Getting your best ball strategy is key- and the biggest part of that is your roster construction. Understanding how you need to build your roster for your draft will give you a great advantage.
Remember, you can find all of our best ball articles, including our introduction to the game type here.
Best Ball Strategy: Roster Construction Initial Factors
Before your draft, there are some initial considerations that you need to consider when building your roster;
Schedule
This is a little bit of guesswork as teams can change quickly season to season. However, you will be able to have a rough idea as to which teams have good or bad matchups throughout the season.
Bye Weeks
Bye weeks aren’t a huge issue in season-long leagues where you can find replacements. But where you are not able to make any adjustments, it’s best to avoid too many players with the same bye week.
Upside
This might seem entirely obvious, but you want to select players with high upside. Your scores come from players with the highest point totals, so you want a group of players that can have huge games at any point.
Importance of Early Picks
This is another area that is obvious, but you need to nail your first few picks. Getting a solid group of players in your RB, WR & TE positions enables you to get an advantage over the competition. Having a rock-solid floor allows you to fill the rest of your lineup with high-upside guys.
Now let’s move onto the number of players you should be looking to draft, and some strategies to employ.
Best Ball Strategy: Roster Construction QB
The QB position typically scores the most points on a consistent basis, so getting a high-caliber player is vital. But just like in season-long leagues you don’t need to snag one early on.
Taking a few of the later round QBs in the later rounds means you have a revolving group of players that can be rotated through when they have big weeks. It also means that you are able to stock up at other positions early on, and not have too much invested in a position that can be replaced.
Typical number to draft: 3
Drafting 3 QBs is ideal because any less doesn’t give enough cover for injury or busts, while 4 is typically too many because you have fewer available players at other positions.
Best Ball Strategy: Roster Construction RB
Just as with season-long leagues, the RB position is important. With best ball leagues using some version of PPR scoring, grabbing solid pass-catchers will give you flexibility for flex starts.
One stud player taken early, combined with a group of pass-catching backs will give a great group. Typically, you will find some very productive backs in the later rounds of drafts.
Typical number to draft: 5
Drafting five RBs will give you plenty of options, with most leagues requiring you to play just two. With your group made of pass catchers, you give yourself a flex option when they have a big game.
Best Ball Strategy: Roster Construction WR
The WR position has the most number of required starters for your weekly lineup, so you want to load up with options. You should try and get one locked on target-hog early, then look to get a number of players that are upside plays.
Grabbing an elite option that can finish the season with around 100 receptions gives a solid floor, but they also have an option of exploding in any given week.
Typical number to draft: 8
Getting a large group of WRs will give you the best chance of having a number that have big games. Grabbing a number of big-game players, like DeSean Jackson or Calvin Ridley should protect you from their dud games and give you big scores in the season.
Best Ball Strategy: Roster Construction TE
The TE position is easily the biggest struggle in best ball leagues, because of the volatility of the position. Grabbing one of the top tier of players early will give you a huge advantage over your competitors each week.
Typical number to draft: 2
Grabbing an elite TE, who is reliable and has WR-type production each week, and combining them with a high-upside backup (with a different bye week!) should see you through.
Best Ball Tool
Our mission is to bring best ball to the UK, so we developed our Best Ball tool. It allows you to draft on Sleeper (widely used in the UK) and then determines the score each week in Google Sheets automatically. The sheet only needs to be purchased by one of the league members, and they can share it with the league to use.
If you are struggling to get enough people together for a league, please contact us (we want to bring good owners together). You can find us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Image credit- Rich Graessle- ICON Sportswire
