Best ball leagues have exploded in popularity because they remove the weekly grind of setting lineups ΓÇö your highest-scoring eligible players are automatically selected each week. But that convenience shifts almost all of the strategic weight onto draft day itself. Since there are no waivers, no trades, and no lineup decisions, how you build your roster in the draft is essentially your entire strategy. Here's how to approach it.
1. Prioritize Weekly Upside Over Weekly Floor
In a traditional league, a consistent, low-ceiling player who reliably scores a moderate amount every week has real value, since you can count on that scoring floor. In best ball, since the system already selects your best scorers each week, boom-or-bust players with high weekly ceilings become more valuable than steady, low-ceiling floor plays, since you're only rewarded when a player actually has a great week.
2. Draft Heavy at Running Back and Receiver Early
Since there are no waivers to fall back on if a position gets thin due to injury, best ball drafts reward building deep, redundant depth at running back and receiver from the very start. Unlike a redraft league where you can patch a thin position later in the season, best ball requires you to draft your entire season's worth of depth on draft day alone.
3. Stack Correlated Players When It Makes Sense
Because your best lineup is chosen automatically each week, pairing a quarterback with his top receiving targets, known as stacking, can create weeks where both players go off together, maximizing your best-ball score for that week. This correlation strategy is far more relevant in best ball than in leagues where you're setting a lineup and can mix and match based on matchups.
4. Diversify Your Bye Week Exposure Strategically
Since there's no ability to make in-season roster moves, having several key players on bye in the same week can genuinely hurt your best ball score for that week, since fewer total players are available to be selected into your optimal lineup. While it's impossible to avoid all overlap, try to be mindful of stacking too many key contributors onto the exact same bye week during the draft.
5. Target Players With Clear Standalone Value, Not Just Handcuff Speculation
In redraft leagues, handcuffing a bell-cow running back is a smart, low-cost insurance policy. In best ball, since you can't make in-season adds, a backup running back only has value if he has a real chance of scoring points himself during the season, not just as an emergency replacement in case of injury. Prioritize players with standalone weekly upside over pure speculative handcuffs.
6. Load Up on Wide Receivers Given Their Consistency of Target Share
Wide receiver production tends to be somewhat more predictable and less dependent on committee situations than running back, since target share is often clearer and less contested than a shared backfield. Given the lack of in-season roster management in best ball, many strategies lean toward drafting a higher number of wide receivers than a standard redraft roster construction would suggest.
7. Account for Late-Season Playoff Schedules During the Draft
Many best ball formats run their own internal playoffs during the fantasy postseason weeks, meaning a player's schedule during those specific weeks matters just as much as it would in a traditional keeper or redraft league. Since you can't trade or pick up players later to adjust for a tough playoff schedule, weigh this factor carefully during your original best ball draft, as it's your only opportunity to account for it.
Final Thoughts
Best ball strategy is really draft strategy taken to its logical extreme, since every decision you'll ever make about your roster happens in a single sitting. Prioritize ceiling over floor, build deep and correlated rosters, and account for playoff schedules up front, since there's no waiver wire or trade market to bail you out of a mistake later in the season.