Stockpile power at 1B/DH in 2017
As always, this is a position loaded with power and potential batting average, top to bottom.
There are 10 extreme power options, depending upon how much BA advantage or disadvantage you want to build into your roster.
There are 13 full-timers with significant or better power, which is down from 21 last year. This is due to the bar having moved upward; when everyone is hitting homers, that Top-25 per cent skills benchmark is a little bit tougher to reach.
But there is still plenty of power and batting effectiveness for everyone. Don’t skimp here.
Here are the BABS ratings for the firstbasemen and designated hitters who will potentially provide some positive value to your team:
| MARKET | ASSET | LIABILITY | ||||||||||
| ADP | R$ | BATTER | Tm | PT | Pw | Sp | Av | * | Av | Inj | Ex | |
| 16 | $31 | Cabrera,Miguel | DET | F | P+ | A+ | * | inj- | ||||
| 28 | $25 | Votto,Joey | CIN | F | P+ | A+ | * | |||||
| 25 | $26 | Encarnacion,Edwin | CLE | F | P+ | AV | * | |||||
| 26 | $26 | Freeman,Freddie | ATL | F | P+ | AV | * | |||||
| 6 | $40 | Goldschmidt,Paul | ARI | F | PW | AV | * | |||||
| 12 | $33 | Rizzo,Anthony | CHC | F | PW | AV | * | |||||
| 168 | $8 | Belt,Brandon | SF | F | P+ | a | * | |||||
| 217 | $5 | Joseph,Tommy | PHI | F | P+ | a | EX | |||||
| 62 | $17 | Abreu,Jose | CHW | F | p | AV | ||||||
| 85 | $14 | Ramirez,Hanley | BOS | F | p | AV | ||||||
| 163 | $8 | Gonzalez,Adrian | LA | F | p | AV | ||||||
| 232 | $4 | Martinez,Victor | DET | F | p | AV | ||||||
| 174 | $7 | Morales,Kendrys | TOR | F | PW | a | ||||||
| 219 | $5 | Thames,Eric | MIL | F | PW | a | * | e | ||||
| 120 | $11 | Santana,Carlos | CLE | F | p | a | * | |||||
| 126 | $10 | Pujols,Albert | LAA | F | p | a | ||||||
| 221 | $5 | Cron,C.J. | LAA | F | p | a | inj- | |||||
| 56 | $18 | Myers,Wil | SD | F | p | s | ||||||
| 411 | $(1) | Mauer,Joe | MIN | F | AV | * | ||||||
| 399 | $(1) | Pearce,Steve | TOR | M | PW | AV | INJ | |||||
| 77 | $15 | Davis,Chris | BAL | F | P+ | * | AV | inj- | ||||
| 214 | $5 | Napoli,Mike | FAA | F | P+ | * | AV | |||||
| 227 | $5 | Carter,Chris | FAN | F | P+ | * | AV | |||||
| 323 | $1 | Moss,Brandon | FAN | F | P+ | AV | inj- | |||||
| 622 | $(5) | Jaso,John | PIT | M | p | AV | * | inj- | ||||
| 105 | $12 | Hosmer,Eric | KC | F | a | |||||||
| 311 | $2 | Bour,Justin | MIA | M | p | a | INJ | e | ||||
| 340 | $1 | Moreland,Mitch | BOS | M | p | a | ||||||
| 476 | $(3) | Lind,Adam | FAA | M | p | a | ||||||
| 232 | $4 | Bird,Gregory | NYY | M | P+ | * | INJ | EX | ||||
| 329 | $1 | Duda,Lucas | NYM | M | P+ | * | INJ | |||||
| 454 | $(2) | Alvarez,Pedro | FAA | M | P+ | |||||||
| 488 | $(3) | Adams,Matt | STL | M | P+ | inj- | ||||||
| 649 | $(6) | Tellez,Rowdy | TOR | P+ | AV | * | EX | |||||
