2B Rankings: Process and Thoughts

Eno Sarris just published the Rotographs 2012 composite rankings for 2B. I will be concentrating on covering 2B for this upcoming season. Besides over analyzing 2B, I will contributing to the composite rankings. Today, I am going to go over some of my thoughts on the initial rankings and then give an overview of how I ranked the players.

2B Rankings

-The four of us are in general agreement over the first 6 picks with not one ranking really diverging. The first disagreement happens at the 7th and 8th spot where Eno likes Rickie Weeks more than the rest of us and he is not fond of Howie Kendrick.

– Chase Utley has the first 10+ difference in the ranking with Mike P. going with him at #6 and Zach S. having him at #20. I understand these differences completely. Utley could be an elite 2B if he is healthy. That is a big IF. He could be lucky to reach 100 PAs.

– Jose Altuve is another player with a large range of values with 9th being the highest and 22nd being the lowest ranking. This range has more to do with determining his actually talent level than health as was the case with Utley.

– Michael Young and Michael Cuddyer both played some 2B in 2011, but didn’t get the 20 games at required by some fantasy formats. Mike P. ranked his 2B without those two. It is key to remember the league rules for games played when looking at rankings.

Process For My Rankings (Hitters)

My rankings for this season will be 99.9% automated. I am using the player projections available at Fangraphs to create a composite projection. When the regular season starts, I will be using a combination of the players projection and year-to-date stats to continue my rankings.

For the rankings, I took the Steamer, Bill James, ZiPS, RotoChamp and Fans projections available here are Fangraphs. First I turned HRs, SBs, RBIs and Runs into rate stats. Then, I multiplied an average of the rate stats (including AVG) by the playing time set by the Fans. I figured the Fans would have a better grasp of a player’s playing time. Finally, I ranked all the players using Zack Sanders’ revised ranking method. I have made all the players’ stats and ranking available on a Google Doc.

I mentioned that I used this method for 99.9% of the data. I made a few hand additions with the pitchers. Some pitchers signed from Japan (not in our database) or others had their role changed (Bard or Myers).

Also, my preseason rankings will be in flux since the inputs will always be changing. For example, after I submitted my rankings, Marcel projections were added to the Fangraphs. Also, the values from the Fans will be constantly in flux.

During the season, my rankings will become a combination of the preseason projections and the season stats. I will weight the values so the stats will be close to the player’s projected stats for next season. Basically, it is the player’s true talent level at any given time.

Feel free to let me know of any way we can improve the ranking system. I feel we have made a some marketed improvements in the ranking system, but we would always like to be better.