Strategy Session – Power is Predictable
The very nature of pitching is unpredictable. The human arm isn’t meant to throw a baseball 90+ MPH repeatedly every fifth day. Furthermore, stats such as wins, WHIP and ERA – which are commonly used in most fantasy leagues – are often derivatives of a pitcher’s home park, teammates, and luck, rather than his individual skill. As such, pitching is extremely volatile and hard to predict.
In contrast, while nothing in baseball is easy to predict, predicting power output is a lot less difficult than predicting pitching results. Year in and year out, the same guys are on the home run leaderboard. Of course, there are many variables here too – some guys get injured, others seemingly come out of nowhere, and every now and then some team gets Pronked when Travis Hafner declines for no apparent reason. But in a general sense, you know what players are likely to hit lots of home runs each year.
Furthermore, every time a player hits a home run, he also gets a hit, drives in a run (often more) and scores a run. Therefore, each long ball helps a player in four distinct categories. A home run is the most efficient way of improving your team, and is perhaps the easiest thing to predict (of all of the fantasy baseball categories, that is). Thus, many times it will make sense for you to load up on sluggers in your draft. Don’t necessarily worry that many of them play first base – there’s nothing wrong with using your DH or utility position on a second hulking first baseman who is likely to hit 30-40 homers.
Of course, sluggers are very valuable in fantasy leagues, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have several on your team. I see nothing wrong with taking sluggers with three or four of your first five picks. Having that many sluggers on your team gives you a huge advantage in the home run category, and these players are less likely to drastically underperform than someone like an ace starting pitcher. And remember, every homer hit helps you in four of the five fantasy categories.
This is not a fool-proof strategy – there is no such thing in fantasy baseball (that’s what makes it so much fun, right?). But one of the most important aspects of fantasy baseball is minimizing risk, and often time sluggers represent among the lowest risks out there. If you build your team around homers, everything else falls into place nicely.