Fantasy Hitters Ranked Using Steamer Projections
It’s rankings time so the comments are open for everyone to go batshit crazy about how a computer program and I are wrong. We are both ready for everyone’s best shot as neither one of us gives a flying f***.
As part of my soon to be released e-book, The Process, the Standing Gain Points formulas will be included for several league types. I took the one for The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational, merge it with Steamer projections, and created some overall rankings.
Today, I’ll start with hitters. The 13, 15-team leagues used 14 hitters, standard 5×5 scoring (AVG), 1 catcher, and 2 utility players per team. I’ll post the top 52 here (I want to talk about #52 is the reason for the oddish number) but anyone with at least one projected plate appearance can be found here. I’ll add some unsolicited comments at the end along with these 52 hitters in a head-to-head ranking poll.
| RANK | NAME | PA | AVG | R | HR | RBI | SB | SGP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mike Trout | 662 | .299 | 117 | 39 | 106 | 20 | 28.5 |
| 2 | Mookie Betts | 677 | .301 | 114 | 29 | 91 | 26 | 27.3 |
| 3 | Trea Turner | 667 | .286 | 94 | 17 | 69 | 41 | 25.0 |
| 4 | Francisco Lindor | 676 | .286 | 103 | 30 | 90 | 21 | 24.6 |
| 5 | J.D. Martinez | 639 | .296 | 98 | 38 | 114 | 4 | 23.9 |
| 6 | Jose Ramirez | 641 | .285 | 91 | 26 | 94 | 23 | 23.7 |
| 7 | Ronald Acuna Jr. | 665 | .278 | 93 | 28 | 80 | 25 | 23.2 |
| 8 | Starling Marte | 653 | .281 | 84 | 18 | 74 | 35 | 23.1 |
| 9 | Christian Yelich | 661 | .296 | 97 | 27 | 87 | 16 | 22.9 |
| 10 | Adalberto Mondesi | 597 | .252 | 72 | 21 | 71 | 42 | 22.2 |
| 11 | Manny Machado | 640 | .287 | 92 | 33 | 96 | 9 | 22.0 |
| 12 | Trevor Story | 615 | .270 | 83 | 30 | 95 | 19 | 21.9 |
| 13 | Nolan Arenado | 649 | .285 | 95 | 36 | 107 | 3 | 21.9 |
| 14 | Jose Altuve | 656 | .302 | 89 | 17 | 82 | 18 | 21.4 |
| 15 | Bryce Harper | 634 | .267 | 95 | 34 | 92 | 11 | 21.2 |
| 16 | Charlie Blackmon | 679 | .286 | 100 | 26 | 77 | 13 | 21.1 |
| 17 | Giancarlo Stanton | 575 | .266 | 91 | 42 | 102 | 3 | 21.0 |
| 18 | Anthony Rizzo | 650 | .280 | 94 | 30 | 95 | 7 | 20.7 |
| 19 | Andrew Benintendi | 654 | .285 | 95 | 18 | 80 | 17 | 20.4 |
| 20 | Shohei Ohtani | 589 | .272 | 83 | 31 | 90 | 12 | 20.2 |
| 21 | Javier Baez | 609 | .268 | 77 | 28 | 89 | 17 | 20.2 |
| 22 | Paul Goldschmidt | 652 | .277 | 91 | 27 | 88 | 11 | 20.1 |
| 23 | Freddie Freeman | 653 | .286 | 89 | 27 | 90 | 8 | 20.1 |
| 24 | Alex Bregman | 645 | .278 | 94 | 25 | 87 | 11 | 20.0 |
| 25 | Juan Soto | 620 | .290 | 87 | 28 | 90 | 7 | 20.0 |
| 26 | Aaron Judge | 648 | .250 | 98 | 36 | 93 | 8 | 20.0 |
| 27 | Kris Bryant | 659 | .274 | 99 | 29 | 88 | 7 | 19.9 |
