Would you rather have a $1 keeper who hits 30 HR or gets 30 SB, with batting averages being equal?? This is an interesting theoretical question, and is right up our alley.

Lenny Melnick and Paul Greco, on their podcast, raised an interesting fantasy thought experiment. Lenny asked whether, assuming batting average to be equal, would you rather have a $1 keeper who hits 30 HR or one who gets 30 steals? Since this issue touches all sorts of fantasy theory I thought it would be perfect for discussion.

There are two main considerations, and a whole host of minor ones. The primary considerations are the opportunity cost of each, and the second is the scarcity issue. Opportunity cost is basically the “cost” you pay for choosing one alternative over another. If I am choosing whether to buy an apple or an orange, the apple costs me not only its price, but also the benefit I would have obtained had I chosen a banana. This may be a positive of negative cost, by the way.

Let’s say we choose the 30 steal player. Generally a 30 steal guy (at least insofar as the question was discussed) are non-power hitters. So, they will have less total bases and lower slugging. Since we assume an equal batting average, that means we assume an equal number of hits and at-bats, essentially.

So by choosing the steals, we lose the opportunity cost of the extra bases generated by the power hitter. In a points league or a head to head league, I think the power hitter is clearly preferable because of this. The opportunity cost of passing up these extra points is too high. But if the point structure is such that steals are heavily weighted, then it could even out, but I don’t know of any leagues of this sort that re routinely played.

What do we lose if we choose the power hitter? Aside from losing the steals, I don’t think there are too many other points that can be lost by choosing the power hitter; in almost every offensive category the power hitter will likely do better than the 30 steal guy. We can speculate that perhaps he might have more walks and therefore a higher OBP, or maybe more runs, but there is nothing intrinsic about the steals guy versus the power guy that makes it so.

So if you are in a points league or a head to head league that uses points, the power hitter is preferable.

In a traditional roto format, the only way the steals guy can win is if the scarcity of steals is sufficient that it overcomes the additional benefit of the power guy. According to Sean Lahman’s database at www.baseball1.com in 2006 there were 2,767 stolen bases, and 5,386 homers. So, steals were twice as scarce as homers. This is exactly borne out by the actual data on 30 homer and steal guys; there were 60 guys with 30 HR in 2005 and 2006, but only 30 players with 30 steals.

Given the scarcity, getting a 30 steal guy in traditional roto is far more valuable. In my high stakes league we use SB-CS as a category. Here are the AL team totals (as regular readers know we each have an NL team as well) as of when I started writing this :

SB - CS
86 Team 1
71 Team 2
59 Team 3
47 Team 4
47 Team 5
42 Team 6
40 Team 7
38 Team 8
34 Team 9
30 Team 10
13 Team 11

By himself, the 30 steal guy at $1 (who would have about 20 as of the stat date of 7/25) could move the tenth place team to fourth. Granted, this is not conclusive proof. But given that steals are twice as scarce, the impact of a commodity that is doubly scarce is more than twice as high as the less scarce commodity. And my league’s stats bear this out.

So in traditional roto formats, I would prefer the steals guy. I will admit that I am almost always willing to pay top dollar for speedsters with good batting averages, but will rarely do so for top HR guys, for lots of reasons that i will discuss in the off season (not the least of which is how the markets traditionally values these guys). So, one may argue that I am biased.

Let’s also consider the fact that in an auction league you have $29 to spend. Can you make better use of it to get a HR guy or a steal guy? If you take the $1 steal guy, you have $29 to spend on power. Because there are more 30 homer guys, it will be easier to make up the power using the money. So you are spending money to get help in multiple categories based on the ancillary benefits to other categories that typically come with power hitters.

If you take the $1 HR guy, then you have to buy the steals. Not only is this more difficult, since they are twice as scarce, in spending that money on steals you pass up all of the other offensive benefits that come with the homer guys. So, your money is spent less efficiently buying help in one category.

So I think that in a points league you prefer the power hitter; in an auction league or a traditional roto format you prefer the steals guy.

Your answers may vary, especially if your league has some unique wrinkles.

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