At 1 pm EDT, we will begin to chronicle September call-ups and their potential contributions in a running post organized by David Wiers. Stay tuned.

NL OF Tiers: August
NL OF Tiers: July
NL OF Tiers: June
NL OF Tiers: May
NL OF Tiers: Preseason

What’s most interesting about September, from a purely statistical standpoint, is small-sample volatility. Just like the unpredictability of April, anyone can go off — or fall flat — in the home stretch. If I’m contending, I’m trying to maximize playing time, although I will stream or start certain specialized players if I’m chasing a particular category.

I’m in a head-to-head standard roto league with two weeks of regular-season play left before two one-week rounds of playoffs. In the last four weeks, my team has roared back from a miserable 9th place to a legitimately-contending 6th, and I’m already off to a strong start this week. In other words: a lot can happen in a month, so certainly half of a lot can happen in two weeks. Hang in there.

I drafted one of my fantasy football teams this weekend. My tiers shall assume the names of my six most expensive players.

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Edit (12:59 pm EDT): Left out a bunch of dudes (Cespedes, Pederson, Moss) and wrongly included a bunch of dudes (Gomez, Revere). I basically I forgot all about the trade deadline, so if notice another name omitted, leave it in the comments. Thanks (and sorry)!

NL OF Tiers: July
NL OF Tiers: June
NL OF Tiers: May
NL OF Tiers: Preseason

Prior to writing for FanGraphs, I never took time to systematically reevaluate players. That’s not to say I never evaluate players after draft day — of course I do. But I typically only concern myself with the players I own and compare them to those on waivers. Occasionally, if my team is wildly imbalanced, I’ll evaluate other owners’ players for potential trades.

Because it’s tedious to thoroughly re-rank all the players at one position, let alone in all of Major League Baseball. I can’t complain, though, becauseI’ve learned something new with every re-rank, the most prominent lesson being baseball players exist to humiliate you. I’m being hyperbolic, and perhaps Carlos Gonzalez is, too, but his recent results speak volumes: CarGo more than doubled his home run total between my July re-rank of National League outfielders and now.

I also learned I need to learn to stand my ground. After mindlessly over-ranking Carlos Gomez in June, I slotted him at the top of the fourth tier (roughly 20th overall) in July. I got slammed for it and I backpedaled on my stance a bit when responding to comments, but, like clockwork, Gomez has continued to underwhelm, hitting .230/.373/.410 with two home runs and nary a stolen base. Sure, the 17.3-percent walk rate (BB%) the last 30 days is nice, and it brings him back up to normal Carlos Gomez levels, but his batted ball profile continues to resemble the generally uninteresting pre-breakout Carlos Gomez.

Anyway, iers will conform to my ranking of feature-length films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, with emphases on directed and feature-length. To not see a Miyazaki (or Studio Ghibli) film is to ignore a cherished corner of cinematic history. Like my hotly contested Coen Brothers tiers, these will be very difficult for me to rank.

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We made it to the finish line! Our final position in the midseason rankings hits on the most volatile aspect of our beloved game: the relievers. There’s only one save that can be awarded in any single game so opportunity is obviously extremely important, but damn-near impossible to predict. Manager whim and supporting cast (hitters, defense, and starting pitchers) are two variables that greatly impact said opportunity and while we can foster our best guesses, it’s still difficult to ever know. There’s a reason that the “draft skills, not roles” adage coined by Ron Shandler has become so popular with relievers specifically.

Once again, the Bullpen Report crew has joined the party to rank the relievers with Dan & myself both adding ours in, too. Alan, Darren, Colin, and Ben round out the group for six sets of rankings. Want to see how guys have shifted since the June update? Find those ranks here.

For this update, Paul ranked 55 arms, Alan, Colin, and Ben did 50 apiece, Darren did 48, and Dan had 53. Guys +1 of those figures constitute an “unranked”.

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We made it to the mound. After touring the diamond for the position players, we finally reach the starting pitchers for our midseason rankings. I’m not sure any rankings are more disparate than pitching rankings. There aren’t too many ways to interpret Paul Goldschmidt’s success. He’s raking and just all-around dominant. Dallas Keuchel is doing the pitching equivalent of raking, but he isn’t universally seen as a top-flight, no-questions-asked pitcher in the fantasy baseball world just yet. Keuchel might not be the best example as he didn’t fall further than 12th in any of the four ranking sets (with a peak of 6), but what about somebody like Carlos Martinez?