| 28 | Whit Merrifield | 671 | .274 | 82 | 12 | 60 | 31 | 19.7 |
| 29 | Nelson Cruz | 619 | .271 | 82 | 35 | 99 | 1 | 18.9 |
| 30 | George Springer | 683 | .263 | 100 | 28 | 79 | 9 | 18.9 |
| 31 | Lorenzo Cain | 649 | .283 | 83 | 15 | 64 | 21 | 18.9 |
| 32 | Jonathan Villar | 628 | .250 | 73 | 16 | 61 | 34 | 18.8 |
| 33 | Dee Gordon | 656 | .275 | 73 | 5 | 51 | 37 | 18.7 |
| 34 | Rhys Hoskins | 650 | .249 | 91 | 35 | 90 | 6 | 18.6 |
| 35 | Xander Bogaerts | 635 | .285 | 84 | 19 | 85 | 10 | 18.5 |
| 36 | Eddie Rosario | 628 | .276 | 78 | 25 | 85 | 9 | 18.3 |
| 37 | Victor Robles | 586 | .273 | 70 | 13 | 62 | 28 | 18.3 |
| 38 | Ozzie Albies | 652 | .273 | 82 | 20 | 72 | 16 | 18.2 |
| 39 | Marcell Ozuna | 617 | .288 | 77 | 27 | 93 | 2 | 18.2 |
| 40 | Anthony Rendon | 632 | .287 | 83 | 23 | 86 | 5 | 18.1 |
| 41 | A.J. Pollock | 629 | .258 | 78 | 22 | 76 | 18 | 18.1 |
| 42 | Khris Davis | 636 | .239 | 86 | 39 | 102 | 1 | 18.0 |
| 43 | Jose Abreu | 633 | .280 | 80 | 28 | 92 | 2 | 18.0 |
| 44 | Corey Seager | 651 | .283 | 92 | 24 | 78 | 4 | 17.9 |
| 45 | Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | 550 | .306 | 75 | 22 | 77 | 6 | 17.9 |
| 46 | Michael Brantley | 641 | .287 | 83 | 18 | 73 | 11 | 17.9 |
| 47 | David Dahl | 598 | .270 | 75 | 24 | 81 | 12 | 17.9 |
| 48 | Jean Segura | 671 | .278 | 80 | 12 | 64 | 21 | 17.8 |
| 49 | Justin Turner | 648 | .285 | 88 | 22 | 83 | 4 | 17.8 |
| 50 | Rougned Odor | 615 | .248 | 76 | 27 | 82 | 15 | 17.8 |
| 51 | Joey Gallo | 602 | .224 | 84 | 39 | 93 | 7 | 17.8 |
| 52 | Miguel Cabrera | 649 | .282 | 83 | 25 | 88 | 2 | 17.6 |
Thoughts
- I need to find and scold the FanGraphs playtime projection monkey. Or at least get it off its meds. Stanton at only 575 PA? Miggy at 649 PA? Ohtani at 589? Not everyone is perfect.
- A common thread most owners will need to come to grips with over the offseason is young, unproven players high in the rankings. Acuna and Mondesi in the top-10. Soto in the top-25. Robles top-40. Vlad in the top-50.
- After the first two points sink in, diving back into the list brings out some interesting players. I’ll start with Starling Marte ranked as #8. Going back to the first bullet, 653 PA would be a career high so the number should be brought down. Otherwise, nothing else really looks out of place. In the #2EarlyMocks, he went 33rd overall or the 26th hitter. Owners should be elated to find possible first-round value in the 3rd round or later.
- I did not expect to see Story over Arenado. Steals are just becoming so valuable that even a handful can make a huge difference in the rankings.
- Hitters from #14 to #18 (Altuve, Harper, Blackmon, Stanton, and Rizzo) are the old guard moving down. They are still great 2nd to 3rd round values.
