2010 H2H Fantasy Baseball Strategy: C.R.A.S.S (CL, R, AVG, SB, SP)

"Certain speedsters are not getting proper respect this year. Borbon, Pierre, Rajai Davis, Everth Cabrera, and Elvis Andrus are all projected to swipe 40+ bags and score 80+ runs, but they're going in the 13th round or later."

- RotoAuthority

Given the multitude of Stolen Base / Runs hitters that are available after round 13 or so, one (head-to-head) strategy is to draft as many high-quality pitchers as possible in the early rounds before scooping up the hitters like the ones mentioned above in the later rounds.

Now, before you thank me for being a genius, please let me tell you why this plan is foolhardy:

• If you punt saves, you can also "unpunt" them through smart/fast waiver wire pickups. If you punt HR/RBI, you will never be able to unpunt them. In other words, there is no hedging your bets with this strategy. Either you are in, or, as Heidi would say, you are out.
• During that moment when a player on your team hits a HR, your team instantly is rewarded in four categories: R, RBI, HR, and AVG. Why would you draft a bunch of guys who can't hit HRs?
• Pitchers are, supposedly, "riskier" because they get injured more frequently
• Andrus might hit 8th; Borbon can't hit lefties and might lose his lead-off spot to Kinsler; RDavis could lose at bats and/or see his AVG dip; ECabrera might not lead off; etc., etc., etc. In sum, picking hitters late means you are more likely to have to deal with loss of playing time, demotion to lower in the lineup, demotion to minors, and regression of skills.
  

Here is why I'm going to use this strategy anyway:

• I did the boring old "best player available" last year and got my clock cleaned. My team was terrible. So I decided I'd rather do something oddball and fun than predictable and unfun.
• People love power. So if you want it, you'll need to pay for it. On the other hand, powerless players can come at a huge discount. Most people view the Juan Pierre's of the world as one-trick ponies. I'd argue that with 600+ lead-off at bats, they can become three-trick ponies (R/AVG/SB).
• With all the decent SB options available late, this is the perfect year to give it a try.
• The league I'm in has daily lineup changes, three SP slots, four P slots, four OF, and five bench slots. Winning teams in this league usually have one or even zero bench hitters; almost every inch of bench space is used to rotate in pitchers. This C.R.A.S.S strategy won't work for all league settings.
  

A few reminders:

• Focus less on the stolen bases and focus more on the Runs and the Batting Average; a team of speed guys will certainly lock that category down, but if you can't win Runs and AVG most weeks, your team won't be successful. To this end, you probably want to lock down a dependable Dustin Pedroia Run/Avg guy early in the draft.
• Try to get five closers so that you can guarantee winning that category each week.
• Did I mention that you should shoot for a team filled with leadoff-type hitters? You want your team to make up for its inability to hit a home run by getting more at bats.
• You can't afford to draft a single player who is AVG challenged.

Here is what an example team might look like (plus ESPN Projections):

• OF: Ichiro 29sb. 91r, .307 (#1 hitter)
• OF RDavis 37sb, 62r, .279 (#1 hitter)
• OF Borbon 38sb, 80r, .281 (#1 hitter)
• OF Morgan 40sb, 78r, .276 (#1 hitter)
• 1B Helton 0sb, 75r, .309 (#3 hitter)
• 2B Dustin 17sb, 110, .305 (#2 hitter)
• 3B Prado 2sb, 62, .300 (#2 hitter)
• SS Aybar 25sb, 72r, .303 (#1 hitter)
• C Yadier 12sb, 42r, .301 (#6 hitter)
• UTL Pierre 40sb, 62r, .287 (#1 hitter)
• SP Lincecum
• SP Halladay
• SP Lester
• RP JonP (39sv, 1.17whip)
• RP THoff (32sv, 1.13whip)
• P FrankFrank (31sv, 1.20whip)
• P Wandy
• BN Hamels
• BN Nolasco
• BN Josh Johnson
• BN Lyon (24sv, 1.28whip)
• BN Downs (9sv, 1.30whip)

