How to ‘Punt’ a Category in Your Fantasy Baseball Leagues

​

  • By Paul Williamson

    Punting a category is a strategy that numerous mangers utilize. It helps narrow down the draft pool to allow you to target players at all points of the drafts without having to worry if you’re missing out on a particular player-type or category.

    Sometimes the punt strategy comes into play for a manager after the season starts after their team is hit with injuries or under performance and the waiver options don’t allow them to make up for the deficit left by losing production.

    Sometimes the strategy is planned from draft day.

    I think it is important to begin this with a simple, yet very important tip:

    DO NOT PUNT IN 12-TEAM OR SHALLOWER ROTO FORMATS. 

    It just does not make any sense. You may not put a premium price on a particular position and realize you won’t necessarily win a category, but there just is never a reason to punt, especially on draft day.

    There is always going to be guys available, whether it be in the mid-to-late rounds or off the waiver wire that will allow you to remain competitive in any category you may lack.

    If you need steals, guys like Jose Caballero, Chandler Simpson, Victor Scott, Jake Mangum, Byson Stott, David Hamilton, Cedric Mullins, Geraldo Perdomo and Tyler Tolbert were all waiver wire fodder at some point last season and each had over 20 steals on the year.

    If you needed batting average, guys like Jacob Wilson, Perdomo, Alec Burleson, Brendan Donovan, Alejandro Kirk, Ryan O’Hearn and Ernie Clement were all available off wires last year and each hit over .275.

    Saves? Those are always popping up on the wire. You can always make sure you check my Call to the ‘Pen each week throughout the season as I find you streaming options all year. Last year, Aroldis Chapman, Emilio Pagan, Daniel Palencia and Dennis Santana each cracked 15 saves and were not heavily drafted. Shelby Miller, Shawn Armstrong , Luke Jackson, Bryan Abreu and Abner Uribe each were 12-team closer options at one point throughout last year’s campaign and were all widely available. .

    Wins, ERA and WHIP can always be found as streaming options are a plentiful for starters all season, or ROS adds can constantly be found (think Trevor Rogers, Matthew Boyd, Andrew Abbott, Merrill Kelly and Kris Bubic each had ADPs outside the top 300). Then guys outside the top-60 pitchers that face a bad offense or in a cold weather game that favors the pitchers could be used as streams all throughout the season.

    Homers and RBI are also plentiful. the aforementioned Perdomo, George Springer, Hunter Goodman, Trevor Story, Ben Rice, Andy Pages, Drake Baldwin, and Agustin Ramirez were all major adds for 12-team leagues last year.

    Also, Corey Pieper of FantasyPros explains the math behind punting in a 12-team setup. To win these roto leagues, around 96 points will be needed. That means you have to win around 80% of the available points. So intentionally taking a ‘1’ in a category means you will need to win around 88% of the remaining points, making your margin for error “razor-thin”.

    The overall point here is this, you should never give up on a category if you are in a 12-team or shallower league. Period. End of story. Taking a 1 in a roto category is too much of a risk to take, especially since it is an unnecessary risk (we will discuss head-to-head leagues later).

    Why do managers punt?
    1. The season just doesn’t go as planned – If you go into the year with tons of steals in a 15-team league but then lose Elly, Maikel Garcia and Ha Seong Kim to injury, then you may want to consider punting that category in a deep league setup as finding the necessary steals off the wire is not going to be easy if you are in a crowded league.
    2. You want to simplify your draft process – punting a category allows you to not stress over one less thing as the draft goes along.
    3. It will help prevent you from overdrafting players – single category players sometimes get drafted way too early by managers who just need help in that one thing. Many managers bemoan the cost of closers early in drafts and punting saves will allow you keep focusing on multi-category assets in your first 8-10 rounds instead of wasting one of these picks on an arm who is only really going to help you win one category. Same for hitters who really only provide steals or homers but will kill you in things like batting average or RBI.
    4. 15-team leagues or deeper should consider the punt. But it is important to note that you need to watch your draft room closely, If it looks like multiple managers are punting the same category you are, then there becomes more competition for the names that you thought were going to be gift wrapped for you in the later to mid rounds.
      • For example, if you go into the draft punting saves, but realize by round eight, nine, 10 that a lot pretty good closers are still available, that’s a good sign that it might be time to pivot as you’re going to get excellent value for a closer that  you were wary of taking inside the top 100 but has fallen because too many managers are punting saves.
      • Or if you’re punting steals and see Chandler Simpson fall and fall, go ahead and snag him, knowing guys like Jordan Beck, Otto Lopez, Jose Cabellero and others will be there to help pad that stat later. You may not win that category, but you will still get enough production to keep you competitive, especially since you’ve established that too many managers are also punting the same category.
    5. Head-to-head formats – This is where punting makes a ton more sense. In roto leagues, you are competing in all categories, all year. However, in H2H leagues, you just need to win five (or even less in some weeks with ties) categories to have a beneficial week. And with the volatility of the sport, there will be weeks where you have hitters that are cold so you may not care about batting average and will go for volume in the counting stats. Or you have pitchers with terrible matchups so you may go heavier on saves and relievers so you can bench some of those starters and still compete for ratios and saves.
    What category should I punt?

