Step Two: Design a Very Simple Formula to Evaluate Players
Now that we’ve made a Top 72 hitters list based on pure observation, let’s look at the some strategies and methods to evaluate players numerically in terms of fantasy baseball value.
For the following model, we will use a 5 x 5, standard rotisserie league as the basis for the team we are drafting, although this method can also be applied for fantasy point scoring and auction leagues as well.
For offense, the categories in our 5 x 5 league will be runs, home runs, RBI, stolen bases, and batting average. For pitching, we’ll go with wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP.
Home runs and stolen bases
The key to evaluating players for a fantasy draft is to limit the number of categories by which you rank players. For offense, the categories we will use are home runs and stolen bases.
Why only those two?
Well, we need to figure out what statistic is most reliable in predicting a player’s future fantasy performance. It’s worth noting that the only hit a player really has control over is the home run. Hits can be given or taken away with a lucky bounce here or gaping outfield hole there. Runs and RBI depend on teammates. For those reasons, we place a premium on home runs as a key fantasy statistic.
For similar reasons, we include the stolen base as a key statistic. Although stolen bases can increase or decrease depending on a team’s running philosophy, a player can mostly control his own destiny in this category. Plus, even though the stolen base is not as interconnected with the other categories, it’s an important, almost essential stat to be competitive in if you want to win your league.
The Formula
So now that we’ve decided that we’re going to use home runs and stolen bases, we must decide the amount of weight to give to each statistic when creating our mathematical metric by which we will evaluate players and eventually assign them a Fantasy Number.
The first question to ask is, which stat is more important? We can assume the more home runs a player hits, the more runs and RBI the player will have. The higher the stolen base total, the more runs a player might score. In that comparison, the home run is more statistically important.
In another sense, the stolen base is more important. In 2007, Matt Buser of Yahoo! Fantasy Sports wrote an article called “Law of Averages,” listing the average stat total a team must have in a 12-team league using default settings to win each category. For home runs, the average total needed was 232. For stolen bases, it was 125. In this instance, because stolen bases are more rare, they are more valuable.
Overall, I would argue home runs are still more important to pay attention to because of the impact they have on other stats. My guess, and one that’s worked pretty well, is that it’s about 5/3 as important. Thus, my formula for evaluating hitters is:
5HR + 3SB = Fantasy Number
If you apply that to last year’s statistics, you have a way of evaluating players for 2008.
Evaluating pitchers
The metric for pitchers is much simpler. Because of what we said about hits earlier, and because a pitcher cannot control his defense or the amount of runs his team scores, the only stat a pitcher really has control over is the strikeout. So to evaluate pitchers, we use the strikeout rate:
K/IP = Fantasy Number
That’s it.
If these formulas don’t quite suit your needs, you can of course create your own formulas. The point is that you should devise some sort of formula by which you can begin to evaluate players for fantasy baseball and create a winning draft list.
Step Three: Apply the Formula and Create a Fantasy Number »
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