Other Options:

• Alt: Wieters 0sb, 78r, .303 (#5 hitter)
• Alt: Polanco 5sb, 91r, .306 (#2 hitter)
• Alt: Frasor (17sv, 1.26whip)
• Alt: Wood (29sv, 1.28whip)
• Alt: Capps (24sv, 1.33whip)
• Alt: MGozo (29sv, 1.35whip)
• Alt: Dotel (22sv, 1.36whip)
• Alt: Nunez (23sv, 1.34whip)
• Alt: Jenks (31sv, 1.27whip)
• Alt: MMontero (0sb, 66r, .286)
• Alt: Howie 10sb, 73r, .313 (#2/7 hitter)
• Alt: Kemp 30sb, 96r, .307 (#2 hitter)
• Alt: Loney 5sb, 69r, .302)

Example Draft (12-team mixed league):

1. Lincecum
2. Dustin
3. Roy Halladay
4. Ichiro
5. Lester
6. Josh Johnson
7. Jon Pbon
8. Hamels
9. Nolasco
10. Borbon
11. Wandy
12. Morgon
13. RDavis
14. Hoffman
15. FrankFrank
16. Prado
17. Yadier
18. Pierre
19. Aybar
20. Helton
21. Lyon / Dotel
22. TOR CL (Downs or Frasor or Other)

Don't like this team? Pick and choose your own team:

• 1.Pick #2 Lincecum, HamRam, Albert
• 2.Pick #23 Pedroia, Halladay, Ellsbury
• 3.Pick #26 Pedroia, Halladay, Ellsbury, Zack G.
• 4.Pick #47 Votto, Sandoval, Cliff Lee
• 5.Pick #50 Ichiro, Wainwright, Lester, Vazquez
• 6.Pick #71 Papelbon, JJohnson, Carpenter
• 7.Pick #74 Chone, Bourn, Choo
• 8.Pick #95 Hamels, McCutchen, THanson
• 9.Pick #98 Gallardo, Nolasco, Ubaldo, MYoung, Wieters, Bartlett
• 10.Pick #119 Span, Wandy, Borbon
• 11.Pick #122 Garza, Shields
• 12.Pick #143 RMartin, NMorgan, RDavis
• 13.Pick #146 SBaker, RSoriano, Asdrubal, GSoto
• 14.Pick #167 EAndrus, Neftali, DPrice
• 15.Pick #170 FFrancisco, BAnderson
• 16.Pick #191 Capps, EAybar, Loney
• 17.Pick #194 Wood
• 18.Pick #215 Helton, RHarden, Pierre
• 19.Pick #218 Yadier, Kuroda
• 20.Pick #239 Everth Cabrera, A. Escobar
• 21.Pick #242 Liriano, DFowler

(Note: the players in the above team should be understood as placeholders of sorts, merely to give you a better idea of what this draft strategy might look like if it were to be carried out in the present fantasy baseball market. During your draft, you can always target other pitchers or hitters that you feel are more likely to be available in your league or more likely to perform at a high level during the 2010 season.)

Links:

• H2H Fantasy Baseball Strategy: The Pitching Heavy and the Average Challenged (PHAC)
• H2H Fantasy Baseball Strategy: Get Some S.A.C. (SB, AVG, and CL)
• Players that can hit for AVG
• Projected lead-off hitters
• 2010 Sleepers: Julio Borbon
• Head-to-head: Unorthodox Draft Strategies
  

Juan Pierre: King of Contact%

96 players stole at least 10 bases last year. That means that in a twelve-team league, it would be possible for each team to have 8 hitters steal over 10 bases. That sounds like a lot of players.

But how many of those steals are "clean;" how many of those stolen base threats have a decent chance of scoring runs and hitting for average? Nobody wants 10+ steals if they are attached to a part-time player who struggles to hit over .260 (yes, I'm talking about you, Bonifacio).

