The Ultimate 2024 Fantasy Baseball Guide

If you’re a fantasy baseball enthusiast, want to improve your game, and dominate your leagues, you’ve come to the right place! FTN’s comprehensive Fantasy Baseball Guide has everything you need to dominate your league. Skip to the bottom of the page if you just want the articles within the guide.

2024 Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide

A Message From The Gut, Vlad Sedler

Welcome to the 2024 FTN Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide!

There’s a sage, old saying: the early birds win their leagues.

Opening Day 2024 is about three months away, but research season should be full speed ahead for us all. It’s never too early to start preparing for a new fantasy baseball season. In fact, it’s downright necessary. There is just so much to assess from every angle: the vast player pool, ADP/market analysis, roster construction, game theory, analytics, roster management, and FAAB, to name a few.

It’s also a good time for us to dig into our processes and biases. No matter how long we’ve played fantasy baseball, there are always improvements we can make in our game. Now is the time to look into our weaknesses and negative tendencies, and correct them.

Do you always perform better in roto counting categories (HR, K) than in ratios (ERA, WHIP, BA)? Steve Weimer’s piece on category weights will help rectify your tunnel vision before you drafts. Are you only using Fangraphs and Statcast metrics to look up pitcher metrics? Well, so is just about everybody else. Perhaps utilizing some of Nick Pollack’s Pitcher List metrics can provide an edge in your competitive leagues. Do you catch yourself struggling to figure out closers and bullpens every season? Well, you’re in good hands because Greg Jewett has you covered.

Fantasy baseball is our heart, soul, and passion, and we’re always working towards making improvements with our content offerings, and tools. Your opinions and recommendations matter to us and we are always open to suggestions.

FTN remains your best resource for NFBC-related content, but we plan to offer more balanced coverage in 2024 of everything from dynasty, best ball, draft-and-hold and points leagues. By the time you read this, I may have already announced our first of two new FTN Baseball team members (if you’ve made it this far, I’ll drop the Easter Egg – defending NFBC Online Auction overall champ, Lucas Biery!). The soon-to-be revealed second new FTN writer/analyst ranks among the top 25 all-time money earners in the NFBC, and he will manage a valuable weekly column during the fantasy season. (Welcome Lucas Biery and Mike Mager!)

If you’re a High Stakes Baseball subscriber, you’ll get one-on-one draft and in-season assistance from me, personally, all season. There’s also a dedicated, direct email channel and High Stakes Discord channel for all your questions. We also make custom cheat sheets with VDP $ rankings based on your unique format. Whether you’re in my league or not, my pledge to you is full transparency with the goal of helping you learn to be a better fantasy player and to hopefully dominate your leagues. The competition in fantasy baseball is sharper than ever, and it’s imperative that FTN helps you stay one step ahead as we continue to innovate, discover legitimate edges, and find strategic new pathways to success.

2024 FTN Baseball Staff

Eric Cross (@EricCross04) – prospects, dynasty, pitcher rankings
Adam Young (@Adam15Young) – auctions, roster construction & game theory
Todd Whitestone (@telestar07) – NFBC Main Event, weekly FAAB results
Rob Orr (@NotTheBobbyOrr) –Closers/Relievers, high-level analytics and sabermetrics
Lucas Biery (@lucasbiery33) – Draft and Hold strategy, auctions, draft strategy
Jake Kucheck (@thesfgiantsguy) – prospects, dynasty, Prospect Vault tool manager
Mike Mager (@bronxYankees23) – NFBC strategy, weekly starts/sits/drops, High Stakes package
Vlad Sedler (@rotogut) – Head of FTN Fantasy Baseball, FAAB, draft strategy, rankings

A few important people on the FTN team I’d like to thank:

Daniel Kelley – our tireless and masterful editor-in-chief, immensely vital to our process
George Zainoun and Fox – the absolute best, most talented graphics folk in the business
Marshall Gershon – the operations powerhouse of our Draft Guide product every winter
Mike Randle – our content chief whose support and guidance are invaluable to me
Perry Gershon – our new CEO whose leadership and passion for baseball lays a path for growth
Tyler Loechner – the man, the myth, the legend behind the marketing scenes
Frank Brank – our lead data visionary (and former college SP); a projections/modeling master

A special thanks to baseball betting analyst extraordinaire MLBDream (@MLBdream) of FTN Bets for contributing a betting market analysis piece for the second year in a row. Dream makes a killing on baseball betting every season, exploiting sportsbooks that are slow to adjust lines and props. Two of FTN’s other key analysts — Chris Meaney (@chrismeaney) and Alex Blickle (@AlexBlickle1) — are busy rounding out their media, content, and analytics duties for other fantasy sports in our network (NFL, NHL, NBA, PGA). You’ll see some of their baseball articles, videos, and live shows as we get closer to MLB spring training.

