Underdog Best Ball 2026 Guide

Underdog’s Best Ball format is what is called a Championship format.  You play for a certain set of periods called the “Qualifiers” to determine who qualifies to compete for the championship prizes.  This rewards the best drafts for good season long play and removes an element of luck.  Then, you play total points for three separate two-week periods to determine who moves on: Quarterfinals, Semi-Finals and then Finals.

The Draft in Underdog Best Ball — The Bullpen

Underdog is widely known for its community of drafters and a software that makes it easy for you to move through the draft process.  The more drafts you can play in, the more fun you have.  I am a decisive/self-compassionate drafter.  I know that I will make a lot of mistakes and I don’t try to be perfect.  It is important to create a different strategy based on where you are drafting.  We will get into that in the strategy section.

Rosters in Underdog Best Ball — The Bullpen

Underdog takes a unique look at the starting roster and the bench. If you remember in the previous Best Ball article, I spent a long time discussing multiple position eligibility.  Well, throw that away.  In the Underdog Best Balls, it is just infielders and outfielders for your hitters.  All players are included as one or the other and tag as such.  For players that play both infield and outfield, Underdog defines their position as the one that they have played the most in the previous season.  So for instance, Jeff McNeil is an infielder since he played 81 games in the infield and only 48 in the outfield.  So be careful when loading your queue.

How Scoring Works 

Underdog is a Points League, no categories. 

Hitters

I love the fact that Underdog has only positive hitting scoring (pitching subtracts for earned runs only).  There are NO negative points for any hitting.  It has long been a mantra of mine that fantasy sports is a fun and feel-good game so having all the points be positive makes that even better.

Notice that the points are quite a bit higher than the points in most leagues, about double.  This is both good and bad.  Having double the points creates double the distance between tiers of players.  This makes it harder for a novice to compete with more skilled players.  This makes it even more important to have a good cheat sheet.

Pitchers 

For the pitcher, it is all about innings and strikeouts.  With a win and a quality start being equal to five points each, you need both to get the points of normal points leagues as wins are usually 10 points.  That is all.  No negative points for hits or walks.  No bonuses for complete games, shutouts or perfect games.  Simple.  

Because only your top three pitchers score each week, having multiple usable arms protects you from blowups and injuries.  Pitchers get hurt 33% more than hitters so we need to have durable and reliable starting pitchers at the sacrifice of the best hitters.  Pitchers who throw strikes go deeper into games making our metrics of SwK, FpK and BABIP(measuring luck) critical.

Draft Strategies for Beginners on Underdog

After reviewing all the possible draft strategies for this type of contest, I used all of the below concepts.  It has a lot to do with draft position as your mix of these strategies is defined by that for sure, but you should deploy all of these at different points in the draft.

Using the SMART System

The SMART System was developed for Roto Leagues so it sometimes is a square peg in a round hole.  In this case it is generally true.  We can take a couple things from it.  

Take the “S” for instance.  It stands for Scarcity. The outfield position in this contest is more scarce than the other positions with the Top 5 outfielders are: Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Corbin Carroll.  Every one of these players is also boosted with stolen bases pushing numbers in any given week.  Getting one of the Top outfielders is an edge.  I had the seventh pick.  Had to zag.

Take the “T” also.  It stands for Team.  Getting players on high scoring teams is important.  Teams who play in the right ballparks and with the right teams for either pitching or hitting.

Draft To Dominate Pitching

It is my belief that one of two things need to be true: (1) your knowledge and ability to predict the next breakout pitchers better than the other team owners is superior so you can wait to get top flight pitchers; or (2) you need to get at least one to two good pitchers who are durable and in the top tiers.

Well, since hitters are more predictable, I almost always have good sleepers for the hitting side.  Heck, they get hurt 33% less as I said earlier.  So, I try to DOMINATE pitching and rely on my hitter knowledge … but you do you.

Also, with only three starters, you can dominate the competition in three roster spots every week.  I always draft two hitters and then attack pitching.  In this draft, my big mistake was to take a third starting pitcher.  A flyer on Byron Buxton was the move as he could easily be a 1000+ point scorer in this scoring system and he was available in round five.

Draft by Most Projected Points & ADP

Many people will use ADP as a guide to figure out where they might be outplayed by the other teams.  Many people use projected points.  I find that a combination of both can work in the early and mid-level rounds and then l throw them both away and go from my list of upside players.

When you look at my draft below, we will learn from my mistakes, but also look at the upside shots at the end of the draft.  It is only December so my list will change daily until I draft the League of Alternative Reality on Feb. 28 in Phoenix.

Final Verdict: My Draft 

I love Underdog Fantasy.  I also love DraftKings and RTSports.com for Best Ball as well.  Play them all.  See what suits you.

So, I got the seventh pick.  I had about 15 minutes while I waited for the draft to fill to set up a queue.  As I did, I immediately noticed that the outfield was very top heavy.  There were a lot of good infielders and if I had made a stronger strategy, it would have been to take two outfielders no matter what in the first two rounds.

My pitching knowledge is not in season form as rotations come together in spring training or right before so we guess a little bit.  Let’s look at the first 10 rounds and learn some things:

We see a lot of teams LOADING the scarce position, outfielder.  Not many focus on starting pitching like I did by taking three starting pitchers in the first five rounds.  My pitchers are three pitchers who go deep into games and win a lot as they are in Philly, Houston and Toronto.

There are a lot of regrets here (spell it with an ‘a’ if you want to).  The team overall, has an amazing infiled and pitching staff, we will need young blooming talent to keep moving forward in Dylan Crews, Jo Adell, and Bryan Reynolds plus have the Coors field effect assist with the others I got later in Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle.

Well, that wraps this up.  The bottom line is that it is fun.  Play in the Best Balls.  Make mistakes, Learn who is good and bad.  When team owners make a pick I don’t understand, I look it up and try to find out why.  80% of the time, there is a good reason.  

If you want fantasy baseball that fits your schedule, teaches good baseball knowledge and lets you practice plus removes in-season stress, Underdog Best Ball is one of the best places to start.  Get in the game TODAY.

People Also Ask

What is Underdog Best Ball? — A draft-only fantasy baseball format where your highest-scoring players auto-start each week.

How is Best Ball different from regular fantasy leagues? — You don’t set weekly lineups or manage waivers; the platform auto-selects weekly starters.

Do I need to manage my roster during the season? — No, the lineup is automatic after your draft.

What’s the best strategy for beginners? — Focus on balanced drafting and target consistent weekly performers.