    The two most popular categories to punt are steals and saves. These two categories are the easiest to punt as they are most provided by players who only are good for that one thing. NOTE: Specific player analysis can be found later in the article.

    • Steals – This is always a popular stat to punt but last year, it was probably a mistake as there were a vast majority of hitters that got at least 20 steals, also got at least 15 homers. However, in 2024, for this article, I pointed out that at just about half of the players that got 20 steals got to that 15 homer mark. This means that it was easier to have power to go with speed. Some dudes came out of nowhere to be steals assets like Juan Soto and Josh Naylor. Others were just healthy like Trevor Story and Zach Neto. Then dudes like Brice Turang and Maikel Garcia found their power stroke. But these dudes are going to be expensive in drafts so you may have to decide on your punt strategy, pending on how many power-speed combo dudes you do (or don’t) get your hands on.
    • Saves – This is probably an easier category to punt than steals. Some interesting facts, only 32 arms recorded at least 10 saves in 2024 (last year it was 39). So in a 15-team league, it will be expensive to draft a one-category asset. Only two pitchers got 100+ strikeout last year while also getting more than 15 saves (Cade Smith and Mason  Miller). Only three dudes got at least 70 innings pitched and get 15 saves. This means, the gains you make in their elite ratios is limited. So their value is more skewed than most other fantasy assets as they will be the reason you win just one of ten categories. But a lot of them get chosen among hitters and other arms that are going help you win way more than one category. One thing to keep in mind on this punt build: you have to load up on good starters earlier in the draft than most people. Winning the other four categories is way more important to you.
    • Batting average – This is probably the next best category to punt. Punting batting average allows you to just target volume and allows you to more comfortably draft a lot of other players that other managers may be unwilling to target due to their batting average deficiency. But I would only suggest this punt almost exclusively in H2H formats or 20+ team roto leagues.
    • Strikeouts – After saves, strikeouts is the next easiest pitching category to punt. And this punt build might be a bit more appealing because as you get deeper into drafts, there are tons of high strikeout arms that have poor ratios and if you don’t care about those strikeouts, you won’t be forced to value a Spencer Strider or Roki Sasaki as they are arms that figure to give a ton of Ks, but are a potential threat to your ratios.
    • Wins – this category is pretty hard to specifically punt because if a pitcher has good ratios, then they’re probably going to be in line for more wins and if you’re targeting ratios and not wins, then you’re going to fall into some wins.
    • Homers – this is also not a category I would suggest you punt. There were 70 (75 last year) players to get 15 steals in 2024. There were 150 dudes (144 last year) who hit at least 15 homers. Homers are just too plentiful to be a smart punt, except for maybe 30-team leagues or AL-only crazies.
    • Runs/RBI – Because these categories are closely aligned with things like batting average and homers, it is increasingly difficult to punt these and still target the other hitting categories making this punt build quite rare.
    • ERA/WHIP – This is exclusively for H2H formats. It is hard to focus on one ratio to punt as they are pretty closely aligned. Generally speaking (it is not always true) but if a pitcher has a good WHIP, the ERA is likely to be at least OK, and vis-a-versa. So for roto leagues, it is hard to hyper focus on just one ratio and punting two categories is just crazy talk. But in H2H, if you can out-volume your opponent and dominate in wins, Ks and saves then all you need to do is win two hitter categories to get five Ws for the week.
    Players’ values in specific punt builds


    Want to get access to the rest of this article? You’ll need to have an MLB FantasyPass membership. Click here to learn more and sign up!
    Premium Access Required
    Click here to join us on Discord! And Follow us on Twitter by clicking here
    Come join us at SportsEthos by filling out an application by clicking here
    Follow Paul at PaulW_34

    December 23, 2025, 9:00 am