The alternate title for this article could be “Why You Shouldn’t Rely on Billy Hamilton or Joey Gallo.” While 50-plus steals from Hamilton and 40-plus home runs for Gallo are useful, single category dominators like that are not the best building blocks for winning fantasy baseball rosters.

That’s not to say you have to cross those types of players off your draft board; they can always be taken if the price is right. But the price is rarely right because players like that tend to be overvalued. Fantasy owners feel like they can lock up a solid standing in a particular category simply by drafting a player like that. They’re not necessarily wrong, but there are several problems with that logic.

The first problem is the hole you’re digging for yourself elsewhere when you rely on single category players. Batting averages that range from near .200 to below .250 along with the significant number of plate appearances it takes to rack up the counting stats make a hole in the ratio category out of which you must dig.

Second, if a single-category player misses any significant amount of time due to injury, you’ll quickly find yourself with two massive holes out of which you must dig. Relying on single category players puts you in the precarious position of needing things to go according to plan, which they so rarely do.

Conversely, if you don’t rely on single category contributors, you build much more flexibility into your roster. You free yourself up to add one-dimensional players from the waiver wire if the need arises without having as much concern about the negative impacts they’ll have on other categories. You also free yourself up to be more active in the trade market. More players on your roster will be movable, and you won’t find yourself lacking leverage trying to trade for a player that fills a specific need.

Alright, enough preamble. Let’s go position-by-position and look at specific players to target to build a flexible fantasy roster capable of withstanding the inevitable ebbs and flows of a season. We’re assuming standard 5x5 categories for the purposes of this article (HR, R, RBI, SB AVG).

*All projections referenced are Steamer projections as we continue to hone ours here at Fantasy Alarm. All ADPs references are NFBC ADPs as we await the ADP from Howard Bender’s Mock Draft Army.

Catcher

Catcher is a bit of a weird position to start with given the lower offensive production generally from the position and because steals are essentially a non-factor. That said, there are some players to consider.

Evan Gattis remains catcher-eligible, and he has the potential to be above average in all four non-SB categories, and potentially well above average in three categories. The average projected batting average for catchers projected for 300+ PA is .252. Gattis has only hit below that mark once in the last four seasons with a .246 mark in 2015. He won’t kill you there considering the expectations for the position.

If he stays healthy (he missed roughly a month’s worth of games last season) and if he can earn something closer to 400 PA as opposed to the 325 he got last year, he could be a solid counting category contributor. The lineup around him is great, so extra PAs would lead to solid R/RBI totals, and he’s due for a bounce back from an 11.2 percent HR/FB rate last season with a career HR/FB rate of 17.4 percent.

In deeper leagues or two-catcher leagues, James McCann is the type of guy to keep in mind. At best, Steamer projects him to provide average production in each category relative to the position, but of the 28 catchers projected for 300+ PA, he’s not projected to finish lower than 17th in any of the four non-steal categories.

First Base

Paul Goldschmidt is perhaps the poster boy of multi-category contributors. He has 15 steals or more in five of his six full seasons, and he peaked with 32 steals in 2016. Among first basemen projected for 400+ PA, the average projected steal total is 4.3 steals. With Goldschmidt a good bet to get you at least 15 steals, he’s providing a kind of excess value that can keep you from having to rely on single-category steals contributors. He’s worthy of his #1 ADP at the position.

Carlos Santana is not sexy in that he’s not going to provide significantly above average production in any single category, but he’s not going to hurt you anywhere. He used to be a drag on batting average, but he has cut his strikeout rate down to 14 percent in the last two seasons from 18 percent in the two seasons prior. That has helped raise his average to .259 in consecutive seasons, which is just a hair below the average projected batting average for the position. Moving from Cleveland to Philly could hurt his R/RBI totals given the lesser lineup around him, but a move up in the batting order (he hit sixth in the lineup most often last season) should offset the less talented teammates.

Second Base

Rougned Odor hit .204 last season. That’s obviously a concern. But he’s only 24 years old and is still a career .247 hitter, so it’s not a stretch to imagine him only being a below average ratio contributor rather than a black hole. And if Odor can get his batting average out of black hole territory, he’s a devastating multi-category contributor. He has at least 30 home runs, 14 steals and 150 R+RBI in consecutive seasons. If he keeps that up and hits, say, .247, he’s a top-seven, borderline top-five second baseman.

Third Base

Evan Longoria is a name that sticks out at third base as an undervalued multi-category contributor, and he’s similar in age range to Gattis, Goldschmidt and Santana. While it’s reasonable to assume declining production from players as they age, guys who can help in multiple categories will retain more fantasy value than the slugger who sees his production in his one dominant category begin to slip.

Longo’s move to San Francisco shouldn’t hurt too much given the tough ball park he has been playing in. He should hit in the middle of the Giants lineup and is a safe bet for something like .265/24 HR/75 R/85 RBI.

Shortstop

Jorge Polanco established himself as an everyday player last season with 544 PA. He hit in the bottom half of the lineup for most of the season, but from the end of August on he primarily hit in the three-hole. A move to the top half of the order full time in 2018 could help him crack 600 PA for the first time. The added PAs would allow him to improve on already well-rounded counting category numbers as he finished with 13 HR, 13 SB, 60 runs and 74 RBI last season. He only hit .256 thanks to a 50-point drop in BABIP from the small sample the season prior. But he cut his strikeout rate and increased his walk rate, so he could easily hit .270 or better next season provided he avoids bad luck in the BABIP department.

Outfield

Quick shouts to Mike Trout who is the only player Steamer projects to finish more than one standard deviation above the mean in every category relative to other players at his position. Long may he reign.

A.J. Pollock’s value is largely dependent on his health, but if he can crack 600 PA, he has top-10 outfielder potential. As Steamer has him projected, his 21 home runs and 75 RBI are right around average production for outfielders projected for more than 400 PA. But his contributions in average, runs and steals are all more than one standard deviation above the mean. In other words, his worst categorical production will be average, and his best categorical production will be significantly better than average. He’s risky, but the upside is serious.

Willie Calhoun won’t run much, but the impending rookie is a good bet to do everything else. The Rangers appear set to go with Calhoun as their regular left fielder this season, which means he should see 550-600 PA. If he gets that much work, 80-plus runs and RBI and 25-plus home runs are in play. He hit over .300 in 500-plus PA at Triple-A while showing excellent plate discipline, so he should be a well above average contributor in that category as well. We hate to get ahead of ourselves here, but that kind of well-rounded production would make for a top-25 fantasy outfielder.