It takes a village!

I hope you enjoy this initial wave of draft strategy and analysis and that your journey with FTN is a pleasant and profitable one.

Wishing you a safe, healthy, and joyous holiday season. Soon, we will Play Ball!

-Vlad

FTN’s Fantasy Baseball Subscriptions

We offer two fantasy baseball subscriptions:

Fantasy Baseball+ unlocks our baseball draft guide and includes a variety of draft strategy, game theory, hitter and pitcher analysis, ADP market analysis, data-driven deep dives, fantasy draft rankings and an offseason tracker tool with a unique fantasy twist.

During the preseason, the FTN team will add the industry’s most accurate projections (VDP), closer and bullpen charts, best ball rankings, spring training breakdowns, NFBC-centric draft strategy for every contest type, and rankings updated weekly based on market fluctuations for both 12-team and 15-team formats.

We cover the gamut of roto, points H2H, auction, dynasty, and best ball. Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned veteran, our expert content, tips, tools, rankings, projections and strategies will help you draft winning teams and crush the competition.

FTN 2024 FTN Fantasy Baseball

Draft Guide + Preseason Tools & Content

Rankings: Vlad Sedler’s VDP: top 500, sortable, updated 2x weekly
Cheat Sheet: Vlad’s famous 12-team grid rankings by position, updated weekly
VDP Projections: Fueled by MLB data savant Frank Brank & Vlad’s daily updates
Best Ball Rankings: Underdog Points rankings based on VDP Projections
Offseason Transactions Tracker: Up to date, with fantasy analysis on each player
Spring Training: Breaking down daily lineups shifts, new pitches, depth charts
ADP Market Report: Preseason coverage of the moving NFBC ADP market
NFBC Strategy: Draft Guide pieces for Main Event, OC, DC, Gladiator from contest winners
Dynasty & Prospects: Weekly coverage from former FSWA Writer of the Year, Eric Cross
Prospect Vault: Prospect guru Jake Kucheck’s interactive tool (early January)
Analytics: Deep dives, how to weight stats, how to manage rosters
This Year’s Yelich: Vlad’s annual Breakout Player of the Year prediction (mid-March)
Podcasts: Vlad Sedler/Matthew Davis are back with the flagship FTN baseball pod in January
YouTube Drafts: The team will stream live NFBC Cutline and Online Championship drafts
2024 FTN Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide
- Articles from the FTN baseball team + our wonderful guest writers, below:
  - Nick Pollack (@PitcherList), Founder of Pitcher List
  - Brendan Tuma (@toomuchtuma) , Underdog MLB
  - Rob Silver (@robsilver), Launch Angle Podcast
  - Fred Zinkie (@FredZinkieMLB), Yahoo!/RotoWire
  - Shelly Verougstraete (@ShellyV_643), RotoWorld/Baseball HQ
  - Greg Jewett (@gjewett9), Reliever Recon/The Athletic
  - Steve Weimer (@steveymer), Baseball HQ/Top-Ranked High Stakes Player
  - Drew Forte (@Frew_Dorte), 2023 NFBC Online Championship overall winner

In-Season Fantasy Baseball Content

Vlad’s weekly FAAB Whisperer column
Rob Orr’s Bullpen Report (and closer chart)
Crossed Up: dynasty dynamo Eric Cross’ weekly column
Todd Whitestone’s weekly Main Event FAAB review
Adam Young’s game theory / strategy article, Small Ball
Weekly Hitter and Pitcher Rankings
A few surprises and new automated tools in store…

Fantasy Baseball Discord

Both new members of the FTN crew and the rest of our fantasy baseball team will be hanging out to answer all your questions year-round in our four Fantasy Baseball Discord channels.

No more struggling in your fantasy baseball leagues. This is a group hired and two primary factors: that they are great human beings, and they absolutely dominate the fantasy formats they play. We are all at your disposal throughout the preseason and during the season with the goal of helping you smash your leagues.

2024 Fantasy Baseball Rankings (VDP)

Our fantasy draft rankings are based on extensive research and analysis of player performance, injury history, our VDP projected stats, roster construction balance and optimization, game theory, ADP market analysis, and a propriety formula that utilizes the perfect blend of specific advanced metrics which we believe are most meaningful within Pitcher List, Fangraphs, Statcast, and Baseball Reference.

Here are the top 5 players for 2024 (standard 5×5 roto scoring):