The Stolen Base Theory
Feb 5th, 2008 by winabango
Recently I had the opportunity to complete a guest article for the MLB Front Office site on my theory of drafting for stolen bases. Brad posted the article today, and you can view it here.
Take a read of it, and let me know what you think about it in the comments section of this post. I am curious what your theories are for drafting for categories.
Here’s why I don’t agree: if you chose this path last year you would have lost out in stolen bases. Of course you should draft speed/power guys when you can, but I don’t agree people like Chone Figgins in the 5th can hurt you. If you tried this theory last year and opted for one-dimensional steal guys late, you would have been burned. I drafted Crawford and Figgins, won stolen bases in my league, while my competitors waited on speed thinking they could get solid steal guys late like Nook Logan, Chris Duffy, Dave Roberts, Scott Podsednik, Taveras, Chris Burke, Ryan Freel etc. These guys burnt owners big-time last year, and by the end of the season ppl were offering me a king’s ransom for Figgins. The point is people like brian roberts, crawford, Figgins, Pierre etc get their large stolen base totals year after year and that is very valuable and worth paying for.
I understand your view, but those owners selected the wrong players. Most of the players that you list either had injuries (Taveras, Roberts, Duffy, Freel) which you cannot account for. Or they had crappy peripheral stats (Pods, Logan, Burke) that should have told them to not draft them.
The main point that I was trying to get across is that the players that can do both (power and speed) are far more valuable then a one dimensional speed player. I also won steals in one of my leagues, and I had only one player over 30 steals for the year. At the same time I finished 3rd in the Home run category. I would have won the league if my pitching had not tanked during the second half.