We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

A group of geese is a gaggle. A group of monkeys is a troop. When injuries travel together, they’re called a stack.  Or, if you’re a Rangers fan, you might prefer the phrase “an apocalypse of injuries.” Maybe a murder of injuries. But no, only crows travel in murders.

For two years, the Rangers rotation has suffered through bubonic ligament plague. The biggest name to be lost was Yu Darvish. Also hitting the shelf were Derek Holland, Martin Perez, Matt Harrison, and a host of others. Can they stay healthy this year?

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The rebirth of the Houston Astros as an elite team likely starts with their position players like Carlos Correa and George Springer, but their pitching staff is pretty excellent in its own right. Led by the 2015 AL Cy Young winner, the Astros have both exceptional top-end talent and depth in both their rotation and bullpen.

If you’re looking for more playing time discussions, check out our summary page.

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

On Monday, I covered perhaps the easiest team to cover with regards to pitching battles. I spent about 550 words explaining that the Mets don’t have any battles. The Braves, well, they do. And here they are…

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Sometimes, I like to write about the low hanging fruit. The Mets’ pitcher battles are all around the fringes of the roster and won’t need to be addressed until halfway through the season. What follows is mostly a discussion of depth with a nod to two talented pitchers who will return in July.

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

For the New York Mets, there are no outright starter roles up for grabs. There are, however, potential platoon roles given the amount of versatility some of their players have. August Fagerstrom looked at the most promising platoons here, and the Mets had two of the top 5 “potential” platoons, meaning if the Mets were to platoon, they have some valuable options at second base and in the outfield. Will there be a straight platoon? We’re not sure just yet, but the Mets have options, which is something the front office wanted to improve upon this off-season.

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

Fresh off trading Corey Dickerson in a baffling alleviation of outfield depth, the Rockies are set to enter 2016 with three position battles. Were I running the club, I would have my eye on the free agent market which contains first base and back up outfield reinforcements.

Nolan Arenado, DJ LeMahieu, Carlos Gonzalez, Charlie Blackmon, and Gerardo Parra seemingly have five of the eight positions on lock down. It’s debatable that Parra merits an unimpeded full time role, but that’s what he was hired to do.

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Two weeks ago, we inaugurated what will likely still be a few more weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ position player situations.

Around the horn.

Catcher

No surprises here: Yasmani Grandal will assume the primary backstop role while A.J. Ellis sticks around for his defensive acumen. Grandal is the only name you care about here; he has pretty easy 20-homer power if he can make it through an entire season unscathed. The BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is ugly, no thanks to his lack of speed and his non-ideal tendency to pop balls up, but the league’s 7th-best on-base percentage (OBP) helps mitigate those losses, especially in OBP leagues (obviously).

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The Giants’ biennial odd-year failures are well documented. By now, Giants fans know that if it’s an odd-year, they can safely leave town on Columbus Day weekend, volunteer at their NPR affiliate’s fall pledge drive, or spend a weekend up in Santa Rosa picking delightfully fragrant organic Braeburn apples in-season. But odd-year apple seasons bring Brian Sabean neither respite nor rich phytonutrients. For it’s a time when baseball’s longest-tenured GM must roll up his sleeves and construct yet another World Series winner.

This past October, Sabean set his sights on filling a gaping hole in center field and rebuilding a rotation that ranked 25th in WAR. So he signed Denard Span, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija to multi-year contracts, undoubtedly improving the team in 2016. And that’s more or less it. Needs addressed.

From a fantasy perspective, there isn’t so much a battle for the final rotation spot as the inevitability that injuries to Matt Cain or others will open the door for Chris Heston and conceivably a few promising young pitchers. With that in mind, we take a look at those pitchers vying for the final spot in the Giants’ rebuilt rotation.

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Fantasy baseball season is upon us and interest will probably spike once Super Bowl L is over. Since I may be considered an expert in fantasy baseball, I get asked questions about this or that player. Who is a sleeper? And tons of keeper questions. With these questions, I follow three rules.

1. Take the younger player.
2. Take the more talented player.
3. Take the hitter.

Sometimes the questions are a little harder to answer and the answer can be a little fuzzy with so many possible inputs and outcomes. Quite a bit of the analysis I see and hear are people just making up values. I have found I can’t go with my gut and some semblance of an intelligent answer should be constructed.

I know I have a few more resources than the average fantasy owner and I would like to put those resources to work. I have taken various questions I have seen discussed and have come up with what I hope are some more intelligently constructed answers.

The two items I will use for most of the analysis is public opinion (from Twitter polls) and historical data. With the polls, I can use the information from the crowds to at least get a consensus of public opinion. The public could be wrong, but at least I have a reasonable anchoring point to start the discussion. With the historic data, the average and range of values can be known.

Here are some questions I have pondered this pre-season and my current answers.

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We’ve started our annual Depth Chart Discussions, re-branded as Playing Time Battles for 2016. You can catch up on every team we’ve covered in the Playing Time Battles Summary post or following along using the Depth Chart Discussions tag.

The big news in Arizona this offseason was on the pitching side, which Mike Podhorzer broke down in detail on Wednesday. While the team’s splashy moves regarded the acquisitions of big arms Zack Greinke and Shelby Miller, there’s plenty to talk about on the offensive side as well.

Saturday’s head-scratching trade brought in Jean Segura from the Brewers, in an effort to provide “a little bit more offense” to the middle infield, according to general manager Dave Stewart. That’s an awfully strange statement to make about a guy with a .615 on-base plus slugging over his last two full seasons.

MIDDLE INFIELD

For reasons I don’t claim to understand, Arizona paid an unreasonably high price for Segura, an okay defensive shortstop who — despite Dave Stewart’s comments — is not a good major-league hitter. Segura was great with the stick in April (.985 OPS) and May (.911 OPS) of 2013, but objectively terrible ever since. In his following 16 months of major-league action, he produced just two more months of weighted offense above league-average.

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