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.
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.
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.
By now you are probably getting used to the cadence, but after sharing my tiered catcher rankings for 4×4 leagues yesterday, today you will get my FanGraphs Points leagues tiered catcher rankings, as well as thoughts on the position for other Ottoneu formats.
The rankings beat marches on. Yesterday, you saw my 4×4 rankings for outfield and today I’ll share my FanGraphs Points rankings, as well as thoughts on the other formats.
My 4×4 tiered rankings for middle infield came out yesterday, and as promised in my intro article back in December, I am going to follow up each positional ranking with two things: my rankings for FanGraphs Points leagues and notes on how rankings would differ for other formats.
We wrap up this series today with a look at tough keep or cut calls on pitchers. This is the group I like the least. Pitching is an area where I least trust the projections and so I have the hardest time figuring out how to value these guys. As a result, I tend to prefer obvious values and I am often willing to pay a premium in trade for a guy pitcher I have no questions about. Of course, they are pitchers, so there are always questions – volatility in performance, injury risk, etc. But, I still have to make decisions, so here are some of my tough ones.
It feels like it has been forever since I last updated this series by reviewing my tough calls at MI and that is what the holidays do to us. A couple of weeks of family time and travel and suddenly it’s 2026, we’re just over a month out from pitchers and catchers reporting, and I am running out of time to make these decisions. Today, we turn our attention to the OF and debate whether to hold these OF bats or kick’em to the curb.
We’re now onto the fourth installment of our Keep or Cut decisions series. Jake has offered up his tough choices at CI/C and MI, I covered CI/C last week so now it is my turn to discuss MI. Usually, I make a point of looking at names Jake didn’t look at, but this week, I am going to start by (quickly) rehashing one of the players he covered with a slightly different take.
Jake Mailhot kicked off our series of articles reviewing our toughest keep or cut decisions on Monday, looking at some tough calls at C and CI. Today, I’ll follow his lead and go over my toughest calls at those spots, looking at one tough call each at 1B, 3B, and C. Read the rest of this entry »