NBA Best Bets of the Day (12/2)
Alex Christenson
For avid fantasy baseball fans living under a rock, let me introduce you to the most unique, addicting and reasonably priced roto baseball contest on the planet – the NFBC’s Gladiator. It’s a standard 5×5 roto format with 23 draft rounds – no free agent pickups, no bench, no in-season management – it’s best ball on HGH. Who you draft is who you go to battle with for the entire season.
The NFBC introduced Gladiator in November of 2022 ahead of the 2023 season, and it was an instant hit. The 120 leagues (1,500 entries) sold out by mid-December and drafts concluded by the middle of January 2023 – two full months before Opening Day. Though he wasn’t part of the FTN team then, our very own Robert Orr beat out the field of 1,500 as the Gladiator’s inaugural season’s overall champion and secured the $10,000 grand prize.
The NFBC increased the field to 150 leagues (1,800 entries) in 2024, and leagues sold out faster than John Fisher’s dignity. Mark Gannon took down the 2024 Gladiator overall contest. NFBC bumped the entry pool to 130 leagues (1,950 entries) and by the time you read this, the Gladiator will only have 35-40% of the remaining leagues available.
The entry fee is $50. Payouts within each league of 15 teams are $250 (first place), $125 (second place) and a free 2026 Gladiator entry for third place. The overall prize is $10,000, $2,500 for second and overall payouts are made throughout the top 26. Here is a full breakdown of the format and rules.
You can draft Gladiators in one sitting – at scheduled draft times between now and January 15 via the NFBC Draft Lobby. These are 55 seconds-per-pick drafts that take about two hours to complete. The alternative is their Extended Drafts (aka, Slow Draft) where you can choose the two-hour or four-hour per pick options. The Extended Drafts are ideal for digging deeper into specific players and ensuring we make educated decisions not simply based on our biases.
Minimize Injury Exposure, Maximize Playing Time
The Gladiator’s survival-of-the-fittest setup with no reserves invokes a draft strategy philosophy revolving around player health, stability and presumed playing time. Minimizing our exposure to injured or injury-prone players and maximizing playing time with presumed healthy players via at-bats and innings pitched are keys to success in the Gladiator. We may not be able to predict future injuries, but we can increase our success rate by accounting for past and current injuries and reducing risk exposure to these players.
The current Gladiator price points (ADP) of Ronald Acuña Jr. (Round 2) and Spencer Strider (Round 11) are appropriately discounted since neither will be ready for Opening Day 2025. But will they return to the field in April, May, June or later? Will they be the same dynamic fantasy producers as in previous seasons? Similar questions for Tommy John Surgery-recovering pitchers Shane McClanahan and Sandy Alcántara, Zach Neto (shoulder surgery), Josh Jung (wrist) and dozens of others in the player pool being drafted in this contest. Though we shouldn’t automatically exclude every injured or injury-prone player from our draft pool, we should recognize how much we limit our ability to maximize playing time and, ultimately, put ourselves in a position to win our leagues and compete in the overall pool. No matter how pretty a rotation of Jacob deGrom, Tyler Glasnow, McClanahan, Alcántara and Brandon Woodruff looks on paper, it’s a pipedream strategy with a high BF% (Backfire Rate).
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