We got five esteemed rankers to put together their positional rankings for the upcoming 2015 season including Jeff Zimmerman, Dan Schwartz, Zach Sanders, Mike Podhorzer, and myself (click a ranker’s name to reach them on Twitter). You can download the spreadsheet here. Stay tuned for updates. The last update will always be noted at the bottom of this post.
On Tuesday night, I participated in the 15-team LABR Mixed League draft (full team recap coming Monday). If you were following the draft live and/or were active on Twitter during the evening, you may very well be aware of the firestorm that erupted after my second round selection. I drew the #11 draft slot, which meant that my second round pick was the 20th. I settled on Billy Hamilton and I will explain why.
Contributing to RotoGraphs’ Bullpen Reports last year brought me much joy: opening infinite Brooks Baseball player cards for sabermetric outcomes and watching glorious GIFs. Oh, Marcus Stroman’s Two-Seamer:
GIF: Marcus Stroman’s Two-Seam Fastball from last week’s outing. It may be our favorite of the year – http://t.co/vyJM8ltUir
— Pitcher List (@ThePitcherList) August 31, 2014
Mmm.
My last Bullpen Report from October looked at possible closers through outcomes and presented BABIP differentials (actual BABIP versus expected BABIP using Inside Edge data).
Well, it is finally time to move on and show how I finish setting up for a draft (Part 1). I was hoping the following article was going to be in two parts and have a little more detail and polish. Instead I am have been dealing with a fan error on my computer and a pile of oil under my car. Neither is really resolved. So with a borrowed computer, I will step through the rest of my procedure. Let me know if you have any questions.
Note: For reference, here is my spreadsheet I used to get the initial SGP values and has the rest of the sheets referenced in this article.
Over the last couple of weeks a few of my fellow writers here are FanGraphs have been going over some draft strategies. This week, I am going to step through my exact process for a draft. On Thursday night, I will be joining a few fantasy writers for a 15 team mock draft. Over the next few days, I will go through the exact process I normally use to set up for a draft. If one of the other drafters steals borrows my info, fine. This is actually more a way to show you my process for drafts.
First off, I will be following the procedure I set out last season in this three part series. There is quite a few good links in those articles for the procedures I use.
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.
One of the things I absolutely love about writing for RotoGraphs is the high value interactions in the comments. I’ve found that by posting certain types of content, I can iron out the wrinkles for my own use, provide teachable moments for everybody involved, and learn about my own shortcomings as a writer/analyst. I probably learn as much from you as you learn from me.
It’s with this in mind that I re-revisit my ranking of Adam Jones, which first appeared on Christmas day.
Since I released my initial, flawed roto rankings on Tuesday, we’ve been discussing my most unusual choices. Wednesday was Carlos Carrasco day, and yesterday was Adam Jones‘ turn to shine (in the sense that he was a featured part of the article). Today I’ll focus on highlighting a class of player who could be misrepresented. You may not believe it, but I haven’t conducted advanced analysis on every player. Shocking, I know. While I have an idea of an embarrassing quantity of player values, some of those are based more upon impression than science or scouting.
On Tuesday, I released my very preliminary rankings for the 2015 draft season. Things will change – really, they will. Until then, we’re left with some odd observations to discuss. I acknowledged my uber-bullish ranking of Carlos Carrasco on Little Christmas, and my bearish ranking of Adam Jones shall provide the content for normal Christmas. Enjoy.
I bared my moderately flawed initial fantasy rankings for public consumption yesterday. Perhaps the most divisive selection is Carlos Carrasco as the fourth ranked starting pitcher.