A dynasty baseball rebuild is never easy, but can be one of the most gratifying rebuilds in all of fantasy sports. I was able to do a rebuild in my first dynasty league a few years ago and things went extremely quickly and well. It did help to nab both Ronald Acuna & Juan Soto as prospects, among many other things that fell my way. Here at TDG I was faced with an even bigger challenge: building a team that was put in a rough spot in a league of 19 other extremely sharp fantasy minds.

To put another twist on it, this league had an “invisible hand” method to determine draft picks in year one. If this is something that you are unfamiliar with, the strategy is outlined here. The TL;DR version is that I ended up with Mike Trout and only 11 other keepers when others in the league were able to keep two or three times more than me. That is when I came up with five goals that might be able to help you if you are faced with a similar situation in the rebuilding process.

1. Realize that this process will take a while

You could get lucky. That is definitely possible and based on your league size, skill level, and drafting ability, this is possible. Knowing what your strengths are and really understanding your league’s scoring system will go a long way here.

2. Move pieces that you don’t see helping your team out by the time you will be competitive again

I will get more into what exactly I did in terms of draft picks and who I turned them into, but this one is the reason I held onto both Mike Trout and J.T. Realmuto. I could have moved those guys and received really good value, but I wanted to build through the draft and felt Trout and Realmuto would still be good in the time it would take me to be good.

My eleven keepers ended up being:

• Mike Trout
• Gleyber Torres
• J.T. Realmuto
• Victor Robles
• Harrison Bader
• Nick Senzel
• Danny Duffy
• Nick Pratto
• Monte Harrison
• Sonny Gray
• Dylan Bundy

The pieces I moved on from were Eduardo Escobar, A.J. Puk, Reynaldo Lopez, David Dahl, Ryan Zimmerman, Alec Hansen, Griffin Canning, Heliot Ramos & Brusdar Graterol. My situation was a little different because I could only keep eleven players and had to trade some guys that I would have liked to have as a part of the rebuild, but I was able to get good value for them.

3. Stockpile draft picks

This is essential when you are looking to build with prospects and guys that can be helping your team in a few years. It is also worth noting that my pitching was absolutely awful, so I had to reach on some guys that I wouldn’t normally reach for in order to try and shore that up a bit. The preseason trades I made, and the guys I got with those picks, were:

• Escobar for 2^nd and 4^th rounders (Lou Trivino & Jeff Samardzjia)
• Puk & Lopez for two 1^st and two 2^nd rounders (Jarred Kelenic, Matthew Liberatore, Brad Keller, Brady Singer)
• Dahl for Harrison Bader & 2^nd & 5^th rounders (Mason Denaburg & Kevin Maitan)
• Zimmerman & Hansen for 5^th this year & 4^th next year (Jarrod Dyson)
• Canning, Gordon, Ramos, & Graterol for Danny Duffy, Nick Pratto, 3^rd this year & 5^th next year (JoJo Romero)
• Traded 8^th & 9^th rounders for Jakob Junis & Brett Phillips

These deals really allowed me to restock the farm system, and although I might have given up a lot for some of these guys, they were needed for the rebuild.

4. Draft young and don’t be afraid to reach for “your guys”

This one is a little self-explanatory, but this is the most important thing about a deep league. Don’t miss on a guy that you love because you feel it might be a round too early. That line of thinking might have you lose the person completely. [ YEAH, LIKE LOSING LIBERATORE TO A NON RAYS FAN. YOU WON’T LOVE HIM LIKE I WOULD.- Ed.]

5. Set attainable goals

My first goal was to get six picks in the Top 50 and ten picks in the Top 100. I was able to meet that goal easily (ten picks in the Top 50 and 15 picks in the Top 100). Here are my other goals:

• Year One: Finish regular season in Top 16 & make consolation bracket
• Year Two: Finish regular season between 9-16 & be competitive
• Year Three: Finish regular season in Top 8

That is all for now. Hopefully this will help in your strive for fantasy greatness. Rebuilding can be so much fun and there will be more installments of this for your reading pleasure. We will speak again soon!