Well, here are the players who had a contact%* of over 83% in 2009:
*Total percentage of contact when swinging at all pitches.
93.2% Juan Pierre (1.00)**
93.0% Dustin Pedroia (1.64)
90.4% Robinson Cano (.48)
89.9% Denard Span (.79)
89.6% Todd Helton (1.22)
89.6% Martin Prado (.61)
89.0% Erick Aybar (.56)
88.7% Ichiro Suzuki (.45)
88.7% Shane Victorino (.85)
88.5% James Loney (1.03)
88.4% Jacoby Ellsbury (.66)
88.0% A.J. Pierzynski (.46)
87.8% Brett Gardner (.65)
87.3% Elvis Andrus (.52)
87.0% Yadier Molina (1.28)
86.9% Ryan Theriot (.55)
86.2% Julio Borbon (.54)
85.2% Asdrubal Cabrera (.49)
85.0% Nyger Morgan (.54)
84.2% Chris Coghlan (.69)
83.9% Alcides Escobar (.22)
**Eye (also known as Batting Eye), which is defined as walks divided by strikeouts, is in parenthesis. This metric is considered by some to be a good measure of a player's strike zone judgment. The very best MLB hitters have batting eye ratios over 1.00. Eye ratios of less than 0.50 are indicative of a free-swinging approach to hitting and poor strike-zone judgment. Players with eye ratios of .70 or better have a greater probability of maintaining a high batting average than players with eye ratios of .50 or less.

Here are some players that didn't break 83% contact% in 2009:
82.7% Andrew McCutchen
81.9% Everth Cabrera (.52)
80.6% Michael Young
80.2% Rajai Davis
79.4% Franklin Gutierrez
79.4% Howie Kendrick
79.3% Dexter Fowler
78.9% Michael Bourn
77.5% Matt Wieters
77.4% Carlos Gonzalez
76.0% Drew Stubbs

(I know that not all the players listed will steal 10+ bases, but I included them for one reason or another.)

All of this makes me feel pretty good about the hitters on the top list. That is, until I saw that Nate McLouth had a contact% of 84.1% in 2009 and batted .256 on the season.

Links:

• Contact% on Fangraphs
• Juan Pierre reported to camp early
• ESPN's closer chart
  

One-Stop Shopping for 2009 Fantasy Baseball Position Primers

In an effort to keep things tidy, I've put the following position primers in one post:

1B: Is it possible to make Delgado sexy again?

2B: Is Alexei Ramirez worth his ADP?

SS: Jhonny Peralta is entering his age-27 year...should you invest?

3B: Was Mark DeRosa's 2008 season a "lucky" or "career" year?

C: Kelly Shoppach and his bad contact rate might help your team.

OF: Andre Ethier isn't getting any respect.

SP: Is there a better draft investment than Roy Halladay?

RP: No one else is paying for saves. Does that mean you should?

H2H Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: Get Some S.A.C. (SB, AVG, and CL)

• A 2010 H2H Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: C.R.A.S.S

H2H leagues, in theory, allow you to try unusual draft strategies. In practice, I find myself reluctant to be too crazy in a money league. My heart says yes, but my head says no. Perhaps both your heart and head like to take risks. If so, you might want to give this strategy a try.

We already went over a pitching heavy strategy that I dubbed PHAC. This time around let's run a stolen base, batting average, and closer strategy up the flagpole and see how it flies. The goal is to win Saves, ERA, WHIP, SB, and AVG each week. To make the strategy more effective, it also helps to target guys who score a lot of runs. But first, a disclaimer.

Disclaimer: Before we delve into this deeper, I need to stress how crazy you'd have to be to try extreme strategies like this at home. You are essentially putting all your eggs in one strategy basket, going for broke, and so if you get a bit unlucky, it is unlikely you will be able to win a majority of the categories on a weekly basis. Even if your strategy works, an unbalanced team can have unlucky weeks and lose 8-2 or 9-1, whereas a more balanced team might suffer the occasional 4-5 and 3-6 loss on unlucky weeks but would rarely suffer a more lopsided loss. To pull this stunt, it also helps if you are in a daily league, as you can better tweak your lineup to protect your ratios (batting average, ERA, and WHIP) throughout the week.