| 470 | $(2) | Park,Byung Ho | MIN | M | PW | inj- | EX | |||||
| 539 | $(4) | Austin,Tyler | NYY | M | PW | EX | ||||||
| 639 | $(6) | Butler,Billy | NYY | M | AV | |||||||
| 395 | $(1) | Zimmerman,Ryan | WAS | M | p | INJ | ||||||
| 429 | $(2) | Vogelbach,Daniel | SEA | M | p | * | EX | |||||
| 551 | $(4) | Morrison,Logan | FAA | M | p | INJ | ||||||
| 286 | $2 | Bell,Josh | PIT | M | a | EX | ||||||
| 558 | $(4) | Alonso,Yonder | OAK | M | a | inj- | ||||||
| 649 | $(6) | Lee,Dae-ho | FAA | M | a | EX | ||||||
| 0 | Choi,Ji-Man | NYY | PW | a | * | inj- | EX | |||||
| 577 | $(5) | Bellinger,Cody | LA | PW | a | * | EX | |||||
| 306 | $2 | Rodriguez,Sean | ATL | M | PW | AV | ||||||
| 666 | $(6) | Travis,Sam | BOS | p | a | EX | ||||||
| 464 | $(2) | Vargas,Kennys | MIN | M | p | * | AV | e | ||||
| 647 | $(6) | Howard,Ryan | FAN | P+ | ||||||||
| 655 | $(6) | Refsnyder,Rob | NYY | s | AV | EX | ||||||
| 628 | $(5) | Frazier,Clint | NYY | p | s | EX | ||||||
| 0 | Ruf,Darin | LA | PW | e | ||||||||
| 594 | $(5) | Hoskins,Rhys | PHI | PW | EX | |||||||
| 621 | $(5) | Canha,Mark | OAK | PW | INJ | e | ||||||
| 641 | $(6) | Hamilton,Josh | TEX | PW | INJ | |||||||
| 0 | Aguilar,Jesus | CLE | p | EX | ||||||||
| 0 | Moore,Tyler | MIA | P+ | AV | EX | |||||||
| 411 | $(1) | Marte,Jefry | LAA | p | EX | |||||||
| 517 | $(3) | Mancini,Trey | BAL | p | EX | |||||||
| 0 | Robinson,Clint | WAS | a | e | ||||||||
| 0 | Loney,James | TEX | a | |||||||||
| 686 | $(6) | Smith,Dominic | NYM | a | EX | |||||||
| 588 | $(5) | Smoak,Justin | TOR | PW | AV | |||||||
| 0 | Tucker,Preston | HOU | p | AV | INJ | e | ||||||
| 0 | Shaffer,Richie | CIN | p | * | AV | EX | ||||||
| 477 | $(3) | Reed,A.J. | HOU | p | AV | EX | ||||||
| 588 | $(5) | Reynolds,Mark | FAN | p | AV | inj- | ||||||
| 645 | $(6) | McMahon,Ryan | COL | p | AV | EX | ||||||
| 654 | $(6) | Davidson,Matthew | CHW | p | AV | INJ | EX | |||||
| 456 | $(2) | Rua,Ryan | TEX | SB | AV | e | ||||||
LIABILITIES: Av (Batting Ineffectiveness), Inj (Injury), Ex (Experience)ASSETS: PT (Playing time), Pw (Power), Sp (Speed), Av (Batting Effectiveness), * (OBP help)
In typical snake drafts, Paul Goldschmidt (pictured) and Anthony Rizzo are the first 1Bmen off the board. According to BABS, there are four others potentially more worthy.
Miguel Cabrera and Joey Votto are the only ones to combine extreme power and extreme batting effectiveness. They tend to fall into the second round due to Miggy’s recent injury history (justified) and Votto’s supporting Cincy offense (somewhat less justified). I think they are just older and boring, which does not play well in ADPs. But if others undervalue their skills, that just means more profit potential for you. I grabbed Votto in the second round of the recent FSTA experts draft and was tickled pink to get him there.
