Roto One-Tooler Award

In a runaway win, the player with the most value from a single tool easily goes to Billy Hamilton and his 57 SB. He was completely useless otherwise for his fantasy owners with a .226 AVG (.274 OBP), 56 Runs, 28 RBI, and 4 HR in 114 games. Even with those horrible numbers, he ended up 88th (~7th rounder) in ESPN’s Player Rater ahead of Robinson Cano, Jason Kipnis, and Alex Rodriguez. Those 57 SB are gold though with teams now running less and less.

In a 20 team, 40 man roster league I am in, his steals carried me to a 5th place finish in stolen bases. Without his steals, I would have dropped to 16th in the category. Using the same above link to ESPN’s Player Rater, three of the top 10 fantasy players (Dee Gordon, A.J. Pollock and Jose Altuve) got a huge boosts from their stolen base numbers. The difference between these three and Hamilton is they provided positive value with their batting average and other counting stats.

People don’t like paying a lot for one-trick speedsters or any speedster for that matter, but they are harder and harder to find off the waiver wire as Paul Sporer noted recently. It is just not hard to find stolen bases off the waiver wire, it is hard to find them to start the season. Here is a graph of the top 100 stolen base totals and the top 100 home run totals from 2015.

In total, 64 hitters were able to get to 20 home runs. Less than half that number (30) got 20 stolen bases. It is just about impossible to make a late move with steals with only maybe a player or two being on the waiver wire who can provide 10 second half bases.

In my opinion, the problem must be addressed two in two ways.

Aim for one of the big fish

In the above chart, a select few players’ stolen base totals are above the home run line like Dee Gordon, A.J. Pollock and Jose Altuve. These players can move on owner’s stolen base total quite a bit. It might seem unconventional to pick up a stolen base player early, but an owner may not get a chance later on. Additionally, these high average, high stolen base can be paired with a low average, high home run slugger to make a great composite player.

Make sure to keep track of your team’s projected stolen base total. An owner doesn’t want to blow out the category, especially by a large margin. These extra stats are a wasted. Players can be traded, but it is best, IMO, to aim for the #2 spot and use your resources otherwise.

Keep track and overpay if needed

In a draft or auction, I like to diligently keep track of two items, home runs and stolen bases. I find it is about impossible to make up ground in these categories later in the season. The draft/auction procedure is simple.

• Set a stolen base total goal. The goal can be the top player or just the middle of the pack. Just set a goal.
• Rank the top players in each category depending on the league size. Have this sheet available to access as the draft goes on.
• Divided the total of needed stolen bases by the number of players you can play at a time. This is the amount of home runs and stolen base you should add with each player picked up.
• With each pick, add up their stolen base numbers. If you are ahead of the projected total, add some home runs. If behind, look to the top ranked stolen base players and pick one up.

It is easier to use this method in an auction where you nominate any player instead needing to take the overall value into consideration. An owner may be getting near the 7th round and are ~40 stolen bases behind their goal and Billy Hamilton is still available. He may be the quickest way to catch up to your goal.

Billy Hamilton’s one tool may make him seem undesirable, but his stolen bases can make a huge difference in a league’s standings. With stolen bases getting rarer and rarer in the game, they just can’t be acquired on the waiver wire. Every team needs to come into the season with a plan to at least get a baseline number to keep from punting the category.





Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.

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Anon
8 years ago

Something to keep an eye on with Hamilton – he has talked about ditching switch-hitting during this upcoming offseason. I kind of wonder if he can just concentrate on one side and become even merely a below average hitter rather than genuinely horrible, he would absolutely be fantasy gold because he might threaten 100 SB (and 100 R as well since he scores a VERY high % of the time he gets on).

MustBunique
8 years ago
Reply to  Anon

Switch hitting and Billy Hamilton is a very interesting subject. Was the initial intent to give Hamilton an even bigger advantage out of the box from the left side? This seems to be the majority opinion. Or was it to minimize a hole in his game in R v R matchups? Not a Reds fan, so I would be interested to hear how this whole thing developed.