Best MLB Bets Today – Free (Friday 5/3)
Adam Strangis
Welcome to FTN’s weekly free agent bidding (FAAB) strategy column, Trust the Gut.
This article will be published every Saturday during the fantasy baseball season. The addendum to Trust the Gut is released Sundays, at least two hours before NFBC’s 10 p.m. ET deadline.
The goal of this article is to supplement our lineups with the best available hitters and pitchers each week. This weekly study is conducted through an NFBC lens but is helpful for folks playing on all sites.
Roster% refers to the percentage that players are currently rostered within 15-team NFBC Main Event and 12-team Online Championship leagues. These are mostly competitive national contests with overall prize components.
This column will reference a FAAB budget of $1,000 to start the season. Divide by 10 for projected bid amounts if your league starts with a $100 budget (a $90 bid = $9). The by-position list is segmented into 15-team and 12-team formats for SP, RP, CI (1B, 3B), MI (2B, SS), OF, C and UT-only when applicable.
Final note: there are generally two types of purposes for a free agent acquired via FAAB. One type is a player with upside and staying power – a player who represents a significant improvement to our rosters we hope can be a steadying and profitable presence in our lineups all season. The other is a streamer – players we rent for a week or two, hoping for an immediate statistical impact based on their advantageous upcoming schedule or a positive recent shift in their value.
Week 5 Overview
If you feel like you’ve been overly bombarded with injuries, disaster starts, closers losing their jobs and really bad standings results to date, please remember you’re not alone. We’ve all been experiencing the fantasy sads in different ways. When it comes to FAAB, we need to step away from the mouse and think big picture – the fact that we aren’t even through the first month of the season and the likelihood of one new player “fixing” our rosters just isn’t realistic. Keep that micro week-by-week mindset when it comes to filling in the best starting lineup each week but have that macro approach intact – the approach that reminds us that there is still 86% of the season to go along with 20-plus more bidding periods. As my FTN Fantasy Baseball podcast baseball co-host talked about on this week’s episode, perhaps try dialing your bids back after first entering them, as opposed to increasing them, before the FAAB deadline.
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