My Fantasy Baseball Experience

Hi, my name is Jack Thaler, and I will be writing a weekly fantasy baseball column throughout the summer. I am a 15-year-old who loves baseball. I started getting into fantasy baseball about a year ago, and I found that I love fantasy just as much as I love the real game.

My love of the game all began with my dad. He has been playing in a fantasy baseball league for almost 20 years and started teaching me about different strategies and how the game works. Eventually, I understood it well enough to start playing myself, and my interest in it grew even more.

With our shared passion, we joined the high-stakes Platinum League in Las Vegas. My dad had already competed in the league a couple of times before and thought it would be a good idea for me to come along and help him. The league is no joke. There are people who save up money just to get a chance to compete because the competition is so talented, and I was the only kid in the room.

I was very nervous, but my dad and I had worked out a solid strategy. That strategy proved to be on point. We ended up finishing fourth out of 15 teams, and we were in first place multiple times throughout the season. In fact, with one week to go, we still had a chance to win it all.

While it didn’t end with the victory we had hoped for, I still learned a very important lesson: the game is not won at the draft.

While the draft is still very important, it does not match the importance of the waiver wire. Having a great draft doesn’t mean much if you aren’t active on the waiver wire. The biggest mistake I made, which led to us not making a profit, was allowing myself to lose focus. Sure, the baseball season is a long and tiring 162 games, but that doesn’t mean you can fall asleep and lose focus.

In the Platinum League, the waiver wire runs every Sunday, and we missed multiple waiver periods. That caused us to miss out on several players who ended up being league-winning additions.

Now that I have told you about the biggest mistake not to make, I want to talk about the draft strategy that got us so far.

I’ll start by asking you a question: Have you ever heard the name Phil Dussault? If not, let me explain his story. He had what many people consider the greatest fantasy baseball season ever by winning almost every high-stakes league he entered.

How did he do it?

He did it by focusing on undervalued positions. When Dussault first entered those high-stakes leagues, the common strategy was to avoid drafting pitchers early. But Dussault thought differently. He believed pitchers were being undervalued, so he spent the early rounds loading up on pitching. His strategy worked, and eventually everyone tried to copy it by drafting pitchers early as well.

My dad and I noticed that trend and thought it had gone too far. If everyone was reaching for pitchers, then hitters were now becoming undervalued. So we decided to draft only hitters through the early rounds before finally selecting Tanner Bibee as our ace in the seventh round.

That strategy seemed to work, as we climbed the standings and passed many of the pitching-heavy teams.

After a successful first season, we decided to enter the league again in 2025. This time we adjusted our strategy by taking one pitcher earlier so we wouldn’t have to worry as much about our pitching staff during the season. We selected Dylan Cease in the third round.

So far, our team looks decent as we sit in ninth place, but we’re waiting for some key midseason additions to help us climb the standings. Roman Anthony was just called up this week, and Sean Manaea is on the way back from injury. Once those additions are contributing, we hope to make the same kind of second-half surge we did last year.

Now that you’ve heard my story, I’ll focus on helping you dominate your fantasy baseball league beginning next week.