RIVAL Best Ball Drafts - Strategy and Lineup Picks for this Week (April 15-21)

April 15, 2024

Ryan Kirksey brings you RIVAL fantasy baseball best ball strategy and picks for Week 3 of the 2024 season. He recommends targeting these MLB players for best ball fantasy baseball drafts.

The 2024 fantasy baseball season is now in full gear and weekly best ball drafts are a great way to get to experience drafts all season long. Fantasy baseball best ball formats are an excellent way to get get the real-time experience of drafting without the hassle of in-season management, even from a week-to-week perspective. RIVAL Fantasy is one of the best formats out there for baseball's best ball drafts, and they have weekly best ball drafts for leagues that start on Opening Day.

It is very important to know your league settings and scoring depending on where you play best ball. Be sure and pay attention to your league settings as RIVAL scores differently for best ball than many other sites offering a similar product. They also offer a unique perspective on positional alignment with two outfielders, two infielders, two utility hitters, and three pitchers.

Here is the scoring breakdown at RIVAL plus general strategy and picks for Week 3. Join a RIVAL Fantasy draft now by visiting their draft lobby.

RIVAL Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Scoring

For this article, we are going to focus on RIVAL Fantasy's best ball scoring, as it is one of the best new popular platforms to play on. The table below shows you how each category is scored for their week-long best ball games.

Week 3 RIVAL Best Ball Drafts Strategy

RIVAL weekly best ball drafts during the baseball season consist of four or six teams, each picking nine players: two IF, two OF, two UTIL, and three PIT. With only 36 or 54 total player picks made in the draft, it's not like you have to go deep into the player pool or be ready to draft the same sleepers you drafted after Round 20 in seasonal leagues. With so few players taken and the talent level of those players so high, we are looking for micro-edges in this game.

For hitters, we want to maximize plate appearances. That means two things. First, players who hit higher in the order are much more valuable. Over a week, even those one or two extra plate appearances can add up. In addition, we want to prioritize hitters whose teams play seven games. Whenever I possibly can, all of my hitter rosters will be filled with players from the 10 teams who play seven games this week (BOS, TB, CLE, DET, LAA, TEX, MIA, CHC, ARI, SF).

For pitchers, we want to find the best possible options who have two-start weeks. Even the best pitchers with pristine matchups with one start may not be able to match pitchers in a tier below with two starts. Those 10 teams who play seven games will have multiple starters pitching twice in Week 3. Of the teams who play seven times, the Cubs (at ARI, MIA), Giants (at MIA, ARI), and Guardians (at BOS, OAK) have the best matchups for the week.

Pitcher Picks for Week 3 RIVAL Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Drafts

Aaron Nola, Philadelphia Phillies

It's impossible to look at Aaron Nola this season and say he is having an elite year through three starts. His ERA is 4.50, and his strikeouts per nine innings are under six. He is walking more than four batters per nine innings. If ever there were a week to get on track, this is the one. Nola will face the lowly Colorado Rockies and the Chicago White Sox at home this week. Those two teams have a combined six wins on the season and rank 20th and 29th in wRC+, respectively. Both offenses are in the top 10 in strikeout rate this year and the White Sox are last in home runs hit this year (eight).

Tyler Glasnow, Los Angeles Dodgers

Tyler Glasnow, on the other hand, is back to looking like a bona fide ace after striking out 14 batters in seven innings against the Twins last week. He has allowed four total earned runs in his last three starts and now gets the Washington Nationals and the New York Mets, both in the friendly confines of Dodger Stadium. Both New York and Washington are bottom half of the league in slugging percentage and runs scored so far this season. Glasnow is ranked as the 10th pitcher in RIVAL drafts this week, but there is a good chance he is actually top three when all is said and done.

Infielder Picks for Week 3 RIVAL Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Drafts

Marcus Semien, Texas Rangers

Batting leadoff for a strong offense that plays seven times in Week 3 is almost always going to get me to add that player to my RIVAL best ball drafts. As the 10th infielder listed in RIVAL drafts, there is a chance you could get two other guys and then add Semien in a later round for insurance at the UTIL slot for the week. The Rangers will face the Tigers and Braves both on the road this week, and Semien will hold the handedness advantage against both Tarik Skubal and Chris Sale, the only true tough pitchers he will see this week.

Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians

Jose Ramirez is coming off of a two-home-run week to go along with six RBI. Now, he gets a seven-game schedule with the bottom half of the Boston Red Sox pitching staff and the Oakland Athletics giving him Joe Boyle, Alex Wood, and Ross Stripling. The games against Boston are all on the road, where Ramirez has a career .307/.386/.443 line. The Oakland matchup is at home in what should be a series where the Guardians score a lot of runs.

Rafael Devers, Boston Red Sox

Watch the status of Rafael Devers as the week gets started for two reasons. First, he is coming off a minor shoulder injury that caused him to miss a couple of games last week. Second, his team plays at 11:00 in the morning in the annual Patriots' Day game, so it is an extra early start time to see if he is in the lineup. If not, that means a maximum of six games, and other infielders such as Matt Olson and Austin Riley would be more valuable in Devers' range. Boston faces six right-handed pitchers to start the week and Devers slugs .546 against right-handers for his career.

Outfielder Picks for Week 3 RIVAL Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Drafts

Corbin Carroll, Arizona Diamondbacks

If I have the first or second pick in any RIVAL best ball drafts this week, it's going to be very hard to pass on Corbin Carroll knowing he is unlikely to make it back to me for my next pick. Carroll plays seven games in Week 3 against the Cubs and Giants. In the Cubs, he will miss Shota Imanaga, and while the Giants pitchers look tough playing at the San Francisco stadium, Carroll has eight hits and four stolen bases in 10 games there. Carroll has at least nine RIVAL fantasy points in five of his last six games as he has become a master at getting on base and causing disruption on the base paths.

Randy Arozarena, Tampa Bay Rays

Randy Arozarena is going to face seven pitchers this week as starters for the Los Angeles Angels and New York Yankees. Nestor Cortes is the toughest matchup he will have on paper this week. The first four games are at home against a cross-country traveling Angels team whose toughest pitcher right now is Reid Detmers. Right-handed Arozarena will also face three lefties in his seven games this week: Nestor Cortes Jr., Reid Detmers, and Patrick Sandoval. Arozarena is off to a slow start to the season, but this looks like the week where he breaks out and gets back on track.

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