A Collection of Five Category Hitters

When drafting hitters for a traditional five category league, my standard strategy is to target players who contribute in many categories – preferably all five. Today, in deference to my jet lag, we’re mostly going to dispense with analysis and break out some lists of players who fall into different buckets of production. All of the values below come from Steamer’s 2014 projections. Steamer and projection systems in general aren’t the best at predicting runs and RBI, so keep that in mind.

Creme de la Creme

This is a list of players projected for more than 80 runs and RBI, 20 home runs, 15 stolen bases, and a .280 average. No surprises here, these players are exceptionally good and their draft price reflects that fact. These are currently the first, fourth, and seventh overall picks. Hanley Ramirez missed the cutoff by one point in batting average.

Right Below the Creme

As I mentioned, run and RBI projections can get a little wonky. If we scale back to greater than 70, we add just two players. Braun’s mixed in with the above names, but Puig may represent a buying opportunity. Personally, I’m perturbed by Puig’s 16.9 swinging strike rate, which makes Adam Dunn look like a contact oriented hitter. Still…

Steals Are Overrated

Ah, now we get some names. Most of these players are still among the top picks, but there are a few that can be targeted mid-draft. Sandoval is currently the 147th pick off the board according to FantasyPros. Cuddyer is going 94th and Butler is 123rd, although the latter may be affected by position eligibility. Steamer is bullish about Pujols, but do your homework before betting on a renaissance.

Woe Be to Batting Average

Ok, so this is really just Gomez. I filtered to see which players are 20/20 threats without worrying about batting average. As I mentioned earlier, Ramirez missed the first group by one point in batting average.

Five Category Lite

Now we’re looking at something. This is a list of players who are projected for better than 60 runs and RBI, 10 home runs and stolen bases, and a .265 average. Most of the list is populated with players who just missed my previous cutoffs, like Wright, Choo, and Harper. However, a few possible bargains reveal themselves including A. Ramirez, Miller, and Calhoun.

Power Club

I ratcheted down the stolen base requirement to five and batting average to .250 while filtering for hitters with a 30 plus home run projection. Rizzo isn’t a bargain, he’s being picked 87th overall.

Five Category Ultra-Lite

Last table. The top half of this list just barely missed the filter conditions to appear on some of the above lists. As we get to the second half, we find a number of cost effective options who could help glue a roster together. Guys like Cabrera, Ruggiano, Simmons, and Aybar can fall through the cracks entirely despite providing relatively well-rounded production. They don’t stand out in any one category, which is something that fantasy owners tend to notice.

Overall, we tagged 66 players who offer some variation of five category production. Speaking from personal experience, drafting players who can contribute across the board makes it a lot easier to adjust to injuries and performance shortfalls. The waiver wire generally doesn’t have players who are exceptional in even one category, but there are a lot of players who are useful under the right conditions. If you’re lucky, a roster that emphasizes five category production could make it easier to use waiver bait while still pursuing every category.