BATTING: Batters as Roto teams

Not long ago, a discussion broke out on the BaseballHQ.com subscriber forums about one of the Cy Young races this season.

One post in that discussion approached the question from the point of view of Roto-value, asking, “What if each pitcher was a Roto team unto himself?”

In the post, the ranking was done using skill metrics (putting Félix Hernández and Justin Verlander on top, with surprises Doug Fister and Colby Lewis also in the Top 10).

We’ll repeat that approach later in this essay. But we thought it would be interesting to start by identifying the top batters using standard 5x5 categories. One wrinkle: Instead of BA, we ranked batters by how much their BA would add or subtract from a .270-hitting Roto team with 6,000...

Almost!

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