Now. Let's say you have the 8th pick. You're in a regular 5x5, 12-team, H2H roto-style (not points) league, and the pitching slots are SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P. The weekly innings minimum is 12. The hitters are using the default Yahoo! settings (no corner or middle infielders).

Your goal is to target speed, but only if that speed is accompanied with a high batting average. You also want to get as many topline closers as possible. And at the end of the draft, you need two solid relievers with SP/RP eligibility (note: click here for notes on every single RP/SP eligible pitcher in Y! for 2009). You will not draft a single SP. The team you assemble should win you five of the ten categories each week, including ERA, which is the tiebreaker category in Y! leagues. In order to hedge your risk a bit more, I'd target high-average steals guys who also score a lot of runs.

Remember, your draft won't always look pretty, but with a little luck, it should get the job done. Your draft might look something like this:

1.Pick #8 Matt Holliday (.321 AVG, 28 SB, 107 R)
2.Pick #17 Dustin Pedroia (.326 AVG, 20 SB, 118 R) 653 at bats!!
3.Pick #32 Jonathan Pabelbon (ADP = 41)
4.Pick #41 Ichiro (.310 AVG, 43 SB, 103 R) 686 at bats!!
5.Pick #56 Jacoby Ellsbury (.280 AVG, 50 SB, 98 R)
6.Pick #65 Bobby Abreu (.296 AVG, 22 SB, 100 R)
7.Pick #80 Joakim Soria (ADP = 90)
8.Pick #89 Derrek Lee (.291, 8 SB, 93 R)
9.Pick #104 Michael Young (.284 AVG, 10 SB, 102 R)
10.Pick #113 Carlos Marmol (ADP = 111)
11.Pick #128 Kerry Wood (ADP = 123)
12.Pick #137 Matt Capps (ADP = 150)
13.Pick #152 Andre Ethier (.305 AVG, 6 SB, 90 R)
14.Pick #161 Chad Qualls (ADP = 175)
15.Pick #176 Conor Jackson (.300 AVG, 10 SB, 87 R)
16.Pick #185 Joey Devine (ADP = 191)
17.Pick #200 Pablo Sandoval (.345 AVG, 0 SB, 24 R)
18.Pick #209 Hong-Chih Kuo (SP/RP eligibility)
19.Pick #224 Delmon Young (.290 AVG, 14 SB, 80 R)
20.Pick #233 Kaz Matsui (.293 AVG, 20 SB, 58 R)
21.Pick #248 Ryan Theriot (.307 AVG, 22 SB. 85 R)
22.Pick #257 Carlos Villanueva (SP/RP eligibility)

(Note: the players in the above team should be understood as placeholders of sorts, merely to give you a better idea of what this draft strategy might look like if it were to be carried out in the present fantasy baseball market. During your draft, you can always target other pitchers or hitters that you feel are more likely to be available in your league or more likely to perform at a high level during the 2009 season.)

Other hitters you might target:

