Sabermiketrics

No position is trickier to draft than catcher. People value defense greatly over offense when it comes to catcher, and because of the physically demanding nature of the position, they typically don’t play as many games. Only 22 players who primarily played catcher played in 100 or more games; 12 played in 120+. As a product of defensive priorities, only eight of those 22 catchers even hit at an above-average level (OPS+ over 100). Mix lack of playing time with lack of talent and you got a position that lacks players that are actually valuable in fantasy. Because a good hitting catcher who plays a lot is so rare, it’s going to take a pretty high pick to get one of the elite. There’s really two catchers that stand head-and-shoulders above the rest of the pack: Gary Sanchez and Buster Posey (20 and 59 ADP respectively). Wilson Contreras (53 ADP) is projected as being the third best, who in limited playing time has hit great in his career, with Molina, Perez, and Realmuto getting mor...

As I continue on my quest to master the world of sabermetrics, there’s another thing I want to conquer: fantasy baseball. What’s so great about fantasy is it uses the traditional counting stats we’ve always used, such as hits, walks, strikeouts, runs, and so on, but we try to predict and project the future using the advanced data we have available. Up until the season, and maybe even throughout the season, I’m going to keep up this series of me trying my best to draft the best team possible. Since I’m a positive guy, I figure we’ll start with some players that I think will break out, bounce back, or just be great in 2018. I’ll focus especially on the player’s stats from the past three seasons, and use stats such BABIP , xWOBA , various batted-ball metrics from Statcast , walk rates, strikeout rates, FIP , left-on-base percentage , and ADP. ADP (average draft position) is critical here because certain players become steals based off having a value that exceeds where they rank in A...