By Robby Wellington – Staff Writer
How valuable are Jose Reyes’ steals? How much does Adam Dunn’s batting average hurt? These are some of the questions that owners must grapple with while drafting their teams and, more often than not, the answer is arbitrary and based on nothing more than intuition. But what if we were to assign values to different stats based on how frequently they occur and then find an overall value for every fantasy hitter? Well, let’s give it a shot…
Runs and RBI are basically worth the same, with home runs being about four times less common and, therefore, more valuable. Steals are about twice as rare as home runs. Factoring in batting average is a bit trickier, but look at it this way. In a league with ten position players, I figure that eight or so dingers is about as valuable as two points in team batting average. Therefore, ten points in batting average is worth five home runs. From these assumptions, we can derive an equation to roughly calculate a player’s value in 5X5 leagues:
(Stolen Bases * 8 ) + (Home Runs * 4) + RBI + Runs + ((BA – 280) * 2) = Player’s Value (let’s go ahead and call it The Robby Rating (RR))
Or, more simply put:
1 Stolen Base = 2 Home runs = 8 Runs/RBI = 2 Points in Batting Average.
Using this formula, Albert Pujols’ stat line from last season (49 HRs, 256 runs/RBI, 7 SBs and .331 BA) nets him an RR of 610 (691 prorated to a full season). Jose Reyes’ season, on the other hand, pulls in an astounding RR of 831, thanks primarily to his league leading 64 steals. Don’t underestimate the value of steals.
Adam Dunn’s .234 average drags his RR down to a mediocre 315, while light hitting Freddy Sanchez boasts an RR of 346 thanks primarily to his .344 average. Granted, these are rough estimates and approximations, but they help to flesh out the more valuable players when comparing apples and oranges.
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