We are still a few weeks away from “normal” draft season. Some of us are doing a lot of these draft-and-hold and best-ball drafts right now, but the bulk of the traditional fantasy drafts will start in March.
It’s time to get into some of these classic posts where I help you guys who play in non-standard category leagues. One popular category change is moving off of batting average onto on-base percentage. I like this league setup. In fact, it makes more sense than the standard!
I have done this by utilizing the FanGraphs auction calculator with the Bat X projections. I had it generate 5x5 auction values, first for batting and then for OBP, and then I compared the two. I’m focused only on the hitters going inside the top 350 ADP.
I’ll give you the biggest differentials at each position. What we’ll see below is a bunch of guys with high walk rates. Let’s get into it.
Catcher
Gainers
Willson Contreras
Cal Raleigh
Sean Murphy
Willson Contreras projects for the second-highest walk rate at the position (10.5%) behind Adley. He moves up nine slots (note: those are overall ranks among hitters, not position-specific). Cal Raleigh (10.2% BB%) and Sean Murphy (9.5%) are right there with him, moving up nine slots each.
Losers
Yainer Diaz
Gabriel Moreno
Salvador Perez
You have your three free-swinging catchers at the bottom here. All three of these guys project under a 5.5% walk rate.