Today ESPNs Rob Neyer and Jayson Stark both addressed the issue of the dropoff in homers and overall offense this season. If you think that I'm going to solve the mystery of the missing home runs, then you're terribly wrong but I'd guess that steroid testing has had an impact as well as a ton of cyclical factors.
What the articles did get me to thinking about is the far more important issue of what does this power dropoff mean to me as a fantasy manager.
According to my calculations, home runs have dropped from 2.25 homers per game to 1.97 per game (-12%) and stolen bases have risen from 1.07 to 1.10 (+3%). If these trends continue over the full season, there will be 675 fewer homers hit and 75 more stolen bases. In fantasy terms, what does this mean? Stolen bases are still more rare than homers so your top basestealers still have great value; however the value gap seems to have closed since the overall gap between homers and stolen bases is smaller. But is this in fact the case?
Interestingly the answer is yes and most definitely NO. The answer of yes is because of the inverse relationship between value and homers. The more homers hit, the less value for each one hit as they are far easier to replace. With the decrease in homers, the overall value of each homer hit goes up.
So why NO? Let's take a look at the top 10 and top 20 home run hitters and basestealers to see how much they contibute to the overall totals:
home runs
2004
%
2005
%
change
top 10
433
8%
141
9%
+12%
top 20
799
15%
258
17%
+11%
total MLB
5451
1558
stolen bases
2004
%
2005
%
change
top 10
433
17%
169
19%
+14%
top 20
700
27%
277
32%
+15%
total MLB
2589
869
This chart is very telling as the elite players have actually increased in value because they are accounting for a greater percentage of overall total. In both homers and steals, the top 10 and top 20 have increased their proportionate totals by double-digits. The top base stealers have done so in a bigger way which means that having a Podsednik, Furcal or Figgins will have even more impact in winning a category than a top slugger this season.
In conclusion, while the overall number of homers has decreased, thus increasing the value of each homer hit, the value of the elite hitters and base stealers has actually increased as their share of the overall total has increased. So if you are tempted by an offer for your elite basestealer, remember how difficult how it be to replace those numbers.
If you want more info on a specific player that I didn't go into or if you have any questions, comments or suggestions about this column, please use the comments section below or feel free to e-mail me at cwang@fantasyinfocentral.com.
Fantasy Baseball 
