Draft MVP Blog

One man’s imaginary smack talk with Bud Selig *complete with graphs*

Now I may just be some skinny number-cruncher with a shiny degree from your average university with an abysmal male-to-female ratio, but I believe I may have caught some ground-breaking news that seems to have passed ole Buddy Boy by. So excuse me, commissioner Sir, if I fill you in on some of the things that have happened during your 1995-2008 beauty nap. Let’s see… well, we have a new president, grunge is dead, oh yeah and the game of baseball has totally changed.

How so you ask? Well take a gander at this here pretty chart.

The HR stands for homeruns, and that bouncy red line? You guessed it. Now, if I may direct your attention for one moment to the spike in 1987, which just so happens to be the year Mark McGwire broke into the big leagues with an eye-popping 49-homerun rookie season, and thus in the process planted the seed for the “Bash Brothers” era.

What? Aren’t doubles a better, more consistent indicator of power-hitting? Well, what do you know, I’ve got a chart for that too. Let’s take a look…

Wow, power-hitting really began to peak in 1998 didn’t it? Well, my friend, 1998 happens to be the year that the “Homerun Record Chase” captured the hearts of Americans everywhere. McGwire vs. Sosa, it was a beautiful thing. And great for baseball too, wasn’t it, Bud? Almost made me forget about all that nastiness back in ‘94. Instead of players banding together against the MLB owners, they’re back to ripping each other’s heads off in the batter’s box, all amped up on er… competition. What baseball strike? 70 HR’s! You must have been so relieved.

Now Mr. Commissioner, I’d like to tell you a story about our friend, little Bobby Spitball. One day little Bobby begins to notice that all his friends are looking kinda “different”. All of a sudden Barry B. has got a neck the size of a rabid pit-bull, and the bulging veins to boot! And Sammy S. from down the block has come down with a bad case of ass pimples. And what’s more, they’re knocking them out of the park. With his friends all talking like sopranos on helium, and taking a “swing-for-the-fences” approach, little Bobby has a choice to make. He can either keep doing what he’s doing but do it in the minor leagues, or he can unleash everything he’s got. So little Bobby thinks to himself “I’ll either strike him out, or kill the guy sitting 5 rows behind home plate”. Take a look at the results…

*Tear* there goes little Bobby’s rotator cuff. If only there was something he could take…

So much for the art of the complete game! (Someone please notify Dusty Baker!)…

So what does this mean to fantasy baseball? Quite a bit, depending on your league’s stat categories. First of all, this season could be the beginning of a trend, as numbers begin to compensate in what is hopefully the post-steroids era. Last year was a major “down” year for homeruns, producing the lowest homerun totals in a decade. Maybe a sign that power-hitting is beginning to normalize. The number of 20-HR players has remained fairly constant the last couple years, but the number of players that hit 32+ HR’s has dropped drastically from 32 to 16. 40+ HR hitters have dropped from 11 to 5. The performance curve for homeruns has flattened out. While the majority of starting batters in most fantasy leagues will still hit 15+ to 20+ HR’s, with most players topping out below 32 HR’s, there will be fewer of them hitting 35+ HR’s, and chances are you will have just one of them. So… with so few of them, does that make top HR hitters more valuable?

In a way, sure, having A-Rod or Prince Fielder last year would’ve given you one of only two 50-HR guys. But this year you will be paying a premium for HR’s in the draft. My feeling for the upcoming season is that HR-hitting as a stat category has to be devalued a little bit, at least in Head-to-Head leagues. The homerun-hitting field has evened out, and except for a lucky few owners, most teams will hover around the same homerun totals.

The days of building your team around HR’s is over. We’ve gotten used to the power-hitting of the last 5-10 years, when having a team full of big boppers guaranteed a consistent stream of HR’s that could take you to the championship. Well, guess what? Homeruns are hard to hit! Especially without HGH! These days, it really is a “feast or famine” stat category. And unless your team has more than two or three 30+HR guys, you don’t have enough of a safety net to even out the performance peaks and valleys from week to week. Bottom-line, sticking to the slugging strategy this year is going to be a major crapshoot, and I just don’t think it’s going to pay off. Most of us will have to learn to suffer through the HR peaks and valleys and adapt accordingly to winning or losing that category in cycles. Even if you invest your top resources in accumulating high HR’s and are lucky enough to get good returns on your HR investment, every A-Rod and Prince Fielder sometimes go a week without hitting a homerun. And you better hope it’s not during the playoffs.

In pondering the HR issue, I’ve also realized how impossible it is to predict HR’s this year. I’m calling it the “20/40 rule”. Would you be surprised if Manny Ramirez hit 20 HR’s? I wouldn’t, in fact that’s what he hit last year. Would you be surprised if he hit 40 HR’s? I wouldn’t, he hit 45 just a few years ago. I feel this way about many of the good players out there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they hit 20 or 40 HR’s. I find that crazy! Well, that’s what happens when baseballs aren’t getting slammed hundreds of feet over the fences. As batting performance becomes more realistic, we will begin to notice once again that sometimes there’s almost no difference between a double and a homerun other than sheer luck…

I think we have successfully reflected this attitude and strategy in our drafting tool. Based on last year’s stats, you can only worry about homeruns so much this season, and nothing’s guaranteed. We’re not saying not to draft big homerun hitters, you still have to do that to compete. Just don’t stretch further for one-dimensional HR hitters because you think the decrease in power-hitting means you have to overspend. It’s the same with complete games and shutouts, if your league uses those categories. With the trends we’re seeing, complete games are becoming increasingly rare and random. You couldn’t even chase them if you tried… But you could overpay for them.

So Back to you Mr. Commissioner… What can explain these drastic changes in statistical numbers? Well, I can’t pretend to know anything about standing in the box and trying to actually swing a round bat at a round ball, while trying to hit it square. But I think I’ve come up with an explanation which will please everyone.

It’s the baggy uniforms. Really it is, check this out…

Look at former All-Star, NL MVP, and Silver Slugger Keith Hernandez:

Yes, it’s a tight uniform, and it’s also worth about 12 homeruns a season. The year McGwire stumbled into his 49-homerun rookie season, was the year Keith Hernandez hit his career high 18 homeruns.

Or look at former 15-time All Star, Silver Slugger, NLCS MVP, and 2002 Hall of Fame Inductee Ozzie Smith:

…and of course, there’s Barry

- Jason Chen

Tags: Baseball Stats, Stat Trends, Steroid Era, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire