Points Leagues: Kick Me In The Jimmy Rollins

Unlike roto leagues, most points leagues “kick you in the Jimmy” for strikeouts. In a roto league a strikeout is no different than a ground out, a fly out, a pop out, a line out, or making contact with one foot completely outside the batters box. It’s just another out. While it doesn’t help your batting average, there is no additional penalty for being sent down on strikes.

In points leagues, however, strikeouts can have quite the detrimental effect on the overall value of a hitter. And depending on the number of points deducted for a strikeout, that effect can easily shift a roto-stud to a points league dud. Most leagues usually subtract either half a point or a full point for a strikeout. In leagues that take the full point, you are going to have some frustrating weeks if you own any of the strikeout kings of the league.

Let’s take a look at the “Kings of the Missing Swings” of 2014 and see how their propensity to strikeout out damaged their points league value. For this post, I am only considering players that had at least 400 plate appearances. Yes, I prefer plate appearances over at bats. The player with the worst strikeout to plate appearance ratio last year was none other than… Tyler Flowers, who struck out 159 times in 442 plates appearances for a league worst 35.97% strikeout rate. But let’s be honest, who in fantasy baseball gives a shift about Flowers? So let’s look at players of consequence. Coming in at number 4, striking out 173 times in 525 plate appearances (32.95%), is Baltimore’s own Chris Davis. Please make sure to read that last sentence in your best Casey Kasum voice. That’s either 86.5 or 173 points taken away from anyone that owned this 2014 disappointment. Will Davis rebound this year? Maybe. But with a career average strikeout/plate appearance (SO/PA) rate of about 31%, I’ll let him be someone else’s problem in points leagues. Here is a list of the top 30 strikeout artists last season. Short of Mike Trout and Giancarlo Stanton, I’m passing on all of them in points leagues.

Among all hitters with at least 400 plate appearances, the average SO/PA was 18.47 percent. Who were the hitters with the lowest SO/PA? Jimmy Rollins? Not exactly. He actually came in just under the average (under being a good thing) at 16.42 percent. Rollins represents the type of player whose overvalue is not affected by his strikeouts. Casey Kasem alert! Coming in at number 1 with the lowest SO/PA of 6.55 percent, striking out only 42 times in 641 plate appearances was… Victor Martinez. Here are the rest of the top 30. Most of these players make good targets in points leagues.

How about results based on 2015 projections? The projected average SO/PA is 19.45 percent, a tad bit higher than 2014 with Bryan LaHair (34.91%) at the bottom and Breyvic Valera (7.35%) on top. Once again, who in fantasy baseball cares about either of those chumps? Trimming the fat we have Norichika Aoki (8.76%), Ben Revere (8.88%) and Victor Martinez (9.46%) as the players with the best SO/PA. On the flip side Javier Baez (32.55%), Chris Carter (32.34%) and Chris Davis (32.34%) are at the bottom on the barrel.

Here are the top and bottom 50 for 2015 based on projections. I’ve also included the following data. The number of strikeouts each player would have if they struck out the at the average rate (19.45%) amongst players included in this data, their adjusted fantasy points total and the number of points strikeouts are costing each player (-1 point for a strikeout). For players that strikeout less than the average, you will see how they’d be affected if their strikeout rate increased to the average.

High Strikeout Hitters

Low Strikeout Hitters

Listen, we’ve all struck out at some point in our lives, but if you don’t take a chance and step up to the plate you’ll never know what would have happened. However when it comes to fantasy baseball points leagues, I’d prefer to have my guys swing and miss rates be lower than my opponent’s. There’s something very deflating about having your guy hit a home run only to have those homer points mostly negated by 3 strikeouts. Here are few player comparisons where this data helps me make a decision. ADP has a bit to do with it as well.

Freddie Freeman or Albert Pujols? Last year Pujols scored 484 points. Freeman scored 402. This year Pujols is projected to score 432. Freeman is projected to score 412. Pujols is projected to strikeout in 11.31 percent of his plate appearances. Freeman projects to 19.93 percent. Freddie has an ADP of 26.6 and is valued at $23 across ESPN mock drafts. Prince Albert’s ADP is 45.8 and has a value of about $17. And the points league winner is… Albert Pujols.

Ian Kinsler or Anthony Rendon? Last year Kinsler scored 450 points. Rendon scored 462. This year Kinsler is projected to score 411, while Rendon is projected to score 400. As far as points are concerned they are about even. Let’s compare SO/PA rates. Rendon’s rate is 16.06 percent and Kinsler’s is 10.99 percent. And lastly the straw that broke the camel’s back. Rendon’s ADP is 22.6 and his auction value is $24.50. Kinsler is being drafted at 52 with a value just north of $15. I choose Kinsler.

Jay Bruce or Ben Revere? I think you all know who I am picking. Both players are projected to score about 317 points. Last year Revere outpointed Bruce by 94 points. Jay Bruce is projected to strikeout 26 percent of the time as compared to Revere at just under 9 percent. And here’s the kicker. Bruce (101, $11) is valued at $6 more and is being drafted 65 spots ahead of Revere (166, $5). Sign me up for Ben Revere’s ride!

In other related news, I heard that Disney is doing a Star Wars spinoff movie starring Rob Deer, Adam Dunn and Mark Reynolds called The Empire Strikes Out!

Excel spreadsheet…