Welcome to our 12th season of fantasy baseball coverage as we will help you get ready for your drafts and prepare for the upcoming season so you can become a champion.
As a refresher for those who have followed our coverage throughout the years and to any new readers, in fantasy baseball there are different league formats that are used, but the traditional is the five-by-five rotisserie league format, and that is what I will base my opinions on.
For those who are not familiar with what that means, there are five hitting categories — batting average, home runs, runs scored, RBIs and stolen bases. For pitching, the categories consist of wins, strikeouts, ERA, walks plus hits per innings pitched (WHIP) and saves.
On-base percentage continues to become more popular as a replacement to batting average, so I will refer to that stat as well since it could change how we evaluate certain players.
I personally feel fantasy baseball continues to be at a crossroads with the current format. Major League Baseball teams are not valuing starting pitchers and closers anymore, and we need to adjust as an industry. Unfortunately, this hasn’t happened.
Even though roto leagues are still the standard, I encourage commissioners to think about implementing head-to-head formats along with total points. Adding more categories and getting the fantasy football feel of going against an opponent every week will only help enhance the fantasy baseball experience.
This is part two of our draft guide. Part one can be found here.
WINS AND SAVES
Two of the main pitching categories are wins and saves. It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to achieve both in fantasy baseball.
We have been keeping track of wins, or the lack thereof, since 2019. Here is how many pitchers have won 14 or more games in recent years:
2019: 26 starting pitchers
2020: COVID
2021: 13
2022: 19
2023: 12
2024: 17
2025: 11
Last season may just have been the nail in the coffin for this category. I’m honestly stunned seeing a number as low as 11. American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal won just 13 games.
Why are we still using this as a category?
A lot of this can be attributed to pitchers just not pitching deep into games. Starting pitchers are averaging around 5.2 innings pitched the past few seasons.
In order to earn a win, a starting pitcher must pitch five innings. In order to qualify for a quality start which is a popular category, pitchers must throw six innings and allow three earned runs or less. Both of those categories have been hard to reach in recent years.
The fantasy industry is finally catching on to this trend. There are only six pitchers (counting Shohei Ohtani) who are being drafted in the top 30. I have preached for years to wait on pitching and it appears the masses are following suit.
I would recommend eliminating the win and quality start stat and adding another category like strikeouts per nine innings.
As for saves, this is always a category we chase on the waiver wire since the closer role is extremely volatile. Teams aren’t relying on one pitcher to close out the ninth anymore. There were 67 pitchers who recorded at least one save in a shortened 2020 season. Here’s how it’s shaken out since.
2021: 116 pitchers recorded at least one save, nine pitchers finished with least 30
2022: 131, 10
2023: 214, 12
2024: 222, 8
2025: 215, 8
To put this in perspective, in 2015, 21 pitchers finished with at least 30 saves and 84 pitchers finished with one save or more. It only took seven seasons for a huge shift to occur and fantasy baseball has yet to catch up.
Our strategy has stayed the same in recent years. We recognized this trend early and there is no reason to change our strategy. Fantasy managers don’t need to reach, but we would like to draft a closer on a good team who has their role solidified. We will attack the waiver wire throughout the season and ride the hot hand in order to compete in the category.
I can’t stress enough that this is a category that should be gone. Fantasy owners should expand and add holds plus saves to expand the player pool for targeting that category.
THE RETURN OF STEALS
We have preached the return of stolen bases for the last couple of seasons. Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. a consistent stalwart in this category, stealing 30 or more bases in each of the past four seasons. Here are the number of players who have 30 or more steals dating back to 2021.
2021: 6
2022: 6
2023: 18
2024: 24
2025: 21
Fantasy managers have been known to reach on players early in drafts who steal bases or use their last few picks on players that will help in that category. That doesn’t need to happen anymore, as there are many players who can provide a strong floor throughout the season.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox
Originally published Feb. 18, 2026