- Down at #22 and #23 are two accumulating first baseman, Goldschmidt and Freeman. Everything is middling here. I could see both pushing themselves 10 spots higher in other rankings
- Bregman at #24. Oh, the humanity. What evil force has Kevin way down here? I’m sure his ranking will spawn off a half dozen comment threads.
- Judge drops to #26. The main reason for his drop is the sub-40 HR total and just the second hitter projected for a sub-.260 batting average.
I could go on and on but for now, it just a nice list to soak in and find those spots of personal contention. Or just completely freakout.
Additionally, I’ve put all 52 names into a polling service with spits out two names and a person can pick the one they prefer. Feel free to vote once or a few hundred times. It’s never-ending.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Aaron Judge should be higher.
Steamer heavily regresses his BABIP and HR/FB, resulting in the low average. Generally the smart thing to do but I think Judge has proven enough to show he’ll be an outlier in those areas moving forward
Will Mondesi be the most polarizing player during draft season?
One takeaway: Joey Votto is a great buy-low candidate.
How do you personally handle players whose ‘rates’ (ie their Steamer600 production) is above average but who will only get, say only 300 PA’s in daily leagues. For example, a .260/ 60/20/60/10 over 400 PA’s is obviously much better than the same output in 600 PA’s but you then need “another” player to get the other ~200 PA’s. How do you assess the value of that roster spot? Adding a replacement 200 PA’s can do the apples-to-apples PRODUCTION comparison vs the 600 PA player, but I’m not sure how to value the fact that an extra spot is required. Is this in THE PROCESS?
You should know. if not keep reading.
/Note to self. Block book editor from commenting on articles.
Hmm, I’m not the book editor – but it sounds like it’s in the book, thanks!
We have an editor named Dylan. I thought it was him.
I take it as a compliment that I’m asking relevant questions.
Is the book out yet? Unclear from the website.
IMHO, it’s the weekly leagues where this is hard. There you have to guess an entire week’s playing time on Monday AM, and it’s tough to replace the missing production with anything at all. Your bench guys might go weeks at a time without use.
In daily leagues it’s super easy. You’re already required to maintain a useful and productive bench in order to maximize production on the M/Th travel days. So when you are selecting platoon bats, just understand that they’re going to be 3-4 day players, not 5-6. Finding multi-position players is of paramount importance. If you can rotate 3 guys through 2 positions, you’ll be set.
I love platoon players. Any decent fantasy team has at least a couple versatile bench players who can contribute when someone else has a day off. I myself had a number of Schwarber and Pederson shares last year. Even Carlos Gonzalez is still useful as he’s still a top-10 hitter in 1/3 of his games (home vs. RHP). I literally streamed CarGo all year when he had home series, and he had an OPS over 1.000 in such games I played him.
these are some very aspirational PA estimates which led to inflated SB counts and inflated values
Dahl, Hampson, and Meadows jump out as some other interesting names outside of the young studs you mentioned. Any further thoughts on them?
Hey Jeff, nice info. Below is the top 50 using steamer’s projections on baseballmonster, for comparison’s sake. They use a z-score method, similar to the FG auction calculator. It’s interesting how divergent the two methods are on certain players. The most noticeable thing is your method values steals WAY higher (note the Marte and Mondesi rankings).
Hitter rankings:
Mike Trout
J.D. Martinez
Giancarlo Stanton
Mookie Betts
Nolan Arenado
Francisco Lindor
Manny Machado
Jose Ramirez
Trevor Story
Bryce Harper
Christian Yelich
Juan Soto
Name
Nelson Cruz
Anthony Rizzo
Aaron Judge
Ronald Acuna
Joey Gallo
Trea Turner
Javier Baez
Kris Bryant
Alex Bregman
Cody Bellinger
Yasiel Puig
Freddie Freeman
Name
Paul Goldschmidt
Khris Davis
Carlos Correa
Marcell Ozuna
Charlie Blackmon
Jose Altuve
Andrew Benintendi
Adalberto Mondesi
Ryan Braun
Starling Marte
Joc Pederson
Rhys Hoskins
Name
Jose Abreu
Josh Donaldson
Miguel Andujar
Rafael Devers
Randal Grichuk
David Dahl
Edwin Encarnacion
Xander Bogaerts
Eddie Rosario
Anthony Rendon
George Springer
Kyle Schwarber
Name
Justin Turner
Ryan Zimmerman
Btw, the conjoint analysis voting tool is super cool! Could you share the full voting results at some point?
