With three Rays on my fantasy team, I was the happy recipient of a healthy portion of the many runs, home runs, and RBI in their 15-3 win over the Marlins yesterday. I got a similar boost from their 13-4 win over the Angels on June 9th. The two recent examples have me thinking: is it a viable strategy to pursue multiple players in a single lineup in order to capture as many stats as possible from one baseball team?

To start with, I would assume that a lot of the benefit of such a strategy depends on which lineup we’re talking about. A number of players on the red-hot Rays or the top-of-the-league Cubs (an example I’ll come back to in a minute) would intuitively seem to produce more for your fantasy team than a collection of players from, say, the Giants or the Nationals.

But in the case of the Rays, the three players I’m talking about–Dioner Navarro, Evan Longoria, and Carl Crawford–are players most managers would likely want on their team anyway. And, taking the two previously mentioned games as examples, they help not only by being star performers, but by batting together in a very successful offense.

Yesterday, Carl Crawford hit a three-run home run and a solo home run, and knocked in a fifth RBI on a sacrifice grounder. Longoria hit a two-run home run and an RBI single, and scored on a Gabe Gross single. Navarro scored on a fielder’s choice. Altogether, the three gave my team five runs (out of a team total of fifteen), three home runs (out of four), and eight (of thirteen) RBI. On June 9th, those three provided nine of thirteen runs, three of four home runs, and seven of thirteen RBI.

This effect (which, I’ll grant before I’ve tested it, might be illusory) might be a benefit limited to head-to-head leagues, where a big one-day boost can keep a team just enough ahead to win a few categories, compared to roto or points leagues, where the effect of such spikes would be expected to even out over the course of the season. But for now I’ll stay with the current examples from my league.

My team has a current total of 353 R, 91 HR, 371 RBI, and 52 SB. Of those, my three Rays have produced 103 R, 24 HR, 108 RBI, and 22 SB, or a little less than a third of each category–maybe what you would expect from a third of the nine roster slots we use for batters in this league. To take another example, there is a team in the league with four Cubs batters: Geovany Soto, Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, and Mark DeRosa. That team’s totals are 383 R, 85 HR, 359 RBI, and 55 SB, of which the Cubs have provided 172 R, 48 HR, 184 RBI, and 8 SB, or about half in all categories (except steals), from a little less than half the roster.

One last example: another team, with 342 R, 71 HR, 292 RBI, and 37 SB, has four Tigers–Ivan Rodriguez, Carlos Guillen, Magglio Ordonez, and Curtis Granderson–who have together provided 142 R, 31 HR, 139 RBI, and 16 SB. Again, a little less than half, about what you might expect from a little less than half of the roster.

These quick tests seem to show that there’s not necessarily an inherent benefit to having fantasy players from the same team. All the same, it would help to have a look at more data: not just from one league, and not just from one portion of the season. Likewise, to isolate any possible effect of owning “fantasy teammates,” I would want to take the production from a group of players on the same team and compare it to the production of the same number of random players on the same team. I will dig deeper into both of these considerations over the next week or so.

To go back to the original question, whether it is a viable strategy to pursue multiple players in a single lineup, I would guess any effect that might be found would amount to a “why not?” final consideration when evaluating players of a similar value (and not a recommendation to add inferior players simply for their presence on a “good team”)–why not add the one you happen to have a teammate of already on your team?

Anyway, rather than simply rely on such gut feelings or hypotheses, I’m hoping to test the question with some more analysis. Also, I hope the inchoate nature of my thinking on this hasn’t kept me from adequately explaining my thought process. But in the meantime, I’ll pose the questions to you: do you think there may be benefits to loading up with players from the same lineup? Are there better ways to test for the existence of such benefits?