Old Man Dynasty Daily 1/4/24: You Don't Have to Trade High MLB FYPD Draft Picks, But You Probably Should
You can't lose
Drafting is the best part of fantasy sports, which makes a rookie draft a, if not *the*, highlight of the dynasty sports season. The good part about this from a competitive standpoint is that you can easily exploit it if you bother to try whatsoever, because picks become overvalued. The bad part is that it’s so tempting to think that you can master it, when you cannot, that it proves irresistible even if trading out if it always wins in the long run.
In both real and fake sports, trading high draft picks for tilted offers is a no-brainer, given how little we still and will ever know about developing talent. This is more true for baseball, where development can take years, than it is for every other sport, and the payoff is almost never worth it to draft a guy and stick with it over the whole period, or even portions of it, if you can help it. It’s less true in football, where players can be immediately relevant and even dominant. The upshot is this: Trade your MLB FYPD picks for players and/or future picks if they’re non super-elite college or minor-league prospects. Any and all elite Japanese prospects cut the line and are always worthwhile. But “prospects” prospects? You don’t want to live that life. The best way to win isn’t to tell the future; it’s to have the best players right now. The better the players, the louder their siren songs. If you build it, they will actually come.