The pitcher rankings! My favorite. There are just so many of them, and so many different ways to project and predict. Do you focus on injuries and their likelihood? Do you focus on performance? Are you risk-averse and like veterans, or do you go for broke and get the young guys?

As usual, the best approach is probably to mix it up. Get an older, undervalued guy — could be Jered Weaver or Roy Halladay, depending on which ranker you ask. Get a hot young prospect — Jeff Samardzija, Marco Estrada or Matt Harvey perhaps? Get an injury risk — maybe Jake Peavy or or Brandon Morrow? And throw in a ground-ball dude with lower upside like Trevor Cahill or Tim Hudson for good measure. Hey, I don’t mind this mythical staff we’ve just created, and it wouldn’t be impossible to draft it.

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Starting pitching is an area of strength for the Detroit Tigers as they enter the 2013 season, and from a fantasy perspective, Detroit is one of the rare teams that has value one through five. Four slots in this rotation are sewn up, and it’s debatable whether there’s an actual battle for the fifth slot in the rotation. But whoever loses that battle obviously takes a hit to their short-term value. The Tigers didn’t really bring in anyone else to push for a spot in the rotation during Spring, so the picture is pretty clear.

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Last season the Milwaukee Brewers bullpen posted the highest ERA of any major league team. As a group, their collective BABIP and their strand rate were both second worst, beating out only the Houston Astros and New York Mets respectively. The Brewers also posted the second most meltdowns in the league (only the hapless Rockies managed to have more, and they were in the stratosphere of awful, coming in with 102 meltdowns. Yes, 102. That isn’t a misprint). Despite their struggles, there is plenty of reason for hope for not just saves, but solid ratios from the Brewers pen this coming season.
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Back in the seventeenth century, French philosopher-mathematician Blaise Pascal contributed to the foundations of calculus, probability theory, physics, the scientific method, and the mullet. He also left a lot of stray papers an stray ideas around after he died, one of which has become known as Pascal’s Wager. His idea, which is the first recorded modern example of game theory, can be paraphrased as follows:

Suppose there are two states, there being a god and there not being one. Also suppose that you have two choices: believe in Him or don’t. You have to choose. There are four possible results.

You believe in God, and he exists: eternity in heaven, worth infinite points.

You believe in God, and he doesn’t exist: you waste time praying. Worth a small, finite number of negative points.

You don’t believe in God, and he doesn’t exist: you get a few extra hours each week to watch football. Worth a small, finite number of positive points.

You don’t believe in God, and he does exist: brimstone.

Having laid all these out, Pascal’s premise is pretty simple: negative infinity is pretty lame, and positive infinity is pretty good, so you may as well choose the side that leans toward the positive side, whether it turns out right or not. Thus, God.

Pascal’s Wager has had its critics over the years, but it still stands as a solid theory for pragmatism – given the choices beyond your control, do what works best – as well as a rousing endorsement for drafting Brandon Beachy in your head-to-head fantasy league this year.

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The White Sox outfield is returning all three starters from the 2012 season and none of them seem to be in danger of losing any playing time, given the lack of experienced and/or talented depth behind them. That means we can focus primarily on their overall fantasy value rather than what they must do to maintain their current status on the depth chart. Obviously, should someone completely tank it, we can visit the ‘what if’, but at this point, that doesn’t seem necessary or productive. Read the rest of this entry »

Signing Jeff Keppinger to play third base was the Chicago White Sox’s biggest move of the offseason. That tells you two things. It shows that the team will sport a similar lineup to last season, and it also tells you just how uneventful the past few months have been for the club. The only other change to infield personnel comes at catcher, where Tyler Flowers will finally get a chance to show what he can do in a full-time role. While it’s hard to see any breakout candidates in the White Sox’s infield, they do offer some reliable veteran options.

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As a FanGraphs reader, you are no doubt familiar with the many projection systems we display statistical lines from on the player pages of the site. These are fantastic models and I have mentioned many times how big a fan of the Steamer pitcher forecasts I am. Unfortunately, it is thought that these systems only have around a 70% accuracy rate, which may or may not seem high to you. The belief is that any additional factors added to the computer models will barely move the needle, so hope for an 80%+ success rate should probably be given up. That said, there are many reasons why these models cannot become better at projecting players, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that we are dealing with human beings and no matter how much data we have, sometimes that .001% event happens. Projection systems have weaknesses and they are pretty easy to identify. Let’s discuss them, shall we?

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The outfield is always a bear. So many dang players. We’ve got 114 ranked, and another 16 mentioned, which should get you all the way through your five-outfield twenty-team league and then one or two.

But a word first about our rankers and our rankings. One of the reasons we’re using four rankers is, as I said, to do a mini crowd-source. (I do like the idea of opening it up to our fans, so we’ll see about that as a long-term plan, by the way.) Something was made of a certain ranking of Chase Headley in the third basemen — but that ranking dragged the Padres’ hot corner man up one spot in the consensus. Seems like folly to make such a big deal about one spot, and, in a way, it represents the fact that some drafters out there will believe in Chase Headley too. Heck, our own xHR/FB analysis believes in Chase Headley.

But that’s enough about third basemen. Here, no doubt some of you will be upset about a certain ranking of Giancarlo Stanton. Well guess what. That ranking might have cost the powerful Stanton two spots in the rankings at most. And! Stanton doesn’t steal bases, has a high strikeout rate that could lead to a bad batting average, and is coming off a year in which he saw knee surgery. You could tell the story of Justin Upton, who has power, speed, and the ability to hit .300 — is it crazy to put him ahead of a possible one-category guy on a bad team?

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The Cubs are in the middle of a major rebuild, and that includes the bullpen. The club doesn’t have an obvious long-term closer or any other relievers that make you think they’ll be part of the next great Cubs team without a big step forward. That doesn’t make it a bad bullpen unit though, nor does it mean they lack fantasy-relevant arms. In fact, Chicago has several interesting relievers (and potential starters who may wind up relievers) worth having on your roster. The new front office regime stockpiled some nice arms this past offseason.

Closer
Carlos Marmol

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Over the last few days, my compatriots four of my compatriots have begun presenting you with an extremely valuable draft tool: consensus positional rankings. But for those of you who play ottoneu, things differ a bit, especially if you are in a 4×4 or Points League.

Starting today, I am going to take a look at those rankings and let you know where ottoneu players should take a different stance.

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