Nick Markakis (.306 AVG, 10 SB, 106 R)
Juan Pierre (.283 AVG, 40 SB, 44 R)
Brian Roberts (.293, 36 SB, 107 R)
Shane Victorino (.293 AVG, 36 SB, 102 R)
Matt Kemp (.290 AVG, 35 SB, 93 R)
Alex Rios (.291 AVG, 32 SB, 91 R)
Johnny Damon (.303 AVG, 29 SB, 95 R)
Randy Winn (.306 AVG, 25 SB, 84 R)
Fred Lewis (.282 AVG, 21 SB, 81 R)
Coco Crisp (.283 AVG, 20 SB, 55 R)
Denard Span (.294 AVG, 18 SB, 70 R)
Mark DeRosa (.285 AVG, 6 SB, 103 R)
Chipper Jones (.364 AVG, 4 SB, 82 R)
Iwamura (.274 AVG, 8 SB, 91 R)
Skip Schumaker (.302, 8 SB, 87 R)
Placido Polanco (.307 AVG, 7 SB, 90 R)
Jose Lopez (.297 AVG, 6 SB, 80 R)
Shin-Soo Choo (.309 AVG, 4 SB, 68 R)
Ryan Ludwick (.299 AVG, 4 SB, 104 R)
Kevin Youkilis (.312 AVG, 3 SB, 91 R)
Joe Mauer (.328 AVG, 1 SB, 98 R)
Milton Bradley (.321 AVG, 5 SB, 78 R)
Mike Aviles (.291 AVG, 8 SB, 68 R)
Kelly Johnson (.287 AVG, 11 SB, 86 R)
David DeJesus (.307 AVG, 11 SB, 70 R)
Howie Kendrick (.306 AVG, 11 SB, 43 R)
Shin-Soo Choo (.309 AVG, 4 SB, 68 R)

This strategy can work even better if you are in a holds league (Kuo and Villanueva will be getting Holds from the SP slot). It works less well when using Quality Starts instead of Wins (if you are using Wins, your relievers might get lucky and take the category a few times). You also keep in mind that targeting high-average players who get a ton of at bats (Ichiro and Pedroia, for example) is a great way to solidify your batting average.

So at the end of this draft you have high-average hitters who score a lot of runs, and most of them can swipe a base. You'd have six closers, and two relief pitchers who also qualify for the SP slot. Your "wall" of relievers should produce a low WHIP and ERA each week. Being in a daily league will allow you to rotate players into your lineup, and so your team should accumulate 30 - 40 innings each week. One drawback of this strategy is that ratios can be a little unpredictable in small sample sizes, so you might get unlucky in any given week. Remember Derek Jeter went 0-32 to start the 2004 season? He ended up hitting .292 that year, but his hitless streak would have really hurt your team for a few weeks.

Anyway. It's a fun strategy, one I've always wanted to use but I've never had the guts to do it. Maybe you do.

If it helps, here is the cheatsheet I used in my actual draft.

Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: HR/SB Dual Threats

One draft strategy is to target hitters who are adept at both hitting home runs and stealing bases. Some managers take this strategy to such an extreme that they won’t draft players who can’t steal at least ten bases and hit at least ten home runs. This probably explains why Russell Martin’s Average Draft Position (ADP) is currently somewhere in the 42 range.

In an effort to help owners that prefer this strategy, I have generated a quick cheat sheet that lists all the dual HR/SB threats. The players on this list met the following three requirements:

10+ stolen bases in 2008

10+ home runs in 2008

30+ combined HR/SB in 2008

I call it the Ten-Ten Thirty Plus (TT30+) Club. Nobody else calls it this, so don't go bragging to your friends about how nearly all the players you just drafted are members of the TT30+ club. They won't know what you are talking about. But even though it is a make believe club, this list might help you to target some of the more underrated power/speed players for your 2009 fantasy baseball draft.

Note: the number to the left of each player name is the combined total of each player’s 2008 home run and stolen base output.


Any names surprise you? I’ll leave you with a list of players that just missed being included in the above list. Some of these players will probably be joining the TT30+ club in 2009.


What player from the "just missed" list do you think is most likely to go Ten-Ten Thirty Plus in 2009?

If it helps, here is the cheatsheet I used in my actual draft.

H2H Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: The Pitching Heavy and the Average Challenged (PHAC)

• A 2010 H2H Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy: C.R.A.S.S
  

If you had the 8th pick in a Yahoo 12-team daily H2H roto (not points) fantasy baseball draft, would you consider drafting a starting pitcher with your first pick? Perhaps? How about this: would you consider drafting a starting pitcher with your first four picks? I call this the Pitching-Heavy-AVG-Challenged (PHAC) strategy. So the question is, will PHAC frick up your team?