Edwin Encarnacion has regressed and Freddie Freeman progressed to the point where they are both virtually indistinguishable, skills-wise. Their extreme power makes them highly desirable.
Then comes Goldy and Rizzo. BABS has historically undervalued the former’s stolen base output, which I have trouble explaining. She did likewise with Manny Machado last year and was correct; I don’t know if that puts Goldy’s bags at risk. If not, his ADP is more justified. Rizzo is a young, exciting player on a solid contending team, which may artificially inflate his value (in the same way Votto is deflated). BABS says his power skill ranks behind the others.
Brandon Belt’s HR output continues to fall short of his (P+) assessment which only means his current ADP could be a steal. Tommy Joseph rates out similarly, though his (EX) liability widens the potential error bar.
Jose Abreu, Hanley Ramirez and Adrian Gonzalez form the (p,AV) asset group. Nice profit potential here – you can grab Abreu at ADP 62 or wait 100 picks and get a comparable bat in AGon.
Eric Thames – who the heck knows? (PW,a) may be conservative but BABS nicks him with an (e) liability, just because. Still, that rating puts him in the same asset group with 11 comps at other positions that range from the upside of Bryce Harper to the downside of Corey Dickerson. Yes, it’s a wide range but many of the players in this group have had volatile careers. Mid-range players like Evan Gattis and Jackie Bradley might be better comps.
The (P+ | AV) asset group – extreme power but batting liability – has some potential profit. If you pass on Chris Davis, you can roster comparable skills later with Mike Napoli, Chris Carter and Brandon Moss. Just remember to build that liability into your risk budget.
Among the mid-timers, Greg Bird, Lucas Duda and Matt Adams all offer extreme power and should be easy to tuck at the back end of rosters given their respective health liabilities.
So Cabrera and Votto. ADP = where you anticipate they would go in a draft ? ..and $ value is what you think they would go for? Not what they are worth …because Votto is ahead of Cabrera in BaBs so that must mean he is under valued compared to ADP/$ ?
Do I have that correct?
Almost. Your take on ADP and $ values is correct. Votto is not ahead of Cabrera in BABS – they are both in the same asset group (P+,A+*). However, Cabrera has some (inj-) risk which means you’d have to fit him into your risk budget. But both have virtually identical skill sets. As compared to their ADP/R$, they both might be considered somewhat undervalued.
I read up on BABS last week, and am excited to give it a try in my fantasy league (NL-only auction) this year. She really shines (above) in presenting information in a way that is very easy to absorb, retain, and analyze on the fly. I found myself able to skim the list and identify potential bargains, players to throw out for others to overpay for, and $1 options for the endgame. Only time will tell if the system works, but in terms of usability I am already very impressed.
Good luck!
I’m a bit surprised to not see Kendrys Morales on this list. The original BABS list has him at “PW, a” (with no liabilities other than his new team). This puts him in the same general grouping as Eric Thames (above) and with profit potential in the same range as A. Gonzalez (and more than Abreu and H. Ramirez). Did I miss something as I was considering him as a possible 1-year keeper in my 12 Team 5×5 mixed roto league?
This isn’t a comment about first basemen, but on the FSTA Draft and on something Ron said earlier about possibly still tinkering with the comparative values of highly talented, M-playing-time guys vs. lesser talented full-timers. I noticed in the FSTA draft these 4 pitchers were drafted in this order: Alex Reyes (round 11), Urias (14), Jon Gray (14), and Jeff Samardzija (20). I’ve done my own amateur drafts and seen these players taken very near one another, in rounds 14 to 16 of 10-team drafts, and sometimes in the reverse order of the pros. Maybe the fantasy pros value skills over playing time more than the amateurs. Maybe the pros are more tolerant of EX risk – possibly because they have more confidence in finding good waiver wire pitchers if something goes wrong (I’ve looked in a bare cupboard before, it can be scary). Or perhaps the pros see a Samardzija pick and his somewhat predictable season as a path to 3rd place while a figurative homerun with Alex Reyes might win the league. And would the pros put a higher value on Jon Gray’s and Samardzija’s additional innings and possibly lower risk in NL-only leagues. I’m in round 7 of a 10-team NL-only league, all of these guys are available as a 3rd SP. Being unsure of all of them, I might just pass and take whichever one of these guys is available a little later. Does this seem like a toss-up to other people as well? Or am I missing something?
