I promised an update to the May rankings and it’s here! When ranking 125+ players (130 last time, down to 125 here), I obviously don’t have up-to-minute stats and performance memorized on everyone so while I felt pretty good about the groupings everyone was in, there were some individual rankings that needed work. I also added another tier at the top for the stone cold fantasy aces. It’s a tight group, but it gets them separation from the must-starts because I think people still bug out when seeing Chris Sale and Tyson Ross in the same tier and I understand that.
I do think the Must-Start tier is important, though, because one of the unintended consequences of the information age for fantasy baseball is the overwhelming desire to see every start as actionable. Some guys you just have to start through the ebbs and flows of a season, even after a few clunky starts. Not every bad start is the beginning of the end for a pitcher. Conversely, every gem from some 4th or 5th starter isn’t the emergence of a new stud.
I can’t imagine it’d really be possible to do, but I’d love to see a study on team ERAs in fantasy pre- and post-internet. I’m sure pre-internet saw established guys given a longer leash as there were often weeks in between updates (the first fantasy league I was ever in started in 1989 and ran stats every other week) and similar time periods between pickups. Anyway, here’s the update! As always, heed the tier over the # ranking and let me know what you think in the comments down below!
The tiers are as follows:
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