Fantasy Baseball Hitter Strategy
4 stats to target and 4 stats to avoid when choosing hitters for DFS fantasy baseball
As we (hopefully) get ready for a new fantasy baseball season starting soon, I’m excited to launch my coverage on Fantasy 4. My plan is to provide the SP Spotlight as often as possible along with highlighting my favorite 4 Bargain Bats in a separate post. Like with pitchers, I’ll use DraftKings salaries and scoring to track results throughout the season.
The concept of “Bargain Bats” will be pretty straightforward. They’ll be the cheap hitters I think are in a good place to outperform their affordable salaries. I’ll provide as much variety as I can in terms of both positions and teams, although I’ll also point out value stacks where possible since they can add even more of a ceiling if they hit as a group.
To help you understand some of the thinking behind the hitters that I choose, I thought it would be fun to layout four factors I will look to attack in my picks and four factors I find less influential in my player selection
Attack #1: Batting Order
One of the easiest things to do in DFS fantasy baseball is to maximize your opportunities. Unlike the NBA where minutes and shots fluctuate or the NFL where carries or targets widely differ based on game flow, baseball has a set batting order—everyone gets their turn. The players at the top of the lineup are guaranteed to get at least as many chances as those at the bottom of the lineup barring injury or substitution. While one extra at-bat may not seem like a lot, over the course of a season it definitely adds up, and if a player only gets four at-bats in a game you can get 25% more opportunity by using bats at the top of the lineup.
Using players at the top of the batting order doesn’t just get you that extra chance, it also provides better chances for runs scored and RBI. Players in the top two spots in the order typically score more runs. If cheap options are near the top of the lineup, they definitely deserve attention, especially if there are big bats behind them.
Attack #2: vs. RHP/LHP splits
Baseball has more splits than any other fantasy sport since there are so many at-bats in a MLB regular season. There are day-night splits, home-road splits, days of the week splits and BvP splits (more on that later). The most predictive of all the splits, though, are hitting splits against left-handed and right-handed pitching or hitting. The splits go both ways, as some pitchers are much stronger against left-handed or right-handed batters.
For some players, there isn’t much differential between facing lefties and righties, but for others, there are huge advantages to facing one type of pitcher or the other. There are definitely hitters who regularly live up to their “lefty-killer” reputations, while others really struggle against southpaws. Since most of the time, starting hitters will get at least two at-bats against the opposing SP, it definitely merits close attention to who the lineup is facing and what the splits are for both hitter and pitcher in that scenario. It’s a great way to get a good-size sample that can be predictive.
Attack #3: Hard-hit Rate
There’s a lot of science behind exit velocity and launch angle which you don’t have to understand to enjoy DFS. What is easy to understand, though, is that hard-hit balls have a better chance of creating positive results for the hitter.
There can be stretches during the season where bad luck results in “loud outs” for a hitter. If a hitter keeps hitting the ball hard, though, there’s a good chance for positive regression. Since salaries usually trail results, getting ahead of those results can result in great opportunities for value.
Attack #4: ISO and wOBA
Of all the “new” stats wOBA and ISO have the strongest correlation to fantasy results. The reason batting average isn’t the best is that it rewards a single with the same amount of weight as any kind of hit (even a home run). Since home runs and extra-base hits are worth so much more than singles in fantasy scoring, wOBA can be a better indicator of fantasy success. The stat is built to weigh different ways of reaching base differently, and the value for each method of reaching base is determined by how much that event is worth in relation to projected runs scored. A double or a home run is obviously worth more in wOBA than a walk, and that’s also the way fantasy scoring is set up, making wOBA a very good way to decide how a hitter is doing. League average wOBA last season was .314, above average is around .340, and outstanding wOBA is anything over .400
An stat I like even more, though, is ISO which is short for Isolated Power. It seeks to measure the raw power of a hitter by taking only extra-base hits—and the type of extra-base hit—into account. It focuses on players with more upside and a higher ceiling. Last season’s league average ISO was .167, which is slightly higher than usual. Anything over .150 is acceptable and anything near .200 is great. While other stats can also prove useful in some cases, ISO and wOBA are the two numbers I find most helpful when evaluating hitting performance.
Avoid #1: Small Sample-size BvP
BvP is one of the most controversial stats in DFS. It seems DFS players either love it or hate it. I do think there’s something to what has happened in previous head-to-head meetings between specific batters and specific pitchers, but usually, the sample size is very small. Pitchers and hitters also change approaches and ability quite a bit from year to year, so stats for someone like Joey Votto’s career history don’t apply very much to how he will perform in future at-bats. Since head-to-head matchups don’t happen often enough or in enough volume, I use them more anecdotally than as a driving factor in my picks.
Avoid #2: High BABIP
BABIP is batting average on balls in play. Typically, balls in play result in a hit 30% of the time. Hitters normally hit below .300 due to strikeouts. While some fluctuation above or below .300 is normal, if a player has a very high BABIP (like .360) there’s a good chance that it will balance out over time and lead to some regression to the average. Conversely, if a player has a low BABIP (like .240), he could be set up for positive regression with more of his hits falling in and finding gaps to get him back to around average. There are extenuating factors (an approach resulting in too many fly balls, for example), but generally, players who have a high BABIP and have had “good luck” could be lined up for cooling off. Like with a high hard-hit rate, it’s important to catch on to the trends before they impact results if possible
Avoid #3: Recency Bias
There is certainly value in finding players that are in good form and seeing the ball well, but it’s important not to be too impacted by recency bias. Just because a player had a multi-home run game one day definitely doesn’t make it more likely that he’ll have one the following day as well. While I do think momentum and trends are worth monitoring, immediate success or failure in the day or two previous doesn’t have much impact on the slate.
There is also a tendency to get down on good hitters a little bit too quickly. If hitters are proven commodities, they’ll likely find the solution and get back on track. Sometimes players’ salaries drop as a result of a brief dry spell, but if they still are producing a good hard-hit rate, it could just be a stretch of bad luck.
Avoid #4: Strikeout Rate
This one is pretty simple. For DraftKings scoring, strikeouts don’t hurt your hitters. While it’s frustrating for your team in real life and can kill real-life rallies in a hurry, having a hitter with a high strikeout rate doesn’t really impact their fantasy production. Yes, putting the ball in play is the only way to “get lucky,” but hopefully, the bats selected aren’t relying on soft contact and getting lucky.
In summary, I’ll be looking for bargain bats who may tend to be a little boom-or-bust, so that I can get access to the high ceiling of power bats with good ISO and hard-hit rate even if they do swing-and-miss a lot. Sometimes, though, there are chances for contact hitters hitting in premium lineup spots to deliver steady production and be low-risk plays that contribute to your lineup. I’ll be using $3,500 as my general guideline for bargain bats, but I’ll adjust up or down as necessary based on the size of the slate. I will try and keep it to the lower third of the starting options for any given slate.
I can’t wait for the MLB to get the off-field stuff figured out, so that offseason movement can resume and we can start previewing baseball season in earnest without quite as many hypotheticals.
If you have any questions or feedback, let me know in the comments or at ZT_Sports on Twitter. I’ll be sending out my bargain bats for as many slates as I can once “Play Ball!” becomes a reality, so make sure to subscribe and set up your emails to be delivered for whatever coverage you want for the fantasy sports you enjoy playing.