There isn’t a top 75 pitcher that is as overrated by his ADP against his projections as Sonny Gray, it turns out. There’s almost 120 spots between where he’s being taken and where he “should” go, at least for now. You can see how that sort of thing happens.

He was 40th in strikeouts minus walks last season. 40th in strikeout rate. 26th in FIP. And ninth in ERA. And the ‘answer’ to that disparity is the worst in the business: he’s fifth in batting average on balls in play since he came into the league. 491 innings isn’t enough to believe that sort of things, so we all just whimper into our hats and wonder what to do about him.

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It’s easier to identify pitchers you’re excited about, pitchers that you like better than the rankings say you should, than it is to do the opposite. At least for me. It’s easier to believe in a pitcher than to hate on them. At least for me. Lists of sleepers seemingly go on forever, while lists of busts are shorter. At least for me.

The fact remains that only half of the top 20 from 2014’s end-of-season rankings repeated on this year’s end-of-season rankings. We should have reason to hate on at least half of this year’s best pitchers. So, despite the season, let’s hand out some coal to last year’s aces. All of them.

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Look at the leaderboards and love Jacob deGrom. Love his flowing locks, love his luscious command, love his top-ten ranking. Love the fastball velocity he added, love the full arsenal. Love the slider, the Warthen slider, and love the changeup, the Johan changeup. Love him.

But all your love won’t make him any better. You’ll have to pay for your love. Instead, maybe we could find another young man that you can love, and won’t cost as much. And don’t worry, for all this talk of love, we’re not talking about the kind that will get you arrested in some countries.

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Thirty-year old Chris Coghlan just had his best season of his career. He’s only surpassed 500 plate appearances twice in his seven-year career, and as a guy without a standout tool and some established platoon issues, he obviously owns a substantial ‘bust rate.’ As in, he could be unusable next year, even though he was worth $6 in mixed leagues this past season.

And so, even though we liked some boring veterans at third base, it’s time to take inspiration in another direction — where’s the line, when you should bypass the veteran for the unproven prospect? Is it right around a guy like Chris Coghlan?

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When the 2013 season ended, Jay Bruce was 26 and coming off of three straight 30-homer seasons. Sure, he struck out a bit much, and had some issues defensively, but he was a young man in his prime, a bankable asset, an easy way to inject power into your lineup. Since then, he’s slashed .222/.288/.406 with 22 homers per 600 plate appearances over two seasons.

What happened?

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Carlos Correa won the Rookie of the Year vote, and Carlos Correa is guy that most fantasy owners prefer, too. And mostly that’s because we’ll take Correa’s bat over the one Francisco Lindor was supposed to show. When it comes to the bat Lindor actually showed in his debut, though, things get closer. Just a little bit of power separates the two.

And that’s the problem with evaluating Lindor for next season. Power can be so fickle, and we all remember the Kevin Maases of the past. Past research doesn’t even agree on a proper sample for power numbers. We’re left grasping at straws when a young player comes up and is more powerful than they were supposed to be.

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Take away the guys with shortstop eligibility, or second base eligibility. Take away the hurt third basemen that should have been stars if they were on the field more often. Take away the backups that accumulated enough time to be relevant. Take away the stars that played like stars. Take away the rookies that just came up and didn’t get full seasons.

Who’s left? By definition, they’re not stars. But they are starting veteran third basemen that stayed healthy and put enough numbers to be relevant. Could you define the under-rated player any better? Who else is less exciting to draft than that guy that’s going to hit for a middling average, with middling power, a few steals, possibly at the bottom of the order?

And, yet, Trevor Plouffe and Brett Lawrie were both above replacement level third basemen this year. Considering that many of the players above them had other eligibilities, they may have been good enough to start at third in many leagues.

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Logan Forsythe came out of nowhere for the Rays last year. There he was: 28 years old and suddenly 15% better than he ever was before, in twice as much playing time as he’d ever had in a season, no less. There’s some power growth, some added patience, and some of the best batted ball luck and defensive numbers of his career. What part of this do we believe going forward?

To answer that question, we should probably try to find the source of that growth. That’ll help us suss the likelihood that the growth sticks.

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Check out the first baseman end of season rankings. Brandon Belt hit .280 with 18 homers and nine stolen bases. He was the 15th first baseman, worth almost ten dollars. Freddie Freeman hit .276 with 18 homers and three stolen bases. He was the 21st-best first baseman, worth under five bucks. Huh.

You know why they ended up on different ends of the spectrum, of course. Partially because Freeman was hurt a bunch this year, and partially because the Braves offense was Lilliputian, the Braves’ first baseman had 128 runs plus RBI, while Belt had 141. It may not be fair that Belt was worth twice as much as Freeman because the Braves offense was no good, but it happens.

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Injury is perhaps the greatest vehicle of luck in sports. The haphazard bounce of the ball, twinge of the tendon, strain of the muscle — these things not only rob the player of playing time, but they also keep them from performing at 100%. And though we’ve had some success predicting injury, mostly on the basis of past injury, we haven’t come that far. Even the most basic advice with respect to injury wouldn’t have helped us avoid this trio of injured backstops, anyway.

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