Nearly every reliable fantasy baseball source will tell you that this strategy will lead to disaster. ("Santana is a beast, but pitchers simply shouldn't be taken this early.") FB Junk, for example, makes a great case for pursuing hitters that have high home run totals and hit for high average. The PHAC strategy requires you to pick home run hitters that do not hit for high average, which is certainly cause for pause.

Still, I thought it might be interesting to do a quasi thought experiment and see if taking starting pitchers in the early rounds can work. To make this thought experiment more concrete, we'll pretend that the categories for this hypothetical league are a typical 5x5, with the exception of Quality Starts being substituted in for Wins. The pitcher categories are SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, P, and P, and the inning limit each week is 19 innings.

(Note: Razzball does make a case for snagging some pitchers in rounds 3 through 8, although FB Junk suggests that zigging while everyone else is zagging might not work as well as you might think. Also note that Fake Teams accidentally followed a version of the PHAC strategy in this draft.)

If you were to attempt the PHAC strategy madness, the challenge would be to see if you could assemble a decent group of hitters in the later rounds. One way to try to accomplish this would be to target players who project to have high home run totals but are available later in the draft because of low batting average concerns:

1.Pick #8 Johan Santana (ADP = 17)
2.Pick #17 Tim Lincecum (ADP = 25)
3.Pick #32 Cole Hamels (ADP = 41)
4.Pick #41 Roy Halladay (ADP = 46)
5.Pick #56 Adam Dunn (40 HR in 2008)
6.Pick #65 Dan Uggla (32)
7.Pick #80 Ryan Ludwick (37)
8.Pick #89 Carlos Pena (31)
9.Pick #104 Hardy (24)
10.Pick #113 Closer or Delgado (38)
11.Pick #128 Closer
12.Pick #137 Napoli (20)
13.Pick #152 Burrell (33) or SP
14.Pick #161 Ankiel (25) or Cantu (29)
15.Pick #176 Weeks (14) or SP
16.Pick #185 Chris B. Young (22)
17.Pick #200 Thome (34)
18.Pick #209 Swisher (24) or SP
19.Pick #224 Beltre (25)
20.Pick #233 Giambi (32) or SP
21.Pick #248 Closer or Cust (33)
22.Pick #257 Reynolds (28) or Mike Jacobs (32)

(Note: the players in the above team should be understood as placeholders of sorts, merely to give you a better idea of what this draft strategy might look like if it were to be carried out in the present fantasy baseball market. During your draft, you can always target other pitchers or home run hitters that you feel are more likely to be available in your league or more likely to perform at a high level during the 2009 season.)

In a roto league, it would be difficult (read: impossible) to win without at least a few steals and a decent batting average. Still, you might be able to pull this off in a H2H league, as you could reasonably hope to win HR and RBI, as well as three of the five pitching categories each week. It is also worth mentioning that this might be a decent strategy for owners who don’t have a lot of time to do research. All you need to do is take the top four pitchers off the board, and then target the highest home run threats in each round, regardless of batting average. I know that owners usually don't want low-average, home run hitters in H2H leagues because these players tend to be extremely streaky, but perhaps having an entire team filled with these low-average types will make it so that at least a few of your low-average players are on a hot streak during any given weekly H2H matchup.

Conclusion: while PHAC would be fun to do in a draft with friends (they will all think you are crazy), the strategy is ultimately fraught with risk as you are essentially giving two categories away each week (stolen bases and batting average), which is even risky to do in a H2H league as it makes it harder to make in-season adjustments if your initial strategy bombs. If your starting pitchers get injured or regress, for example, you will be hard pressed to assemble a team that can win a majority of the categories each week. To hedge your risk somewhat, you could consider using only three of your first four-to-six picks on starting pitchers, but this will probably result in a pitching staff with less depth.

Anyway. The strategy might work, especially if this is the year Johan Santana wins 30 games.

Interested in a SB, AVG, CL draft strategy (SAC)? Click here.

Want even more draft strategy? Click here for 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, C, SP, and RP position primers.

If it helps, here is the cheatsheet I used in my actual draft.