Two things. I try to share all the results but something seems wrong on their end.
For steals, I have 4.4 steals needed to gain one point in the standings once a hitter reaches 95. The range from the average 4th place finish was 133.
Average just over 8 steals per player puts an owner at the middle of the standings.
Looks like baseballmonster’s values are for a 12 team league where there will be more steals available.
Cool, the poll seems like a simpler version of ADP. It’d be good to see more of it in the future–very informative! There were 168 hitters in the baseball monster settings vs 210 in your analysis. The average team in monster recorded 8.17 sbs per player. hmmm. It seems like something else must explain the divergence.
I’m pretty sure the next 42 hitters can’t come even close to averaging 8.2 SB
The next 42 average 11 sbs (copied and pasted below). This divergence shows up in baseballprospectus’ fantasy calculator as well. Their rankings are more like yours, with steals weighted extremely heavily. The z-score methods, fg auction calculator and baseball monster and razzball, diverge significantly. I’ve never been able to come up with a satisfying explanation for the divergence.
The next 42 projected SB totals:
Name SB
Todd Frazier 8
Dustin Pedroia 6
Roman Quinn 34
Ji-Man Choi 4
Jefry Marte 6
Ian Kinsler 15
Ender Inciarte 22
Christian Walker 4
Melky Cabrera 3
Kevin Pillar 14
Brett Gardner 14
Dee Gordon 34
David Bote 8
Andrelton Simmons 10
Noel Cuevas 10
Mark Canha 4
Harrison Bader 15
Franklin Barreto 11
Hernan Perez 17
Renato Nunez 2
Yoan Moncada 15
Jordan Luplow 10
Eduardo Escobar 4
Alex Verdugo 7
Derek Fisher 15
Ben Zobrist 5
Jason Kipnis 7
Ryan O’Hearn 2
Adam Duvall 5
Chad Pinder 4
Elvis Andrus 13
Jabari Blash 9
Tony Kemp 18
Denard Span 11
Anthony Santander 7
Amed Rosario 23
Jake Bauers 15
Jason Heyward 5
Neil Walker 2
Brandon Dixon 14
Kevin Kiermaier 18
Manuel Margot 18
Best opening paragraph ever.
Not.
Can you summarize why you prefer SGP’s to z-scores?
Read the 3rd section of my upcoming book.
It takes into account a league’s biases. Z-score is perfect for a startup league but for a league which goes from year to year, SGP is better.
In a standard 5×5 redraft league (14 hitters, 9 pitchers), a typical dollar allocation is 70%/30%. I’ve never been satisfied with the reasons for this (e.g. more hitters vs pitchers, or pitchers aren’t as “reliable”, or 5 categories vs. 4 categories, etc.). But here is my thought experiment question: if the roster was changed to 14 hitters and 8 pitchers taken, how would your allocation change? Continuing, the thought, how would it change to 14 hitters and 7 pitchers? What about 14 hitters and 2 pitchers…?
The numbers are based on the historical dollar spent at auctions. I know my Tout Wars is 68/32.
My AL-only is more 75-25 and it has one more pitcher slot. It’s just league specific and owners can adjust. I spend a bit less on pitching as I seem to be able to find more during the season.
This is awesome! Would you consider putting a list like this together for OBP leagues?
You said you want to talk about the #52 hitter (Miguel Cabrera) … and then you did not talk about him. What gives?
Great stuff! Any idea on when Steamer projections will be available in the Auction Calculator?