hernandez (172nd)
  • Shohei Ohtani (189th)
  • Hyun Jin Ryu (196th)
  • Marcus Semien (213th)
  • Brad Peacock (220th)
  • Marco Gonzales (237th)
  • Alex Colome (244th)
  • Austin Barnes (261st)
  • Jorge Polanco (268th)
  • Ryan Pressly (285th)
  • Tyler O’Neill (292nd)
  • Michael Pineda (307th)
  • Jeurys Familia (314th)
  • Kelvin Herrera (331st)
  • Brandon Morrow (349th)
  • Marcus Stroman (356th)

I also followed the Trip Aces strategy in an NFBC Online Championship Satellite. Drafting out of the No. 8 position, it started out very well when Scherzer fell to me. After adding Justin Verlander and Noah Syndergaard, my team was well on its way to a dominant pitching season.

This format uses standard 5×5 Roto categories so I had to adjust and make room for saves. At the end, I don’t like how things worked out in this particular draft.

I don’t blame the draft strategy, however. It just seemed as though a lot of things that I hoped would go my way in the middle rounds didn’t, and things snowballed from there. While I still have excellent starting pitching – no doubt the best in the league – I’m extremely worried about steals. I’m totally dependent on Mondesi to carry me there and that’s a total unknown that makes me uncomfortable. We’ll see what happens but none of my preferred speed sources fell to me when I planned to take them: Lorenzo Cain (64th), Victor Robles (86th), Tim Anderson (121st), Ian Desmond (125th), and Garrett Hampson (169th). I could have taken Jonathan Villar with the 89th pick, but chose power and Josh Donaldson instead. That was probably a mistake because I’m not super high on Donaldson as it is, and now I see that I could really use those steals from Villar.

Here are the NFBC results:

  • Max Scherzer (8th)
  • Justin Verlander (17th)
  • Noah Syndergaard (32nd)
  • Adalberto Mondesi (41st)
  • George Springer (56th)
  • Matt Carpenter (65th)
  • Jose Abreu (80th)
  • Josh Donaldson (89th)
  • Willson Contreras (104th)
  • Wade Davis (113th)
  • Rougned Odor (128th)
  • Andrew McCutcheon (137th)
  • Robbie Ray (152nd)
  • Miguel Cabrera (161st)
  • Shohei Ohtani (176th)
  • Adam Eaton (185th)
  • Jesse Winker (200th)
  • A.J. Minter (209th)
  • Mike Zunino (224th)
  • Jorge Polanco (233rd)
  • Jake Bauers (248th)
  • Brad Peacock (257th)
  • Brandon Morrow (272nd)
  • Greg Holland (281st)
  • Collin McHugh (296th)
  • Austin Barnes (305th)
  • Tyler O’Neill (320th)
  • Kelvin Herrera (329th)
  • Freddy Peralta (344th)
  • Brandon Lowe (353rd)


Boggs Tanaka

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