Comments on: Forget About It: Punting Batting Average?

By: kris

kris — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:33:41 +0000

Thanks for the kind words, and I’m excited to implement this strategy at some point. The problem is finding an active enough league to make it work. In most leagues, owners just end up rostering injured players after they fall out of contention. In which case, punting any category is just stupid. I think this strategy would guarentee to put you in the money in a league over 12 teams and would be interesting in a standard espn 10 teamer.

I’m a huge fan of boring old starters with solid ratios. Guys like Gil Meche seemingly fall 2 or 3 rounds too low, just because they’re boring. Unfortunately, most of the leagues you can join on a whim are incredibly shallow leagues so it makes sense to draft someone with unlimited potential over a reliable veteran.

By: Chief Knockahoma

Chief Knockahoma — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:30:33 +0000

Excellent article. I am engaging in a strategy like mike’s — using the punt BA along with an emphasis on early round pitchers. I think grabbing Sizemore and/or Ryan Howard early is the way to go with this strategy. I also want to target Adam Dunn and Dan Uggla with high priority in round 5-6 (picks 50-69)… and may even reach earlier than that. Besides those players, my other picks in the first 8 rounds will be pitchers, probably including one elite closer.

The key to this is drafting the lower tier players on the list to keep up in the counting stats in hitting. Peralta, Mark Reynolds, Carlos Pena, Jason Giambi, Mike Cameron, Willy Taveras, Carlos Gomez, Adam LaRoche, Chris Iannetta, Ricky Weeks, and others will be among my main targets late. The category I worry about the most is runs, but I expect to be able to manipulate my lineup late and prehaps trade a strong pitcher at the deadline to pump my team up there. After drafting most of my pitchers very early, my late pitching picks would be some top-flight setup men (for Ks, ratios, and possible closing potential) as well as reliable veteran starters without eyepopping numbers (think Gil Meche, Randy Wolf, or if a bit earlier in the draft maybe Derek Lowe).

Based on some mock drafts I’ve done in 12-team format, I think I stand a good chance of winning HR, RBI, and SB. That comes with the caveat that I have always been able to get either Sizemore or Howard early, and I have always been able to get (or reach for) both Dunn and Taveras. I should have easily the best pitching staff in the league, hopefully grabbing all but a couple of the possible points in those 5 categories.

Thanks for the helpful resource and for exploring one of the few remaining unconventional strategies in fantasy baseball that I think has a strong chance for success.

By: kris

kris — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:36:03 +0000

Napoli fell right on the cut-off point, and I was pretty torn. His career stats are telling me he’s not going to hit .273 again, but most people are going to look at Napoli and expect improvement. I assumed the masses would put Napoli at around .275/.280 when drafting him, which make him good value rather than someone you punt average for.

There are just so many Catchers that have awful averages, that even the perception that Napoli bats .275ish probably removes him from this list.

I bet if i asked 100 fantasy players who would finish with a better average Ianetta vs. Napoli, they’d probably go with Iannetta — So Napoli does have value in this list.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:33:51 +0000

Cool article. I’ve been considering punting BA myself, in conjunction with a strategy to take a couple of front-line pitchers. I think I can compete effectively in the 4 batting categories by taking some of the undervalued players you mention.

One player that I was surprised not to see was Mike Napoli. .586 Slugging/.313 ISO
Seems like a decent bet to reach 20 HR/50R/60RBI even if he only accumulates 300 ABs