Okay, maybe I was wrong about the catchers (You can follow along using the rankings links on the right hand navigation bar). The top group definitely wasn’t performing well. I just never shop there, so maybe it was a blind spot.

But I do shop among the top first basemen. No shares of Miguel Cabrera — no number one picks, and no willingness to spend that much — and just a couple shares of Paul Goldschmidt, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Abreu and the like. Hey! Those guys are doing fine!

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This is my first month on the second-base beat, and I can’t wait to hear who I’ve ranked too high or too low, preferably in caps lock in the comments section below or on Twitter. Either way, caps lock is crucial here. Don’t let me down. Jokes aside, I’ve got over 40 players in these seven tiers, and I hope you find them useful.

TIER ONE

Robinson Cano

Even after two solid months of sub-.100 isolated power, I am still placing Cano in his own tier. The first part of my reasoning here is that, despite the fact that he hit just one home run in each of the season’s first two months, he did everything else so exceptionally well in May that he was still the No. 4 2B for the month. His batting line was a robust .355/.393/.458, he struck out just ten times while drawing eight walks, he swiped a couple bases, drove in 19 runs, etc.

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Of course it’s made sense to make trades all season, particularly for value. But now with a third of the season in the books, it makes a little more sense to trade for needs. And so positional rankings become important, particularly when paired with the tiered rankings that our writers will put out in the coming weeks. If you can dramatically improve at a problem position, do it. Especially if your drop at the other position, the one you’re selling, is not so drastic.

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This month’s updated rankings will be tiered alongside my favorite pizza styles. Now I’m probably opening myself up to a ton of criticism — even more than usual — because my tiers will be severely bias in favor of midwestern pizza. Sorry New York/Brooklyn style, I just don’t love your pizza like my Chicago deep dish. As always, this is a ranking based on my rest-of-season thoughts.

Chicago style deep dish

Mike Trout

New month, new set of rankings, and still no surprise here at the top. As noted by the tall, handsome and brilliant Jeff Sullivan, Trout is striking out a bit more this season than what we’ve seen form him before. I’m not concerned with the uptick in strikeouts yet. He isn’t flailing at offerings outside of the zone as his 25.8% O-Swing% is in line with his career 24.6% mark. For a specific restaurant, Giordano’s is the place to go.
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It’s updated tier week! As usual, these rankings represent my fantasy value expectations over the rest of the season. While I am not completely ignoring what has happened so far, its effect on my rankings is to merely expand the body of work by a pitcher from which to analyze. Unless there is a dramatic change in underlying skills that looks sustainable or an injury, there shouldn’t be a whole lot of movement after just 30 to 40 innings pitched.

While the preseason tier rankings were technically in descending order of my projected value, most pitchers within a tier are so close to each other that you could basically consider them interchangeable. An extra win, an additional 10 strikeouts, a .290 BABIP versus .295 BABIP are all pretty much random, but can shift a pitcher’s value by a couple of bucks. I didn’t bother moving players around within a tier, which is something I used to do, but provides little incremental value.

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How about an early look at some NL Starter Tiers? With a month down, we already have a better idea of which surprise candidates might live up to the hype. We also have an idea of which veterans are at the end of their rope. And in the middle of all that, we are still waiting on the returns of Mike Minor and Mat Latos.

You’ll notice this is the NL post, so you won’t see Masahiro Tanaka ranked. Despite this, someone in the comments will say “where’s Masahiro Tanaka, you idiot?” Don’t be that person. The tiers should be viewed as tiers, not straight rankings. If I have Liriano and Samardzija in the same tier, but Liriano is ranked higher in his tier, that doesn’t matter. Being in a tier means I perceive those players to have similar value. Finally, I’m going to rank players based on albums I like. The top album isn’t my favorite or anything, I just think they are good albums and maybe you’ll enjoy them too. Feel free to comment, or recommend other albums below. Cool? Cool!

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I’m not a connoisseur of much of anything pop culture, and I don’t consider myself the most well-informed citizen on any particular subject. I probably give myself less credit than I deserve, relative to the general population. Which is full of people who know what is “just the best,” even though it’s something different every other day. Which of course instantly discredits them because of their failure to understand the function of a superlative. But that doesn’t mean I won’t worry about my own qualifications.

I have doubts about whether the kind of fancy tier names I’ll generate will be worthy of those that have graced the virtual pages of FanGraphs. Howard Bender classified the catchers based on lodging chains at which he’s stayed (I’m just assuming, probably incorrectly, but amusingly) last month. That’s a good theme, fairly simple. I’ll try to follow that lead.

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A new season beginning means a new set of tiered rankings. As usual, I’ll be sharing with you lovely readers my American League starting pitcher ranks. All my rankings lists are based on projected value moving forward with no accounting for what the pitcher has already done (which of course is nothing for the majority of pitchers at this point). I am extremely patient before moving a pitcher up or down, mostly ignore ERA and focus primarily on a pitcher’s underlying skills. Though tier rankings are supposed to consider all pitchers within a tier as essentially interchangeable, this list is a straight copy and paste from my projected dollar values, so it will begin in order. For your debating pleasure, my tiers have been named after Parks and Recreation characters.

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Who’s ready for some tiers? National league pitchers have been hit particularly hard in the lead-up to the season, creating some interesting situations within the tiers. Where should you value Mike Minor now? What about Cole Hamels? A couple notes about tiers before we begin. You’ll notice this is the NL post, so you won’t see Justin Verlander ranked. Despite this, someone in the comments will say “where’s Justin Verlander, you idiot?” Don’t do this, don’t even do it ironically. The tiers should be viewed as tiers, not straight rankings. If I have Minor and Hamels in the same tier, but Minor is ranked higher in his tier, that doesn’t matter. Being in a tier means I perceive those players to have similar value. Finally, I’m going to rank players according to my favorite Game of Thrones characters (topical!). There will be no spoilers, I promise. On a final note, don’t even try to argue with the rankings of Game of Thrones characters. You will be wrong! Off we go.

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With one day in the books, you’ve already got one prediction right when it comes to the shortstop position: Yes, Jose Reyes will get hurt at some point this season. On the first at bat of the season, to be precise.

While Reyes’ injury history was surely priced into his ranking and projections already, his opening-day-uhh-why-did-he-play-on-the-weekend-at-less-than-100-percent injury serves as a reminder that things can change quickly. Chris Owings is a full-time starter, Alex Gonzalez surely earned himself some additional early PAs, and Hanley Ramirez is the bustiest bust to ever bust.

It’s technically a day too late, but here are the moment-in-time shortstop tiers for the 2014 season.
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