How to determine "consistency" for hitters?

[st3v3k4hn]

I'm playing in a weekly H2H league and I've got a lot of guys who run either very hot or very cold. Overall numbers are good, but in some of those weeks I get crushed. I'm talking about guys like Cody Ross, Jay Bruce and Pedro Alvarez. Good numbers overall, but I'm getting sick of seeing a week of all zeros. Are there any stats dealing with hitting consistency? Or places I can see weekly or monthly stats to try and find more consistent hitters? Or other ways I can tell who might be a better pick for a weekly H2H league? Thanks!
Steve

[OBPlover]

All hitters are going to streak. ALL OF THEM. It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately.

Something you can do to help:

If playing in a league with a deep bench, bench players in unfavorable matchups (e.g. up against an elite pitcher, bad park etc)

[Archibald]

The best you can do is to just investigate weekly matchups. ESPN has a very helpful Forecaster listed in their Fantasy Baseball section posted every weekend. Some batters are just plain streaky but a surprising number actually have very useful splits (LHP vs RHP, Home vs Away, etc) that can be used to your advantage with extended research. It's more work, but the payoff can be big.

This cafe actually had an interesting article related to this that I'd recommend reading: http://www.fantasybaseballcafe.com/2012/tips_worthowning_final.php

[st3v3k4hn]

All hitters are going to streak. ALL OF THEM. It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately.

Something you can do to help:

If playing in a league with a deep bench, bench players in unfavorable matchups (e.g. up against an elite pitcher, bad park etc)

I do try to play favorable matchups, but i dont see how anyone has a deep enough bench to carry platoon guys at many positions (for example to stream John Jaso and someone else at catcher).

Also, obviously hitters are streaky. Thats like saying stocks are volatile. The point is, you can research stocks and find the ones that are least volatile (in the financial world this measure is known as Beta). I dont see why you cant do the same for hitters. Guys like Edgar Martinez rarely put up 0-fer-15 numbers. Jay bruce has done it a bunch this season. Im pretty sure if you just looked at players who had a lot of multiple game hit streaks they would probably be players that were less likely to put up a lot of no hit days. I just wish i could find a way to measure this...

[J35J]

All hitters are going to streak. ALL OF THEM. It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately.

Something you can do to help:

If playing in a league with a deep bench, bench players in unfavorable matchups (e.g. up against an elite pitcher, bad park etc)

I do try to play favorable matchups, but i dont see how anyone has a deep enough bench to carry platoon guys at many positions (for example to stream John Jaso and someone else at catcher).

Also, obviously hitters are streaky. Thats like saying stocks are volatile. The point is, you can research stocks and find the ones that are least volatile (in the financial world this measure is known as Beta). I dont see why you cant do the same for hitters. Guys like Edgar Martinez rarely put up 0-fer-15 numbers. Jay bruce has done it a bunch this season. Im pretty sure if you just looked at players who had a lot of multiple game hit streaks they would probably be players that were less likely to put up a lot of no hit days. I just wish i could find a way to measure this...

Your most consistent hitters will have good walk rates and low strikeout rates. Edgar was a HOF level hitter, of course he's going to be more consistent.

Jay Bruce - Career .255 hitter with a fairly high strikeout rate. Also, a lot of lefties can't hit lefty pitchers so if they see a string of good lefties in a week it could be a bad week for them.
Pedro Alvarez - Career .230 hitter with a high strikeout rate. Also a lefty.
Cody Ross - Career .263 hitter...gotta be able to do more than that if you're expect consistancy.


You can't expect anyone that can't hit .270 consistantly to be a consistant hitter throughout the year. Get a guy who can hit .290+ with a good walk and strikeout rate and you'll have as consistant of a hitter as you can get....aka Edgar Martinez...aka HOF level player....aka there aren't many of them.