When building our fantasy baseball teams, we'd love nothing more than to have every player contribute in every category. As a result, there are a number of players who fall further on draft day than they probably should. The most common player to fit this description are batters with extremely low batting averages. But if properly build into your team, they can provide better value than their draft position should dictate. The key to this is not trying to build the best overall team, but the one that will provide you with the most points in the standings.
Let's take a look at two pairs of players and their stats from 2010. Both sets of players have similar ADPs, but the statistics are decidedly different:
| Player | Position | Round | ADP | H/AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG |
| Matt Holliday | OF | 3rd | 27 | 186/596 | 95 | 28 | 103 | 8 | .312 |
| Mark Reynolds | 3B | 15th | 143 | 99/499 | 79 | 32 | 85 | 7 | .198 |
| Combined | 285/1095 | 174 | 60 | 188 | 15 | .260 |
Now, let's look at a different pairing of players:
| Player | Position | Round | ADP | H/AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG |
| Ryan Zimmerman | 3B | 3rd | 25 | 161/525 | 85 | 25 | 85 | 4 | .307 |
| Carlos Lee | OF | 15th | 144 | 149/605 | 67 | 24 | 89 | 6 | .259 |
| Combined | 310/1130 | 152 | 49 | 174 | 7 | .274 |
The difference between the two pairs of players' 2010 numbers is substantial. While the batting average was basically a difference of between 15 and 17 hits, you would have picked up 22 runs, 11 home runs, 14 runs batted in, and 8 steals. How would these comparisons have turned out so far in 2011?
| Player | Position | Round | ADP | H/AB | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG |
| Holliday/Reynolds | OF/3B | 3rd/15th | 27/143 | 239/940 | 160 | 56 | 154 | 6 | .254 |
| Zimmerman/Lee | 3B/OF | 3rd/15th | 25/144 | 256/911 | 107 | 30 | 134 | 7 | .281 |
| Difference | 25 hits | 53 | 26 | 20 | -1 | -0.024 |
Clearly, they aren't a perfect pair of examples, as Zimmerman missed more time this season than Holliday did, and Lee has performed worse than expected. But the idea holds true that if you're willing to forego some batting average, you can make up a lot of ground in the other categories instead.
The key to the strategy in my opinion is not whether or not you pick the right players, but to make sure you look at how your team is progressing in the draft and remember that just because the batting average is expected to be bad for one player, doesn't mean that they can't help your team.