Informed Main Event Category Targets

Most experienced fantasy baseball managers have looked at 80% targets for the various fantasy contests we’re pursuing. For the uninitiated, the idea is that if you aim for capturing 80% of the points in your fantasy baseball league, you’re in excellent shape to win or at least be strongly in contention. 

Similarly, for NFBC contests, if you gain 80% of the overall contest points, you have a very good chance of not only winning your individual league, but also finishing in the top overall standings and earning more money. In 2023, for example, achieving 80% of the points in each of the 10 rotisserie categories would have yielded 6,360 overall points and netted a fantasy manager 14th place overall in the Main Event (and just to make it more enticing, here is the trophy you would have won)!

Now, you might be wondering – that’s great, but what do you mean by “informed” targets? (This question, posed by the FTN editorial staff, led me to this detailed response…) 

What I meant was, we don’t have to shoot for the 80% level on each of the 10 categories. Maybe there’s a better way, one that was used by folks who actually cashed in the overall of the Main Event! Everyone in the top 10 had wonderful overall scores, but of course they didn’t hit 80% on each of 10 categories. Sure, each fantasy team achieves a top score in a different way, but maybe we can discern a pattern that will help us in constructing our fantasy rosters? Maybe? Let’s look at this together…

What Years to Include for Overall Finish Information?

I am forced to admit that Steve Weimer, who is admittedly much smarter than me, wrote an in-depth piece in the FTN Draft Guide discussing how to weigh the rotisserie categories based on scarcity of a players’ output. For FTN subscribers, it may be a good idea to review this article before your most important draft(s). 

So with that said, let’s consider which information to pull for this exercise, and of course, the best approach in general is to carefully examine a multi-year analysis. But as I thought about this (actual footage of me thinking about this is below), it seemed that I’d be examining years that would be wholly different from the 2024 baseball season. 

As we all know, there were some significant rule changes in 2023, most notably:

• A pitch timer
• Limit on pitcher disengagements from the rubber
• Defensive shift limits
• Larger bases

These served to change the statistical output of major league baseball, generally in a positive way for the offense, as stolen bases rose sharply and batting average improved. So in my mind, but perhaps not in the mind of all FTN fantasy baseball staffers, the only reasonable comparison to the upcoming 2024 season is 2023. Diluting the statistics with 2022 and earlier would make the analysis less helpful in my opinion.

So given that decision, let’s look at the top-10 overall Main Event finishers from 2023 and the percentage of points they earned in each category. I showed the best overall output at the top of the chart, and then the percentage that each of the 10 teams earned in the various rotisserie categories in the body of the chart.

Hitting Categories

First, you must admit that these are pretty gaudy point totals all throughout the chart. There were 795 Main Event teams last year, so getting 700-plus points in any category was truly outstanding. But I’ve shaded above the categories where a particular top-10 overall team did not achieve the 80% level. As it turns out, there were only 14 of the 50 individual offensive categories above that were below 80%.

But instead of focusing on the team performances in the top 10, let’s look at the category performance for the group as a whole. For runs, all 10 teams were above 80% and only two teams earned points below 700. That indicates that the runs scored category seems critical to success (it also is the highest offensive category as a group, at 740.6 points).

The next-highest point total belongs to RBIs, at 717.1 points, 81.1 over the 80% threshold. These top two categories, sometimes slightly less emphasized by fantasy baseball managers, look like the most important to ultimate success in terms of offense. 

The home run category is in third place. This one receives lots of attention and is of course very helpful in generating both runs and RBIs. But I find it interesting that these top-10 teams, while they did very well in homers, did not dominate to the same extent as they did in runs  and RBIs. It seems they rostered players who were highly productive without relying on the home run ball.

The final two offensive scoring categories are the ones that had the (relatively) poorest performance from the top 10 in the 2023 Main Event. Batting average and stolen bases were both under the 80% level even for this lofty group, at 614.7 and 603.7 points, respectively (80% exactly is 636 points). So the top 10 were competitive in these categories but not dominant. In fact, five of the 10 top teams were below 636 points, with a few recording point totals in the 500s and 400s (and Team 4 had only 389 points in steals)!

Finally, take a look at the at bat levels for the top-10 fantasy teams from last year’s Main Event. As I noted, all 10 of these teams averaged within 4.5% of the very top level of at bats out of all 795 teams, and none were below 93.0% of that contest-leading level.

Pitching Categories

Once again, these point totals are outstanding. In pitching, only 11 of the 50 individual rotisserie categories were below 80% – even fewer than on the hitting side. Leading the way was, surprisingly to me, ERA. This category catches lots of flak in the fantasy community because it’s so noisy and not easy to predict, but it makes sense to me. In order to spike a great fantasy season, you need pitchers who are going to overachieve with a little bit of luck in this category. All 10 top teams scored more than 80% in this category. Taken in conjunction with its sister category WHIP, these ran one-two and formed the bedrock of point scoring for these fantasy teams. You want to do well in the overall competition? It looks like you need excellent ratios to do so – at 738.4 and 708.4 points, respectively.

The next-highest point total belongs to strikeouts, at 704.1 points, 68.1 over the 80% threshold. I find this category is always a focus of experienced fantasy baseball managers, and it seems appropriate here. 

The final two pitching categories are the ones that had the (relatively) poorest performance from the top 10 in the 2023 Main Event. However, wins and saves were both above the 80% level for this group at 671.0 and 659.0, respectively. This does not fit my “luck” theory. Wins could be the luckiest stat in rotisserie baseball, so I would have expected the best overall fantasy teams to get lots of breaks and earn top points in Wins. But in reality, the top 10 were competitive in these last two categories but not dominant, with 7 of the 20 scores below 636 points and a few recording point totals in the 500s and one in the 400s (Team 2 had only 454.5 points in saves).

Finally, the innings pitched levels for the top-10 fantasy teams from last year’s Main Event show that, while this is not as important as at bats, the top teams nevertheless averaged within 12.8% of the Main Event team that recorded the most innings pitched. None were below 80% of this top overall innings pitched amount, and most were within 15% of that level.  

Takeaways

So what can we take away from this? It is my contention that the counting stats are the most important offensive stats. Sure, they are all related to some degree, but if you accumulate lots of runs scored in particular, you are in good shape in your league (and in any overall competition). For pitching, pay particular attention to ratios. Try not to roster too many pitchers with a 1.50-plus WHIP (see my most highly rostered ace pitcher as an example below).

In addition, pay attention throughout the season to your at bat and innings pitched levels. You need plate appearances and innings pitched in order to have a chance to cash in the overall. Sure, let’s try not to have lousy at bats or innings, but I’ll pontificate that if you don’t accumulate, you cannot dominate. And that should resonate.