With the 2021 regular season finished, let's take the long journey back to when fantasy baseball drafts were occurring. While it's important to draft a team of contributors, it's just as important to stay aware during the season of players who are producing on the free agent market for you to pick up.
Here are the top performers of those that quite often went undrafted in fantasy baseball leagues. We used Fantasy Pros average draft position calculator to determine who would be eligible to be included. Fantasy Pros took the average draft position from six major fantasy baseball sites (including ESPN and Yahoo) and averaged them out. If the average draft position was below 250 (25 rounds, 10 people mean 250 people get drafted), then the player could be included.
Here we included one catcher, one first baseman, one second baseman, one shortstop, one third basemen, three outfielders, five starting pitchers, and one relief pitcher to make up the team of the best fantasy contributors who often went undrafted in fantasy baseball drafts.
Some honorable mentions include:
Catcher - Mike Zunino
First base - Yuli Gurriel, Brandon Belt
Second base - Adam Frazier
Shortstop - Willy Adames, Wander Franco
Third base - Patrick Wisdom, Luis Urias
Outfield - Adolis Garcia, Adam Duvall, Hunter Renfroe, Avisail Garcia, Frank Schwindel
Starting pitcher - Trevor Rogers, Ranger Suarez, Anthony DeSclafani
Relief pitcher - Jake McGee, Kendall Graveman
Catcher - Buster Posey, Giants
It was somewhat of a renaissance season for Posey after combining to hit just 12 home runs in the previous three years (five in 2018, seven in 2019, sat out 2020 due to Covid-19). He hit 18 in 2021 while batting over .300 (.304) for the sixth time in his career (first time since 2017).
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Fresh off an NL West crown that took 107 wins for the Giants to 106 by the Dodgers, Brandon Crawford and Buster Posey couldn't help but envision a potentially epic playoff matchup against rival Los Angeles. https://t.co/hrotfSFFtV
— Quad-City Times (@qctimes) October 6, 2021
First base - Joey Votto, Reds
Another former NL MVP (won in 2010), Votto rebounded nicely from a dismal 2020. The 38-year-old finished just one shy of tying his career-high of 37 home runs and just one RBI short of reaching 100 for the fourth time of his career.
The best @Reds team in years is just a few proactive steps from being a World Series contender in 2022. Joey Votto deserves management’s full support for making a real playoff run. https://t.co/aFEuicPHPB
— Cincinnati Magazine (@CincinnatiMag) October 6, 2021