Monday's Forum: Hitting vs. pitching. Which way should you go in the draft?

One could argue that if you select the best player available at all times in the draft, regardless of position, you’ll always set yourself up to be in the hunt for a title. But we know it doesn’t work that way. There is a method to this madness. And one of the strategies that are often debated is whether to target pitching or offense on draft day. I’m a believer that offense leads a team to a championship. I don’t discredit the importance of pitching. I just think that unless you’re prepared to use the first four picks of your draft to select the best arms available, regardless of how mediocre you really think they are, taking a pitcher will backfire more times than it will work. Johan Santana and Roy Halladay can definitely lead a team to victory, but unless you’ve got them both – or a rotation built on three or four upper tier pitchers – the back end of your staff (or a closer like Armando Benitez) can nullify their super-human efforts and ruin your chances of victory.
See, that’s the way pitching works. Your staff won’t be successful if you have one solid performer and a bunch of mediocre players supporting him. This isn’t Major League Baseball, where an ace can be the stopper for his team and use a strong performance to will his squad to victory. This is fantasy baseball, where your staff is only as good as your fourth and fifth starter. Yeah, that’s a cliché, but it’s true. How good can your rotation really be if you’re starting Johan Santana once, but Gil Meche, Horacio Ramirez or Paul Abbot twice in any given week based on scheduling? Any of those three can, have and will (often) have days where they give up 5 ER in 3IP, and rack up a WHIP near 2.0 -- killing the effectiveness of Santana’s 8-inning scoreless gem. What you have left is a mediocre box score, the same
that can be obtained by drafting pitchers in middle or later rounds. The same cannot wholly be said for a team based on hitters. While having a batter on a cold streak can definitely hurt a team, he is unlikely to singlehandedly ruin your chances. Furthermore, if a player has a bad game, he has more opportunities to redeem himself throughout the week, all the while adding toyour team’s totals.
This doesn’t happen with pitchers. Whey they are bad, they are yanked. And when they are pulled from a game, you’re left with a nasty line that can automatically kill four categories in a head-to-head league.
I realize that the same argument can be made to make a point FOR drafting pitching. Unless you’ve gone balls to the wall and selected all aces, that line of thinking won’t get you anywhere.
There are lots of arguments for both methodologies, many of which we could write entire books on, but when it comes down to it and I assess a head-to-head league, I find myself gravitating toward batters because they are easier to predict. Remember, the goal
is victory, not annihilation.

The most difficult task in constructing a fantasy baseball team is trying to balance your offense and pitching. Most people favor offense because hitters go every day. There is a lot of validity to this point, but it is more complicated than that. In Yahoo! Leagues, the first tiebreaker is ERA. Nothing makes you bitterer than getting bounced from your fantasy playoff because of a tiebreaker loss. It's no secret that good arms are harder to find than good sticks.
There are about 15 legitimate aces in fantasy baseball. These are guys that get you great numbers in all the major categories every start - your Johan Santanas, Roy Halladays and the like. You have to aim to get a couple of them within the first three rounds. There will still be top-notch offensive players you can fill out your roster with later. After the top tier pitchers go, there is a steep drop off. Don’t start reaching for 2nd & 3rd tier pitching talent now. This is where you get your o-fence. While you are pulling in the mashers to balance out your horses, the other managers will be trying to cobble together their staffs with middle of the road pitchers at the top of their rotations.
Another important factor is how well you know your league. If you know your opposing managers and their tendencies it can help you gauge how long to wait on certain players. Every league has a couple homers that take a player from their favorite team higher than he should go. Knowing when this is going to happen can allow you to reach or wait on a player you need in some situations.
Finally, let me speak on the topic of keeper leagues. Most keeper leagues are thin in pitching. Unless somebody messes and drops a good hurler or the guy who was stacked in pitching can’t pull of a pre-draft trade, you should go with hitters early. There will be mid-tier pitchers and sleepers for several rounds without much drop off. Hitting is at a premium here.

Everyone loves hitting. I once loved hitting back in my fantasy youth, when I was scratching for 6th or 7th place. My hitters were legit: Along with Vlad Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, Ichiro Suzuki, I had the best offense in our league. But I was in 7th place. Pitching will win you fantasy baseball. Hitters are deep. Pitching is thin. Get three top starters and you will contend every year. This doesn't mean you go for a pitcher in the first round. You need three franchise hitters to carry your team on any given week (if you are playing in a points league and not a week by week rotisserie, it's time to stop breastfeeding). In the first round, get your Albert Pujols, Purple Lips, Soriano, Manny Ramirez, Jose Reyes or Vlad Guerrero. In the next round go for your ace. If a hitter doesn't do anything for you in the third go ahead and get another one.
Use the 3 to 2 ratio in the first five rounds. Three hitter selections to two pitchers. Then go pitching heavy, while selecting proven hitters that have fallen or are too good to pass up.
How many times have you kept your offense intact after your draft? You will always be able to pick up a Robinson Cano, Dan Uggla or even Travis Hafner when they had their breakout years. Carlos Guillen was a guy that never got drafted late or never until a season ago and was able to fill in for people who went high on Jimmy Rollins or Edgar Renteria. Offense is easy to come by.
You get three top pitchers (Santana, Halladay, Oswalt) an up and coming ace (Carlos Zambrano, John Lackey) and workhorses that can eat up eight innings while giving up three to four runs (Pettitte, Zito, Livan Hernandez) and you will win pretty much every pitching category from week to week.
And what about offense? You still have the three studs you picked early, plus you drafted solid performers from a deep talent pool and you keep up on the waiver wire and pick up the one or two players who were never in your plans, but will lead you to the title. Winning. It didn't take me long to get used to. How long will it take you?

At heart, I am a contrarian. In the world of fantasy baseball, this is an important thing to admit, especially when preparing to construct your team. Hear me out on this one...
If, like me, you always prefer to go against the grain, then it is of the utmost importance to be able to gauge the direction of your league. If you can do this during the offseason and be prepared before the draft, perfect, but you don't need to be a mind-reader to use this tactic. It doesn't take much powers of observation to figure out which way any given draft is headed: pitching or hitting.
While my cohorts have all given reasons why one way is better than the other, I'm here to tell you that you can win just as easily using either tactic, although it is important to pick one.
If, for instance, you're in a league in which eight hitters are off the board in the first round, that probably means there is going to be more value at pitching, so go that way. The opposite is also true.
The important thing in both cases is to make sure you go heavy on guys with big upside at the area you have neglected. Example: You've taken pitchers with your eight of your first 10 picks, do you grab someone like Raul Ibanez who you know will hit at least 20 HRs but not more than 30 or someone like Joe Crede who could totally flop or have a MVP-caliber year? I say roll the dice.
The important thing is to figure out your strategy no later than the second round of your draft (before the draft in keeper leagues).
Don't let anyone tell you that one way is inherently better than the other.