Nope, you didn’t miss anything. Morales and Victor Martinez were erroneously omitted from the list. I’ve corrected it.
You nailed it right here: “Or perhaps the pros see a Samardzija pick and his somewhat predictable season as a path to 3rd place while a figurative homerun with Alex Reyes might win the league.” There is an unspoken (actually, somewhat spoken) tenet espoused by some experts in these leagues: “Go big or go home.” There are no prizes and no public adulation for a 2nd place finish. “Second place is first loser” is another popular one. Truth is… in a redraft league, it’s a reasonable approach.
What are your thoughts on taking a flier with Josh Bell in an NL only 5×5 Roto keeper league where you need both a 1B and corner infielder for $2. Which locks him up for the next two seasons?
At that price, there is little downside. His meager BABS rating reflects little more than his small sample of major league performance. He is a potentially a high upside player.
My 6×6 (OBP+SLG-AVG; IP) head-to-head keeper strategy at the CI and OFs is to find lefties that mash righties and use 3 of them in 2 spots or 4 of them in 3 spots. For example, last year I used a combo of Adam Lind and Lucas Duda as my CI and rotated similar OFs like Seth Smith, Curtis Granderson and another guy who hits righties very well.
With that said, any thoughts on how I should attack the CI position? I had Votto and Donaldson going into last year but I lost them for this year.
In a league with an 8-man bench, weekly adds/drops, and daily lineup changes, how would you go about using this inefficiency?
How did this work for you last year? I tend not to overthink things and the sample sizes of platoon data tend not to be very projectable. It’s the best I can say without doing a full-blown analysis in this hybrid format (which sadly, I don’t have time to do today).
Last year I battled and just missed the playoffs—but I went into the draft with only 1/3 of the money that the rich teams had (I had won the prior year, there was too much trading we did a good job of putting in rules to limit the trading). I’ve used this head to head strategy for the past number of years and have won the league 2 of the last 4 years. Thanks to having Votto and JD it’s been simple because I’ve only had to ‘platoon’ my CI, 2 OFs and a UTIL—so I had 6 bats handle those roles, 80+% of the time at least 4 guys play righties.
So this year my decision is do I target a Stud 1b and 3b with the intentions of doing the same thing that I’ve done—or do I draft 4 lefty CI’s, do more platooning and save the extra cash for my middle infield, catchers, and staff?
Also, we have an 8 man bench and can only start 12 pitchers per week with 9 pitching slots. So if I have 10 starting pitchers on my roster I can hit the max starts per week (usually 2+ guys will go twice) and that leaves room for 3 closers and 4 bench hitters.
The inefficiency of $1-3 bench hitters who mash righties (David Peralta was my origional gem) is too great for me to overlook. But how “all in” do I go this year?
With a $260 budget I’m going to keep: Gauseman ($2), A Sanchez (4), and Colome (3). I then get to pick 3 more of: I Kenendy (3), E Nunez (3), Manaea (6), B Miller (3), N Walker (5), J Gyorko (3). This obviously complicates things because I can roll into this season with 2-3 MI spots taken care of with huge power upside. I prioritize power because of the OBP and SLG, so do I keep the power bats in the middle to give me my advantage in the spots I want it or do I go with a guy like Nunez who’s going to help keep me competititve in steals?