He is pitching brilliantly and showing why he was so heralded as a prospect coming up with the Cardinals, but as of July 21st he already has a career-high 111.3 innings (99 last year, 104 in the minors back in 2012 as a previous career-high) and they’ve already shown how much they value protecting him by keeping him in the bullpen for virtually all of his 2013 MLB time and for 50 of his 57 MLB appearances last year. How far will they take him in the regular season?

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Our midseason rankings update continues. We have the outfield today, the starting pitchers tomorrow, and then wrapping it up with the reliever on Wednesday.

This is one of the most interesting positions just by the sheer volume of it. The fantasy community at large seems to consistently overrate the depth of the position, confusing the quantity for quality. Most leagues use five outfielders right out of the gate, but then you have to consider the OF-eligibles being used at other fielding positions as well as the UT/DH position. I don’t think there are any easy answers with the slotting of these guys after Trout, Harper, & McCutchen as the top three in some fashion. From there, we all seem to go in different directions creating some interesting totals.

For this update, you will have the rankings from me, Zach Sanders, Jeff Zimmerman, and Dan Schwartz. Mike Podhorzer is currently on vacation. A 121 from me is essentially an unranked, it’s 95 for Zach, 108 for Jeff, and 90 for Dan.

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While shortstop has been a wasteland, third base has been the infield oasis. Third base has turned out to be remarkably rich this year with some established guys taking another step forward and a strong core of young guys jumping a couple levels and arriving ahead of schedule.

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Continuing the positional rankings, we move over to shortstop. It’s been something of a barren wasteland this year. Thankfully, the unquestioned top two – Tulowitzki and Hanley – have been the unquestioned top two (with Hanley leading the way). but it’s been pretty jumbled from that point on. The landscape has really opened up with a lot of new names emerging as some former stalwarts have sunk further. I wasn’t even sure Correa would be called up in 2015 and now he’s looking like a game-changer at SS.

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Not only are you getting the keystone rankings today, but the Catchers and First Basemen are also updated with the guys missed the first time around. So Carlos Santana and John Jaso are in with the catchers and guys like Todd Frazier have been fully ranked at 1B by our rankers.

Remember when I ranked Kinsler over Kipnis? That was rich. I’ll take my heat for being wrong there, but I still remain a touch skeptical on trusting Kipnis fully. This upcoming portion of the season – the second half – has long been a problem for Kipnis. He hasn’t been great at holding up in the dog days and delivering the frontline production we expect and have seen in previous first halves.

His career .683 OPS in the second half is well off the All-Star level .816 he’s amassed in the first half over the last four seasons. All that said, I’m still more in on Kipnis than I have been previously and ranked him quite highly, though still came in last among the quartet of rankers. Hilariously, despite feeling better about Kipnis as a player, he’s actually a spot lower than those May rankings where I had Kinsler ahead of him. Don’t worry, Kinsler is well behind him now (though still a starter in all formats). 

For this update, you will have the rankings from me, Zach Sanders, Jeff Zimmerman, and Dan Schwartz. Mike Podhorzer is currently on vacation.

Other positions:

• Catcher
• First Base

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We’re back at it again today with our midseason rankings. After covering Catchers yesterday, we jump to First Base today. I put my rankings in last and added some names that were forgotten on my initial list and the guys haven’t been able to update theirs to include these guys just yet. I’m sure you can expect some dissent on Frazier, but for now I left him in that two spot despite having just my ranking. I think of Frazier more as a 3B, but the incredible depth at the position means you could realistically have two of the superstuds over there at third, pushing Frazier to your 1B where he definitely still holds up.

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This is the worst time of the sports calendar year. With baseball off enjoying its All-Star break, there are no major professional sports being played right now. Worse yet is that the intriguing new Home Run Derby might not even get done because of weather. Thankfully, we here at Fangraphs have got you covered. Over on the front page, Dave Cameron is unveiling his Trade Value List which began with the honorable mentions so-to-speak and then numbers 50-41. Over here at Rotographs, we are rolling out our midseason rankings by position.

Today, we start behind the dish.

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