The Long Game: Bat Hawks Down

When new MLB commissioner Rob Manfred took over the job, one of his first orders of business was to look for ways to inject ... oops, heh, poor choice of words there ... RESTORE some offense to the game. From limiting reliever use to changing the strike zone to eliminate the lowest of the low strikes, a number of different proposals have been bandied about over the last few weeks.

The impact of that downward trend in offense has impacted fantasy leagues as well as the real thing, of course. When I prepare for a draft or auction in a roto league, I always set targets based on a rolling three year average of top 25 percentile finishes in each category. (Generally speaking, such finishes across the board will position you nicely for a competitive run, and looking at a rolling three-year average helps smooth out any blips from seasons with weird results.) That approach, however, may have become a bit problematic heading into 2015. Take a look at the third place totals for each offensive categories in my home 12-team AL-only league:

While batting average and steals appear to have been fairly steady, third place home runs saw a massive 18% drop, while RBI dropped 7% and runs 9%. And in 2012, there was actually a huge gap between second and third in both the 'steady' categories (.2731 in BA, while steals saw a two-way tie for second with 158), which disguises downward trends in them as well. Now, that's normally the kind of 'blip' the three-year average is designed to compensate for, but with MLB's official position being that it's an issue to be fixed and not just a statistical anomaly, I'm not sure compensating for it is the right approach.

Lest you think that league is an aberration, here's the same chart for fourth place finishes in the RotoWire Staff Keeper League, an 18-team mixed format:

The batting average degradation is more pronounced in that league, while the collapse in the counting categories happened two seasons ago rather than last season. In 2013, fourth place home runs dropped 13%, while runs and RBI both dropped about 8%.

Note that while this is echoed in the pitching stats (for instance: fourth place ERA has gone from 3.4644 in '12 to 3.3223 in '14, and K's from 1305 to 1375, in the Staff League) wins and saves remain stable, so there's far less overall impact on that side of the fantasy equation.

Assuming MLB doesn't institute any changes that take both take immediate effect and actually make a big difference, it seems safe to assume that 2015 will feature more of the same, with offensive numbers more in line with those 2014 targets that what made sense to aim for in 2012. If that's the case, how should that affect your keeper decisions heading into this season? While it would be easy to just say, "Prioritize hitting over pitching", there's a lot going on just under the surface that you can miss with that kind of blanket statement. Plus, every fantasy owner in the world has at least a vague idea that pitching is ascendant at the moment, and will be prioritizing hitting over pitching because it's easier to find decent pitching late in drafts and on the waiver wire. Here are some more specific strategies and tactics you may want to consider.

Punt Batting Average

Now, I'm not a big fan of punting a category as a general strategy in roto. In a competitive league, your margin for error becomes that much thinner when you are voluntarily giving up points in one area. But if you are going to punt something to focus your resources elsewhere, there may be no better time than now to take on a bunch of low-BA sluggers to try and run the table on the remaining categories.

For one thing, there are plenty of them to choose from. 16 different players last year hit 20 or more home runs with a batting average under .250 (out of just 57 players overall to hit 20 or more HR while getting enough ABs to qualify for the batting title), from Astros teammates Chris Carter and George Springer to maligned veterans like Ryan Howard and Curtis Granderson. Noted low-BA bombers like Jay Bruce, Pedro Alvarez and Mike Napoli also just missed the HR mark while still failing to collect singles in bunches. It was much the same the year before, as in 2013, 18 of 70 hitters with 20 or more home runs hit under .250. Players like these, especially those in the maligned veteran category, will usually come cheaper than their sticker price as other owners focus on the 'drag down your batting average' part of their skill set rather than the 'hit balls over the fence' part of it.

The other consideration with this strategy is that, with league-wide offense down, the standings in offensive categories will be that much more tightly bunched, requiring less production to make gains. In 2009, the difference between first and sixth in my home AL-only league was 81 home runs. Five years later in 2014, that difference had shrunk to just 46 home runs. Punting one category requires you to do extremely well in the rest, and in this environment it's that much easier to reach the top in the counting categories.

(You could also, if you were daring, zig where others might zag and punt home runs, but it's much trickier to find value with that approach. Looking at a comparable player pool, 60 batting title qualifiers last season hit .275 or better. Removing out the guys who hit 20 or more home runs, you're still looking at a list that includes Jose Altuve, Adrian Beltre, Justin Morneau and Robinson Cano on the top end, and Ian Kinsler, Dexter Fowler, Dustin Pedroia and Christian Yelich on the bottom. There are some potential bargains scattered around the list such as Alcides Escobar or Nick Markakis but for the most part it's a list of names that will carry much higher price tags at your auction table.)

Punting batting average is especially enticing in AL-only leagues, which doesn't include any hitters in the player pool that call Coors Field home. Without those Colorado batters and their inflated numbers around, you have a better chance of stealing a couple of points in BA even if you punted the category.

Be Wary Of Middle Class Starting Pitchers

Over the last few years, a number of articles and studies have been written which make a strong case that middle-tier pitchers are bad investments as a class. Elite, top-shelf pitchers tend to produce good value relative to their cost, and there are enough bargain pitchers who break out every year to make panning for gold in those waters worthwhile, but pitchers in between have higher rates of under-performance without higher potential returns to compensate you for the additional risk, making them dangerous pickups. The changing run environment may provide an answer as to why that trend exists. As offense drops, the value of a pitcher who gives you merely OK numbers also drops. At the same time, owners conditioned by the numbers of the past might look at what are merely OK numbers for 2014 and conclude that the pitcher is actually top-shelf, and push the bidding higher on the player than they should. Basically, unless a pitcher is going to be a real difference-maker for you, there's little reason to spend much on him.

In practice, what this means is a stars and scrubs approach to your pitching staff. Grab a true ace or two, make sure you're covered in saves, and don't spend more than a few bucks on the rest of your slots. Why spend $15 for a non-ace when you can get a guy almost as good for $5, or $1, or off the waiver wire in May? Save your budget, or premium draft slots, for players who can provide you with an increasingly scarce commodity (namely, offense) instead.

Of course, there will be exceptions due to keeper considerations. If, as expected, Matt Harvey's inning restriction this season lowers his price tag into the mid-tier range and he's available for bid, you would be well within reason to grab a potential future ace at a less than ace-like salary. But generally speaking, you're probably better off passing up the Latoses and Iwakumas of the world for the Leakes and Paxtons.

Don't Go Long On Your Contracts

This is, perhaps, the most important thing to keep in mind for keeper league owners this season. It's always tempting to lock up your best prospects and cheap finds for as long as you can, but this offseason more than any other, you need to avoid that temptation. Some of the rule changes being proposed could cause seismic shifts to the fantasy landscape, and the last thing you want is to be tied to long-term contracts that only made sense in an out-of-date run environment.

Consider the case of Corey Kluber. A lot of Kluber owners are going to be faced with decisions this offseason regarding his future, and when they find a diamond in the rough like him most owners want to keep him on their roster for as long as they can, as a testament to their incredible roto genius.

Kluber was never a highly regarded prospect though. What if his rise to Indians ace is in large part, directly or indirectly, due to the low strike? What if MLB acts to eliminate the low strike? Can he keep putting up elite numbers under those circumstances, or will he suffer a massive regression?

Given the uncertainty over what could happen over the next couple of seasons, in most cases your best course of action will be to keep a player for his option year, or perhaps sign him to a two-year deal, and bank the short-term profits rather than spreading those gains out over a longer stretch.