If you’ve been wishing current Steamer projections were turned into fantasy values, wish no more, as I have done the work for you.

Below you’ll find the top 100 players for next year based on current Steamer projections, calculated using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and standard 5×5 roto fantasy leagues, where only one catcher is started. Players are listed at their primary positions from 2014. The “obp$$” column in what the players are worth in an OBP format, in case you’re more interested in that sort of thing.

If you would like to view the rankings for all 7334 players projected by Steamer, please peruse this spreadsheet, for it is far too large to be posted on these hallowed pages.

Both the top 100 and the spreadsheet were updated at 10:55a ET to reflect a previous error.

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This past season, I introduced a xBABIP equation which uses Inside Edge’s hard hit rate and player speed. Well, I have been a little slow on any updates. I have finally gotten around to getting all the 2014 values in one place.

When creating the xBABIP values, I found it correlated more to the next season’s BABIP then any other easily created formulas. Here are the 2014 values with some thoughts on some individual players.

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Jose Fernandez was having a dominating 2014 season until he needed Tommy John surgery last May. The 22-year-old righty could be one of the more dominant arms in the game when he returns. Fantasy owners would love to have him available mid-season as a boost their team.  While he is on the disabled list (DL), some other pitcher must be filling in for him. Fernandez’s projection should include this replacement pitcher’s production. Here is a break down of how I put on value on players who will miss significant time.

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Well, I will take one for the Rotographs team and publish our first rankings to get torn part. I am going with the simplest of all pitcher rankings …. strikeouts minus walks. Basically, how much easily measurable talent does a pitcher have. Can the pitcher strikeout hitters? Does he not walk many? Can he keep pitching for an entire season? Just by running this simple formula and creating a graph of the rankings, some initial thoughts can be formulated for the 2015 draft/auction season.

For the rankings, I used our Steamer projections. These numbers can be re-run at a later date with other projections for more clarity. The entire list is available here. In addition to the list, I have the top 100 pitchers ranked. What I look for now is tiers are any pitchers group together. I like to get one of these pitchers before the talent level drops off.
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*Updated 10/23/2014 with Position Tiers ($5.00 USD).

The 2015 Steamer projections are up on FanGraphs! “Steamer” uses playing time projections from our depth charts, but right now there are important players (Dustin Pedroia and Jon Lester for examples) missing actual projected playing time. I therefore went into mensch-mode and manually updated Plate Appearance and Innings Pitched projections – very manually, but at least somewhat rational. What I did for these players was go into their “Steamer 600” projections and took their HR, R, RBI and SB per Plate Appearance projected rates (W, SV, SO per Inning Pitched for pitchers) and outputted associated counting stats connected to the quantity of Plate Appearances/Innings Pitched.

*To see which players I manipulated, go into the “P” and “H” tabs in the below embedded file: click on the “…” tab to the left of the current depicted tab. I highlighted all names and counting stats per plate appearance or innings pitched that I edited in Yellow so that I can associate some accountability with the end-rankings. I edited a few catchers’ PA totals even though Steamer already had totals for them (Lucroy, Mesoraco, etc.). I also edited Troy Tulowitzki‘s and Carlos Gonzalez’s PA totals, because…well, you know. I could spend all month editing the PA totals, but I’m not that much of a mensch.

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Here is Travis d’Arnaud before he was sent down on June 8th: .180/.271/.273/.241 (BA/OBP/SLG/wOBA).

Here is TDA after his return: .269/.315/.481/.346. He also tore it up (again) at Triple-A.

Here is TDA from August fifth onward: .280/.335/.510/.369. Yan Gomes, FYI, went .278/.313/.472/.340 albeit for the season.

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Let’s start with a multiple choice question.

1) Russell Martin has been lucky on the following balls-in-play type(s):

a) Grounders

b) Liners

c) Flies

d) at least Grounders and Flies

If you chose a) grounders, you would be wrong. If you chose d) flies, you would be wrong. If you chose b) liners, well… you could be partly right, however, the correct answer is d) at least grounders and flies. You could argue that there should be an e) option, ‘all of the above.’

According to Zach Sanders’ End of Season Catcher rankings, Russell Martin bamboozled his way into the top 10 at #7 overall and produced what would have been his 2nd best fantasy season if he approached 150+ games.

By bamboozled, I mean BABIP’ed.

Look at his 2014 ground ball, fly ball and line drive-related BABIP’s on each individual balls-in-play type in 2014 relative to his career; relative to 2013 (still with the Pirates); and relative to the mean if we considered his career rates as a one year performance:

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I’m going to use all things @jeffwzimmerman for this post.

First is xBABIP. During this past offseason, Jeff found an xBABIP equation which correlated better than just BABIP year to year with the use of new Inside Edge data and player speed scores. I believe his last full updated list was posted on July 25th of this season, but he and the team provided me with an updated list this morning in order to use the data to interpret expected(x)FantasyValue vs. actual/descriptive(a)FantasyValue.

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Earlier this week, Jeff Zimmerman presented Early 2015 Hitter Projections using Steamer and/or ZIPS averaged ROS projections. The main contingency at this time: all values are set to 600 plate appearances. If I had all the time in the world, I would go through the list and manually adjust the PA based on lineup position, career PA/G, etc, but I’m not that much of a Mensch.

The next day, Mike Podhorzer highlighted some of the surprises ranked in the top 30. Again the 600 PA contingency is clear as Rajai Davis, Jarrod Dyson and Corey Dickerson make the list although if Dickerson doesn’t get platooned, I (and Mike) think he’ll surpass expectations. His splits page tells us there is no good reason to platoon him.

In Mike’s intro, he also referenced that there is no adjustment for position in Jeff’s SGP rankings. That’s where this post comes in.

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A few days ago I released a way too early set of hitter projection values. Today, it is the pitchers’ turn. Truthfully, I wasn’t 100% sure I would release them. It requires a person using them to use their brain somewhat. I decided to go ahead and release and hope most people read a few lines of the article to understand how the spreadsheet is set up.

Notes on the data (PLEASE READ)

• I averaged the rest of season Steamer and/or ZIPS projections. Sometimes only one or the other was available so only one was used at times. The rest of season the projections are a good attempt at getting the player’s talent level right now. The values are close to the 2015 projection with the exception of the September numbers.

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