So I am looking at a team I picked up (Keeper League, Keep 12 for as long as you want). It is only 10 teams so a lot of stacked teams. That said, I moved to get the team younger by trading away Bautista for Sano and in another deal picked up Belt. I have Votto as well. There is an owner who really like Votto (OBP league which is why Belt has value) and has offered out Kluber and Britton for Votto and Joc Pederson. Based on what I read here with how 1B/CI has so much power, would I be better off keeping Votto as a keeper rather than the pitchers.
My keepers at this point are looking like Votto, Dee Gordon, Miguel Sano, Brandon Belt, Ryan Braun, McCutchen, Piscotty, Glasnow, Lester, Andrew Miller, and Salazar. I would basically need to drop one other from this list (with Votto traded) to hold Kluber and Britton.
Thoughts?
Sean – Can you condense all this into a concise 2-3 sentences with your question? Unfortunately, it’s tough to keep up with questions while writing and doing site work, and I don’t have time to read through and digest all of what you wrote. Sorry.
There are only a few reliable high end pitching studs and Kluber is one of them. Assuming you also need a closer, I think this is an excellent deal that you should jump on. Of course, giving up Votto in an OBP league will hurt but you have to give something to get something, right?
Sam Travis should probably have a Inj liability.
http://www.pressherald.com/2017/01/29/on-baseball-red-sox-prospect-sam-travis-rebounding-from-knee-injury/
Brand new to the site, been playing baseball for just a couple years. Questions on your abbreviations:
1. under Assets: PT (playing time) – what are M and F designations?
2. under Pw (power) category – PW vs P+ vs. p
3. under sp (speed) – SB vs. s
4. under Av (average) – AV vs. A+ vs. a
5. INJ vs. inj-
6. EX vs. e
Thanks!
James – You need to read the eBook, “The BABS Report” that’s accessible from the link in the MEMBERS ONLY area in the right column. Everything you asked is described in Chapter 4 (though I HIGHLY recommend you read the chapters that precede it – at minimum – so you have a fuller sense of what BABS is all about.)
In a 6×6 (in: OBP & SLG, Out: AVG) head-to-head there’s an inefficiency I exploit by having multiple cheap LHB that hit RHP really well (guys like Duda, Lind, Peralta). There are daily roster changes so I can have 6 of these guys shuffling in and out of 3 spots in my lineup, this leaves me with tons of cash to spend elsewhere. What strong side platoon guys should I focus on?
I do not collect/track platoon data because BABS focuses on overall performance and every step you take towards more granularity decreases projectability. Sorry to drag you to this point and not be able to answer your question.
No problem Ron, I appreciate you taking the time to clarify. Been a Forecaster reader since 7th grade (I’m 26 now) and am very excited to stray from the standard LIMA plan I’ve been using for a while! Are you familiar with the Fantasy Football philosophy of being ‘Antifragile’?
I had not previously heard the term used in connection with fantasy football, but it makes a bunch of sense.
Curious as to why Pujols doesn’t have an “inj”
He should. That has already been corrected in our master database and will appear in next week’s update.
So, I don’t get why Cabrera (especially with the inj deficit) is listed above Votto in the BABS chart.
Players are sorted by ADP within each asset group.
Ron :
Please dont laugh at me, I just have a little too much free time on my hands right now. Goldschmidt intrigues me with no “s” or “SB”. You went over some of the contributing elements to coming up with a final speed determination. Goldy does not hit triples and that clearly works against him in the equation. What interests me, is probably the most ridiculous question you’ll get, but I am going to ask it anyway.
MLB.com has Goldy at 6’3″ 225lbs
HQ at 6’4″ 245lbs
When you fit the different body mass numbers into the equation, how much different is Goldys speed number. Like HQ says, “leaner players run faster”. Goldy’s HQ projections are for 86 Spd with 14% SBO and 83% safe rate. Even though hes done these numbers in the past, BABS might think this is unsustainable with his increase in age and HQ body mass as you currently have it.
Thanks
Joe