After getting started with middle infield last week, this week we move on to outfield. Why start with those two spots? Because they are huge lists and I want to get them done. Rock solid logic, there. Outfield is also an interesting position over the years, as it has varied between feeling deep and feeling shallow. This year, between the emergence of guys like Kyle Stowers, Tyler Soderstrom, Roman Anthony, and James Wood and the re-emergence of guys like George Springer and Cody Bellinger, it feels like it is trending back towards “deep” and that makes it a fun position to think about for auctions.

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This list might have caused me more consternation than any other (important note: I haven’t looked at SP yet and that one is always painful). There are question marks up and down the rankings and the number of players who look like they could be sure-fire, high-quality starters but could also be high-risk busts is really high. Is the position deep? Is it shallow? Is it going to be easy to find a third basemen or will we all be dreading lineup decisions by May?

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As we move into the final weeks before the keeper deadline, it’s time to get our Ottoneu rankings out. Over the next three plus weeks, you’ll get regular rankings articles from me and from Jake Mailhot, as discussed in my rankings preview in December. I will post my 4×4 tiered rankings position-by-position, and follow up that day or the next with rankings for FanGraphs Points league. On the 4×4 articles, I’ll give some overall thoughts on the position, while in the FanGraphs Points articles, I’ll offer thoughts on how the position looks different for 5×5 and Head-to-Head leagues. Jake’s FanGraphs points rankings will come out the day after my 4×4 rankings. We’re starting with middle infield.

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As we continue our race against time (gotta get these in before you need to make final cut decisions!), Jake and I will turn our attention to catcher today and tomorrow. Catcher has been a weird position the last few years. Traditionally a weak fantasy position, it has gotten a lot stronger. But every year around this time, I feel like it is deeper than ever and every September, I look back at a slew of disappointments. And yes, it is deeper than it used to be, but that doesn’t mean it is all that great.

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With the Ottoneu keeper deadline on January 31, it is possible for auctions for established leagues to start as soon as February 1. In practice, they rarely do, but there are a few auctions either underway (slow auctions taking some time to finish up) or completed, and that gives us a chance to learn quite a bit.

Earlier in the offseason, there were some mock auctions and some first-year auctions for new leagues, but those don’t behave like keeper auctions. Now that we have a few keeper auctions, we can start to get a sense of how your keeper drafts – whether they are Ottoneu auctions or drafts in another format – might behave.

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With the Super Bowl behind us and pitchers and catchers already in camp, fantasy draft season is officially in full swing. That means it is time to update the Average Draft Position (ADP) data we use on FanGraphs.

FanGraphs pulls in ADP data from the NFBC and displays it in a few places on the site where it can be useful to our readers:

• Auction Calculator outputs
• Fantasy Player Rater outputs
• “Fantasy” tab on projections leaderboards
• Tables in our rankings columns

As of today, the first three will all show NFBC ADP for Online Championships. ADP shown on rankings articles will update when those rankings are next updated and this will be noted in the changelog on each piece.

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We flipped the script this week, with Jake Mailhot posting his FanGraphs Points reliever ranks before I posted my 4×4 ranks, but I still wanted to provide my ranks. I am also going to make this article – the last of the ranks before the keeper deadline this weekend! – pull double duty. In addition to my 4×4 tiers, I am going to share my thoughts on Points and 5×5 leagues, as well as head-to-head, rather than doing a full follow-up article. All the same great taste now packed into a single bite.

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After a series of these follow-up articles on hitters, we turn our attention to pitchers and all that stuff I said about how the various formats differ from each other gets thrown out the window. Kind of. The formats are still different but they are different in different ways. And so if you have been reading along this month, forget what you think you know, because we are basically starting over.

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We are winding down towards the end of this series and we have landed on (in my opinion) one of the least interesting of these “follow up” articles. The cross-format comparisons are most interesting at positions where variations in player values are the greatest. Shortstop or outfield, for example, are full of guys who run, guys who mash, guys who do a bit of both. There are players at a lot of positions who stay on the field thanks to their defense, creating an opportunity for volume-based value that their bat doesn’t carry alone. But at first base and util? Not so much.

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Long weekends are great for quick family trips, maybe some skiing, perhaps just a little extra rest, or the rare Sunday night out. But they are not great for keeping up the pace of rankings articles! Nothing on Monday! Short week! The deadline is coming! But never fear, we are still on track, and today I follow up my third base rankings for 4×4 with a look at all the other Ottoneu formats.

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