Mound Talk

How does your fantasy team shake out? This is the first part of a series on dissecting a fantasy baseball league. Today I’ll look at average production from qualified players at each position. Later I will look at the level of production it takes to win a 12 team league, but today I am interested in profiling each position. All averages are rounded.

Catchers

Average production for catchers is skewed slightly by the lack of qualifying members and the relative gap between top tier talent (Mauer, McCann, and Martinez) compared to the rest of the group. Nonetheless, it is still the weakest of the positions.

AVG: .277

R: 52

HR: 12

RBI: 58

SB: 2

There are eight players who outperformed this average in 4 or more categories. Joe Mauer, Ivan Rodriguez and Kenji Johjima scored above the average in all five while Brian McCann, Victor Martinez and A.J. Pierzinski failed in only stolen bases. Russell Martin and Jorge Posada missed the cut in home runs and batting average, respectively.

As our top 20 catchers list indicates, there aren’t a lot of great options at catcher and those guys will likely go too high. Looking for late steals won’t do much good as there aren’t many good young catchers in that range. This is definitely the lowest level of average output of any position. By and large though we can discount the results here because they are so skewed.

First Base

First base is often regarded as the deepest position in fantasy baseball, and there is some degree of statistical proof to uphold that claim. The averages at first are quite high.

AVG: .289

R: 84

HR: 27

RBI: 93

SB: 3

Last season there were three players who topped the averages in all five categories. Albert Pujols, Justin Morneau and Lance Berkman all came in above average, albeit Morneau and Berkman exceeded the SB average by a mere three-tenths of a point. Ryan Howard and Paul Konerko came in above average in four categories, both failing just stolen bases.

Second Base

The drought is over. With the plethora of young talent the average production level is on the rise.

AVG: .285

R: 79

HR: 13

RBI: 65

SB: 12

Just two players were able to post above average in four or more of the categories. Chase Utley (obviously) aced all five while Orlando Hudson came in above average in all but stolen bases. Hudson was within 4 points in four categories. What leaves so few 4 and 5 category producers at second is players who excel at a category and are merely average at others (Robinson Cano posts an incredibly high avg but merely average runs, home runs and rbi, adjusted for playing time) and injuries (Rickie Weeks missed significant playing time which kept him out of the assessment). Guys like Cano in average, Felipe Lopez in stolen bases, Chase Utley and Dan Uggla in runs, home runs and rbi skew the average and keep the big group of talented players sitting with merely 3 categories above average.

The lesson here is that if you do not get Chase Utley or the other couple top level players, you will have your selection of mediocre guys who can excel in whatever category you may have missed earlier.

Third Base

Third base has excellent talent on top. The position averages are good and up and down the list last year were productive players. Getting a top tier player at third can be huge as there are so many good across the board. After the top talent is gone, however, there’s nothing but one-trick ponies.

AVG: .283

R: 86

HR: 22

RBI: 90

SB: 6

There were four five category players last season at the hot corner. The obvious three, David Wright, Miguel Cabrera and Alex Rodriguez were accompanied by the aging, and injury prone Scott Rolen. Rolen was far from dominant, like the other three, and certainly not the fourth best third baseman (that honor would go to one of the two that finished as four category studs), his production was more than adequate and, given his draft position, might be a huge pickup.

Shortstop

The shortstop position is deep. There are eight players with over 100 runs last year, eight with over 20 steals and six hit over .300. The overall average line isn’t terribly impressive but the quality of the top notch players is. Failing to grab a top tier guy results in a sub-standard player that you will be sorry you ended up with.

AVG: .283

R: 89

HR: 13

RBI: 67

SB: 19

Clearly the speedy position, short has three guys who exceeded the average in all five categores. Derek Jeter (though only by 0.6 HR), Carlos Guillen (though only by 1.1 stolen base) and Jose Reyes were all able to surpass the position averages in all five standard categories. Miguel Tejada, Edgar Renteria and Michael Young were both short in just stolen bases. Renteria was the most average player at short last season. Raphael Furcal fell short in RBI as did Hanley Ramirez. Jimmy Rollins was only short in average but certainly made up for it with his speed and power.

The best of the rest includes Bill Hall and Orlando Cabrera. Both moderately productive in their own right but not to the level that most of the other guys mentioned are. Bill Hall demands recognition with his ML SS leading 35 home runs last season and, though he’s slated to play OF next season, he should be eligible in most formats at short.

Outfield

With the largest pool of players, the averages at OF are more accurate. The largest talent pool also has the widest variety of player skill sets. As each team needs three OFs, grabbing three or four category players may be even better than five category players as a guy like Adam Dunn, who excels at the power stats but is atrocious at speed and average can be mitigated when coupled with a guy like Ichiro.

AVG: .283

R: 87

HR: 21

RBI: 80

SB: 15

Of the four guys who beat the average in all five categories, only one was a first round pick last year. Vladimir Guerrero tops the list, accompanied by Vernon Wells, Carlos Lee and Johnny Damon. Each of these guys possesses good skills that translate into good production but it is, for the most part, close to the average (except home runs). Many of the four category guys are the guys you would think should have topped this list. Matt Holliday, last year’s draft steal in the outfield, Bobby Abreu, Grady Sizemore, Jason Bay, Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Beltran all produced above average in four of the five categories. These guys are expected to be there producing at a high level and for the most part exceed the average by a good margin. Jermaine Dye, Raul Ibanez, Michael Cuddyer and Mike Cameron round out the list of four category producers.

Though there are many names that aren’t listed here, Manny Ramirez, Carl Crawford, Chone Figgins and Ichiro Suzuki among others, it isn’t to say they aren’t valuable. ManRam doesn’t steal bases and gets penalized by an observation like this but in reality, his average, rbi and home runs should make him valuable enough anyway. But when you draft Ramirez, it’s important to remember that you’ll need to pick up some runs and stolen bases elsewhere where as if you draft Vlad Guerrero, you should be pretty set and not have to compensate for anything with that pick.

Conclusions

This isn’t meant to be a ranking method as it has no predictive ability and is merely an analysis retroactively applied. What it is meant to show is some players, like Scott Rolen, who might be overlooked because they are not dominant in any stat yet as a whole provide position average stats in each of the five standard categories.