Head-to-head baseball requires winning categories each week. Certain positions are more prone to giving owners numbers in specific categories than others. For example, projections have the top 10 players at first base racking up 24 percent of the home runs compared with the top 10 at other positions. Players at shortstop and second base produce up 53 percent of the steals. Owners need to maximize their output in each category to have the greatest chance of winning each week.
The head-to-head value-add calculator, HVaC for short, calculates a player’s score through using projected plate appearances from Fangraphs to determine how many home runs, runs, RBI, and steals a player will generate and measure it against a hits-per-plate appearance metric. This eliminates average as the variable when owners need an aggregate average for a week and not just that of a specific player. We then look for a standard deviation against the mean for each category by position. Statistics class teaches us that 68 percent of the population falls within one deviation and 95 percent within two. For our purposes, we look at the positive side only and detriment when they go to the negative side. Why? Regardless of by how much, negative numbers still reduce value.
When it is all factored together – value per plate appearance, standard deviation from the mean, and category weights based on percentage of total – we get this week’s players to watch:
Three up
Mike Moustakas
We are seeing Moustakas start the season the way he ended it, which should be pleasing to fantasy owners. While there are still concerns about his average, his power numbers are in line with the positional mark. Owners just need to be able to compensate for a player that struggled to put the ball in play.
His defense will keep him on the field and the fact he continues to improve his strikeout rate each season is a positive sign. Include with this a better line drive percentage and there are reasons to believe that he is a reliable player at least at a corner infield spot in most leagues.
Anthony Gose
Gose is the third-most added player in Yahoo leagues in the early going, having earned the starting job in center field with the Tigers. His initial HVaC projections were based off of 385 plate appearances and kept him outside the top-100 spots in the outfield. Even after adjusting the projections to 550 plate appearances Gose still stops short of being a starter, but at No. 75 overall the adds make sense. The key will be adapting to more breaking pitches.
Though he hit .279 against fastballs last year, he hit .227, .143, and .219 against curveballs, sliders, and fastballs respectively.
Mookie Betts
To say that believing the hype was not in my initial nature is an understatement. The HVaC likes him in the outfield and if there is a league where he can play the middle infield, Betts is worth an investment there as well. Across three levels last season, Betts totaled 83 RBI with 16 home runs and 38 steals. Betts did see his ISO numbers erode at each level, but his strong BABIP and consistent strikeout rate across each level provide reasons to see him as a fringe starter in the outfield, coming in at number 72 overall.
Three down
Trevor Bauer
One game with 11 strikeouts has owners adding Bauer without a second thought. The HVaC says he is a fringe top 60 player. Why? He has had a double-digit walk rate up until last season coupled with a WHIP that approached 1.40. His saving grace was his ability to get batters to chase his slider and curveball down and away With a contact rate in 2014 that was above the league average by every measure and a lower than average swinging strike mark, Bauer does not miss enough bats to be useful in fantasy leagues just yet. Hold off.
Derek Norris
The most widely added backstop resides in San Diego. At number 20 in the rankings for catchers, Norris provides negative value against the positional average in all five categories, including being a negative outlier in terms of hits per plate appearances. With power numbers that project totals in the low double-digits and isolated power (slugging percentage minus batting average) marks that support that over his history in both the minors and majors, Norris is likely to struggle in a bigger ballpark like Petco. A .240 hitter with a 20 percent strikeout rate is one best left off to the side as far better options are available.
Rajai Davis
Davis projects to have about 200 plate appearances less than the average outfielder which pushes him down to number 92 overall. This certainly is non-starter territory in almost any format. The emergence of J.D. Martinez coupled with Gose, as discussed above, make Davis expendable. His speed still is a positive addition to any lineup, but unless he gets on the field with more regularity that value is not worth the risk.
Collin Hager is a self-proclaimed numbers nerd and creator of the HVaC fantasy baseball scoring system. You can follow him on Twitter @CWHager.
