As we'll preach time and again at FanHouse, compiling a successful fantasy baseball team isn't about the most productive players. It's about what players give you the most value. Carlos Quentin was much more valuable last season than Ryan Braun -- despite ending with slightly inferior numbers -- because of how much cheaper he was to attain than Braun. The best way to compile a winning team is to recognize areas where you can maximize the value of your draft picks. Not spending high picks on closers is one way to do this. Finding players being underestimated is another. Another, still, is to find places lacking depth and grab a strength.
Positional Scarcity
There is an obvious positional scarcity at second base and catcher. Some will hear the word "shallow" and cringe, maintaining that it implies there is no talent to be found outside the upper tier. That's not what it implies at all. Saying those two positions are shallow is simply a fact, because they are shallow relative to the other positions. For example, how valuable would Brian McCann be in fantasy baseball if he played shortstop? How valuable would Chase Utley be if he played outfield? Not even close to what they are at their respective positions, and that's because of the huge drop-off in talent from the elite fantasy players to the lower-tier ones at these positions.
For example, let's check out the falloff from the second basemen top guys to the men ranked in the early teens. If you want to grab an upper-echelon 2B, you'll be looking at Dustin Pedroia, Utley, Ian Kinsler or Brian Roberts. That's quite a group, and you'd love to have any one of those four -- as long as you don't overpay, of course. If you play in a 12-team league, however, and you wait until the very end of the draft, you'll likely get to choose from Kelly Johnson and Placido Polanco types. Compare that to first base, for example, where you can get Adrian Gonzalez on the cheap, and Joey Votto even cheaper. Sure, you can try to find gems who may breakout this year like Pedroia did last year, but there's still a huge drop-off at second base.
This is why Utley is worlds more valuable than Ryan Howard in fantasy baseball.
At catcher, there's also quite a steep dropoff, but it's a bit of a different animal than second base because of category scarcity. We'll get to that in a second. For now, check out the drop-off level. The upper tier welcomed Geovany Soto last year, while Ryan Doumit and Chris Iannetta flashed enough potential to make them viable candidates. Overall, the drop-off isn't as drastic as 2B, when you consider how late you could get an Iannetta-type. Still, what's the drop-off from Russell Martin, McCann or Soto to Dioner Navarro? It's pretty significant. You cannot overpay for these guys -- as taking any catcher in the first two rounds would be an utter disaster -- but there is good value to be found if you can net a member of the elite echelon in the eighth round. One final thing to consider: Keep your eyes on Matt Wieters news every possible day you can. In non-keeper leagues he'll come cheap, but he's liable to have a Geo Soto-type impact when he's eventually promoted to the majors. You can't put a price on that kind of value.
Category Scarcity
Yet another way to maximize value is to find category scarcity. The one category toughest to come by in most productive fantasy players is the stolen base. Willy Taveras led the majors with 68 stolen bases last season, but he absolutely murdered his owners in batting average, home runs and RBI. Even the 64 runs scored were rather pedestrian for a man of his speed. Plus, he plays an incredibly deep position (outfield). Does the value brought by Taveras' steals outweigh giving up so much for them? For me, no. As long as you compile your team correctly, you won't be stuck pining for Taveras' steals. There were only 16 guys who stole more than 30 bases last year, and two of them hit for good power. This scarcity of the stolen base makes 30-30 guys, Grady Sizemore and Hanley Ramirez, automatic elite fantasy players. The issue with many of the other speed demons is they hurt you in more categories than they help, like Taveras. This includes Michael Bourn, Juan Pierre and Carlos Gomez. Even Ichiro Suzuki and Chone Figgins handcuff your power numbers. Finding a high-rate theft guy like Jose Reyes who keeps up moderately in power categories is a huge plus for your team.
This is especially key if you want to find a cheaper second base option. We already discussed the positional scarcity. If you lose out on all the better second basemen, it's imperative you at least fill the position with someone who will help swipe you some bags. Kaz Matsui and Felipe Lopez should get the nod over Mike Aviles and Freddy Sanchez, for example. In this case, you are avoiding a significant disadvantage in both a scarce position and a scarce category. You already have a subpar second baseman, so you can't let him hurt your steals totals on top of that. When you aren't maximizing value with picks, you are minimizing the damage done to your value.
Again, getting the most value out of each pick is more than just picking favorites, big names or hunches.
This is why the early-round picks are spent on either the best pure power hitters with high batting averages (Albert Pujols), a high-strikeout ace pitcher (Johan Santana), positional scarcity (Chase Utley) or category scarcity (Reyes). We all know the higher-round guys, but it filters down to the later rounds. Robinson Cano holds more overall value than Xavier Nady because he plays second base. Bengie Molina holds more value than Mike Jacobs because he catches. And Hunter Pence will hold more value this season than Pat Burrell because he runs more -- and he'll be drafted later in many drafts. Oh, and we left out the most important thing ...
Fill Those Categories
Load up on multicategoricality -- a word invented, I believe, by a former boss of mine. Say what? A guy who fills up many (multi) categories is one who possesses multicatigoricality. Those are the players most worth drafting in any situation. That's why I included "high average" with the power hitters and "high strikeout" with the ace pitchers in the above paragraph. Considering stolen bases are the scarcest of categories, finding guys who have a power-speed combination -- along with a high batting average -- rounds out the elite players. Guys like David Wright, Matt Kemp and Carlos Beltran qualify. This is a big reason I'm so high on B.J. Upton this year. I believe his power is going to come back and the steals will remain in the same ballpark. Combining all the factors, does anyone like Kinsler much yet? He hit .319 with 18 homers, 71 RBI, 102 runs and 26 steals in only 121 games before falling injured. He's only 27 this year, so he'll continue to improve. And he plays second base. He's going to perform like a first-rounder this season, mark my words.
Making a Choice
When push comes to shove, I'd much more prefer to side with positional scarcity, if you absolutely must decide between two guys. Again, I want the best of both worlds, ideally, but we all know sometimes fantasy drafts don't work how we want them to. I can overcome a draft where I punt steals through transactions or dominance in the power categories. I cannot, however, go through a season of rotating crappy second basemen and catchers.
