I took the last two years stats of the top 50 batters as ranked by Yahoo! for the upcoming season, which unfortunately disqualified a couple guys who did not have enough data due to limited playing time or injury (Longoria, Hamilton, Martinez etc...) I then assigned a value to each stat: 1 point per run, 1.5 points per home run, 1 point per RBI, and 2 points per stolen base. Batting average points were calculated by using a simple IF statement in Excel. Batting averages between .295 and .305 were worth 0 points and anything above that was worth 10 points in increments of 10 batting average points. Anything below was -10 points per increment of 10. Ex: A .321 batting average would be worth 20 points and a .281 average would be worth -20 points. While this did not affect the raw scores greatly, it did provide differentiating between hitters and I think was fairly effective. For example, with his .317 average, Hanley Ramirez achieved a score of 361.5, while a .280 average would have given him a score of 301.5- a very significant swing. Finally, to give batting average an equal weighting, I divided all of the counting stats by two (because it is two years worth of stats) before adding in the batting average points. The final formula was ((R*(HR*1.5)*RBI*(SB*2))/2)+BA pts. Unfortunately, I could not come up with an effective way to include position eligibility into the formula, so the results must be taken with a grain of salt (although you can separate the outcomes by position if you which to compare each position individually). 

When I sorted the players by total score, there was not a ton of surprises. The top 15 were as follows:

Alex Rodriguez (376.75)

Hanley Ramirez (361.5)

Matt Holliday (355.75)

David Wright (340.75)

Albert Pujols (329.75)

Jose Reyes (318.5)

Magglio Ordonez (317.5)

Chipper Jones (305.75)

Ichiro Suzuki (296)

Chase Utley (291.25)

Jimmy Rollins (287.75)

Miguel Cabrera (282.25)

Carlos Beltran (279.5)

Ryan Braun (275.25)

Manny Ramirez (273.25)

 

This list makes me believe that I may have weighted batting average too heavily because almost all of these players have averages over .300. However, the only real outliers are Ordonez and Ichiro and this can easily be fixed by adjusting the formula.  

The bottom 5 were:

Hunter Pence (182)

Jermaine Dye (175.5)

Dan Uggla (174.25)

Brian McCann (169.75)

Stephen Drew (130.75)

No surprises there. However, you can see just how much more valuable a guy taken in the first round is than a guy taken in the fifth, as Rodriguez is worth more than twice as much as Dye. Another interesting thing is how the top players like A-Rod and Hanley are worth significantly more than guys taken at the end of the first round like Utley or Braun. Does this mean it is a huge advantage to have one of the top few picks? 

Another cool thing that you can do by making your own rankings formula is the ability to sort the players by points per AB. All you need to do is divide their final scores by the number of AB’s they accumulated. This helps account for guys who missed time due to injury (think Chipper and David Ortiz), or are young and did not get as much playing time as they do now (Braun and Matt Kemp). In my rankings, this allowed Ortiz, Mark Teixeira, Carlos Lee and Lance Berkman to jump into the top 15, knocking out Reyes, Rollins, Ichiro, and H. Ramirez, guys who benefit from getting a lot of plate appearances. You of course have to use your brain here as it does not mean these latter players are not valuable. It is part of their game to accumulate AB’s and stats. However, it is still useful to rank players who should get more AB’s in the upcoming season. Good targets include Braun (ranked 9^th with 0.250 pts/AB), Lee (ranked 13^th with 0.245 pts/AB), and Kemp (ranked 18^th with 0.233 pts/AB).

On the flipside, the bottom 5 players are exactly the same just in a slightly different order. These guys just do not add a lot of value to your fantasy line-up whether they are accumulating AB’s or not. Some guys to be weary of include Garrett Atkins (ranked 44^th with 0.175 pts/AB), and Corey Hart (ranked 41^st with 0.183 pts/AB)

For next time, I am going to take some guys outside the top 50 who I think are undervalued and see how they stack up against the top 50. This could allow me to make a few steals on draft day. I will also tinker with the formula and see how it affects the rankings, and post something about that if I think it is relevant.

Send me an e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I would be happy to send you my excel file if you want to try it out for yourself. 

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Tags: Rankings  Evan Longaria  Josh Hamilton  Vitor Martinez  Hanley Ramirez  Alex Rodriguez  Matt Holliday  David Wright  Albert Pujols  Jose Reyes  Magglio Ordonez  Chipper Jones  Ichiro Suzuki  Chase Utley  JImmy Rollins  Miguel Cabrera  Carlos Beltran  Ryan Braun  Manny Ramirez  Hunter Pence  Jermaine Dye  Dan Uggla  Brian McCann  Stephen Drew  David Ortiz  Matt Kemp  Mark Teixeira  Carlos Lee  Lance Berkman  Garrett Atkins  Corey Hart