Looking at the projected WERTH values in your draft planning is a helpful tool to determine who to target and who to avoid. But, let’s not just forget about WERTH values once the season starts. How much should we value someone like Starlin Castro and his 10 SB’s? Just how valuable has Edwin Encarnacion been thus far in comparison to the rest of the league? It’s hard to tell when we’re just looking at one player’s homers and AVG in comparison to a sea of other players so WERTH roto values help tell us just how valuable a player has been in each stat for a roto league by telling us how many points you theoretically would gain in the standings just by owning that player.
In the month of April, the top ten hitters based on roto values have been:
- Matt Kemp
- Josh Hamilton
- Edwin Encarnacion
- Adam Jones
- Ian Kinsler
- Jay Bruce
- Miguel Cabrera
- Curtis Granderson
- Derek Jeter
- David Ortiz
And, there have been the major disappointments from the first round of your drafts such as Albert Pujols (226), Jose Bautista (96), Robinson Cano (123) and Justin Upton (134). To get full perspective on the hitters in the month of April, check out the spreadsheet by downloading it here (or check out the Google Docs version that has some formatting removed).
Aside from being a handy reference in regards to the past month of baseball, this spreadsheet serves another purpose of showing the BABIP and HR/FB of each player so you can see who you might want to buy low or sell high on. Some names that stand out as having abnormally high or low totals in both areas are:
- Matt Kemp (.460 BABIP, 61.1% HR/FB, #1 Rank) – It’s hard to say to sell high on somebody this talented but his value will never be as high as it is now this year. In a seasonal league, you might be able to steal somebody’s entire team at this point by trading away Kemp. If he hit his usual 20% HR/FB rate in April, Kemp would have had just 4 homers as opposed to 12 (he’s had 7 “just enough” HR’s according to HR Tracker). He’s still one of the best in the game but his godly month of April won’t happen all year long.
- Bryan LaHair (.607 BABIP, 33.3% HR/FB, #41 Rank) – This is a guy that you should sell high on. He’s had five homers and 4 of them are of the “just enough” variety. His BABIP is at a ridiculous number which means his AVG will surely drop. And, on top of that, he’s got a 35.7% strikeout rate with a measly 66% contact rate which shows that he has holes in his swing. He could very well still hit 20-25 HR with an okay batting average but his value is at its peak right now.
- Jose Bautista (.179 BABIP, 9.4% HR/FB, #97 Rank) – If Joey Bats hit 20% HR/FB instead of 9.4% then he would have 7 HR’s already. Instead, he’s got 3 with a tiny batting average due to poor BABIP. The time is now to buy low on him. I still think the .300 batting average from 2011 was a fluke but if you get a .250 AVG and 30 HR’s from here on out then that’s got some value if you can swing a good deal for him. Don’t trade for him expecting a .300 AVG but try to get his owner to part ways before the HR’s start coming back.
Feel free to check through the rest of the list and see who else jumps out as these are just a few of the names in the spreadsheet that are marked with big red boxes around their BABIP or HR/FB. With May upon us, the time to start making some key trades has begun.
