We’re making our way around the diamond with our updated rankings and today we are onto shortstops. Here are the positions we’ve done so far and you can also access them via the Positional Rankings in the right sidebar:

• Catchers
• First Basemen
• Second Basemen

If you feel we missed someone, please let us know in the comments.

This was a really tough position for me because it’s just so messed up. The studs aren’t studding leaving it wide open at the top. There has been some nice risers, but it’s still a remarkably thin position and easily the thinnest on the diamond.

FYI: the table is sortable!

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We’re making our way around the diamond with our updated rankings and today we reach the keystone.

• Catchers
• First Basemen

If you feel we missed someone, please let us know in the comments.

The names we missed that are mentioned in the comments will be added by Friday, 5/29. 

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With the catchers already released, we’re in the midst of our first in-season rankings update which will run through next week. The remarkably stacked first base position remains so almost two months into the season with many of the expected studs doing their part while some mid-round assets have emerged to keep the position deep and strong even as a few would-be studs have sputtered and failed to deliver up to expectations just yet.

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We’re not quite a quarter of the way into the season – which isn’t the quarter pole, by the way, that comes around 122 games though that won’t stop anyone – but it is a perfect time to update the consensus rankings here at Rotographs. First off, we’re about to have Memorial Day weekend and what better way to spend the extra time off than by retooling your fantasy team? To do that, you’ll need to know how we value players going forward so you don’t get ripped off at the trading table. Secondly, even though we’re only about 39 games through the season (some teams are as high as 41 played while three others are down at 36), a lot has changed.

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Check out last month’s rankings here.

I am, if nothing else, a man of the people. This month, I am integrating reader feedback to improve upon both the helpfulness and the overall fun factor of this feature. Regarding the helpfulness, as commenters pointed out last month, I should probably rank Mookie Betts, even though he’s not eligible in all formats.

As commenters also pointed out last month, I could have just ranked him instead of explaining why I am or am not ranking him, thus saving myself both time and effort. Still, I felt compelled to account for my actions, and here we are, several possibly unnecessary sentences later.

Now, the fun factor. I was encouraged to come up with clever names for the tiers, as opposed to my previous yawn-inducing numerical system. Therefore, I am this month grouping players into tiers based upon the relative subjective quality of cities I’ve visited. I enjoy travel almost as much as baseball, and I have strong feelings about the places I’ve been — both good and bad — that are quite suitable for comparison to second basemen. Why not.

TIER ONE – ANNECY, FRANCE
Jose Altuve

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Always a shallow position for fantasy owners, shortstop is positively a wasteland so far in 2015. It would almost be impossible for shortstop to collectively be this bad going forward, but there are so few bankable assets at the position. If it were March again, I’d tell you just to punt the position. Read the rest of this entry »

NL OF Tiers: March (Preseason) 2015
Also, David Wiers’ AL OF Tiers: May

This is my second ever installment of tiered rankings so, I admit, I’m still figuring out how to properly balance a hitter’s present and future values. It’s too easy to rank them by, say, their current ESPN Player Rater rankings, but it would be foolish to still rank them simply by expected end-of-season value, as I did in March.

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It’s tier update time! I’m notoriously stubborn when it comes to changing my opinion of a player and three or four starts is far too small a sample to convince me to make any real dramatic adjustments. However, there are some scenarios in which I will reconsider — a change in fastball velocity, a change in pitch mix, an injury, or perhaps the pitcher’s defensive support performing better or worse than expected. That’s really about it. I care little for actual results at this point unless there’s a significant change in results not explained by the aforementioned factors. Like, if Mark Buehrle was suddenly striking out more than a batter per inning. My xK% equation is fantastic in small sample sizes since it’s based on per-pitch metrics and not innings or batters faced. But still, the underlying components themselves could quickly change.

As a reminder, the tiers are named after the best characters from the FXX show, Man Seeking Woman.

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I’m entering my first full season doing second-base tiers, after a midseason call-up last year. One small housekeeping item to get out of the way is that I prefer to only include players who are more or less universally eligible at the position. For example, Mookie Betts played 14 games at 2B last year, making him eligible on some sites and ineligible on others. Thus, he does not appear on this list. Additionally, I only ranked players who are currently on Major League rosters.

One thing that was interesting for me as I assembled these rankings is that I don’t have particularly strong feelings about the specific order within some of the tiers, but I have a considerable amount of conviction regarding the tiers themselves. In other words, this year’s 2B crop has some pretty clear-cut groups of elite, near-elite, above-average, etc. With that, let’s get to the rankings:

TIER ONE
Jose Altuve
Robinson Cano

I quite nearly gave Altuve his own tier, but I believe enough in a Cano bounceback that I made room for him too. I wrote about the Houston infield a few weeks ago, so you can check that out for more of my thoughts on Altuve. Short version: I absolutely love Altuve, and do not expect much regression in 2015.

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It’s been a bit more than a month, so it’s time to update my rankings, maybe in time for your last draft. Mostly injuries have moved the needle, but a few spring training strikeout rates and pitch changes may have factored into the moves. I gave you the new NFBC ADP and my old rankings so you could see the movements in the rankings.

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