Out of my various fantasy leagues, only one is auction-style. Near the end of our draft last week, I picked up Brian Roberts for $1, grumbling the entire time that the software was forcing me to pick a second baseman despite already having Matt Carpenter & Josh Rutledge, who I’d planned to use at the position when they gained eligibility.

For a dollar, it seemed, it was worth the gamble, even through years of injury trouble. No one expected Roberts to be anything like the elite star he was between 2005-09, when he was collecting doubles, steals, and homers, but he finally seemed healthy and had a productive spring. You figured maybe he’d manage to give us a decent batting average and perhaps a steal here or there, and for a lone dollar, that’d be fine. After four hits in his first two games, I even dropped Luis Cruz to pick him up in another league of mine this afternoon… Read the rest of this entry »

The Texas Rangers reportedly agreed to an eight-year, $120M contract extension with shortstop Elvis Andrus, effectively making him the focal point of the franchise for the next decade. Contract extensions don’t generally have a huge impact on fantasy baseball for the individual signing the extension. Perhaps it slightly increases Andrus’ long-term value because he will remain in a positive run environment, but that only matters in extreme keeper leagues.

This Andrus extension does impact fantasy baseball in a different way, though. It essentially guarantees one of two scenarios will happen with top-prospect Jurickson Profar: (1) he will be moved to second base with the Rangers, or (2) he will be traded and play shortstop for another organization.

Since this is not the space for trade speculation regarding one of the top prospects in all of baseball, we can focus upon Profar’s assumed move to second base and what that means for his value in standard roto formats.

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We released our consensus rankings earlier this month, but we enjoy going the extra mile and we place players into various tiers. It helps contextualize an individual player by grouping them with players of similar fantasy value. My personal rankings varied slightly from the consensus rankings, so they won’t be perfectly aligned. The differences shouldn’t be too dramatic, though.

Without further ado, here are the tiers:

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My how times have changed. Four seasons ago the Yankees rode one of the best infields in baseball history — combined 23.5 WAR out of their starting catcher, first baseman, second baseman, shortstop, and third baseman — to the World Championship, but when 2013 opens they will have one bonafide superstar, one major question mark, and three guys either hurt or coming off injury on the infield. You have to see it to believe how ugly it is:

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All this week I have been checking in on the players I have ranked most differently from the other RotoGraphers in our recently published consensus. Today are the second basemen, a group that doesn’t have a whole lot of good late round sleepers like the shortstop position does. So maybe instead you pick an undervalued guy in the middle rounds that I identify in the bullish section. That section will include guys I ranked in the top 18, while the bearish will look at those ranked in the top 18 by the consensus.

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There are probably six players on this depth chart that are more important than Evan Gattis. But it’s fine if you want to read about Evan Gattis, I won’t be bitter. I promise.

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Last week was all about the consensus ranks. This week, you’ll see some tiered ranks as we also try to finish up the depth chart discussion. But before we move on too quickly, I thought it would be interesting and informative for me to pick out the players that I liked and disliked more than the other analysts involved in the consensus ranks. Hopefully I’ll have a short, concise reason for my rankings in each case. Hopefully.

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Over the last few days, my compatriots four of my compatriots have begun presenting you with an extremely valuable draft tool: consensus positional rankings. But for those of you who play ottoneu, things differ a bit, especially if you are in a 4×4 or Points League.

Starting today, I am going to take a look at those rankings and let you know where ottoneu players should take a different stance.

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We know y’all are starting to draft, so we’re going to pump the rankings out two at a time. We even started over the weekend, you might have noticed. The first baseman were first, the catchers were second, and now we get to the second basemen.

I’m partial to these guys — as a bad glove, no-bat youngster, I usually ended up at second base when I played. And it’s one of those positions that teams seem to find. There, among the failed shortstops and slightly athletic former tweener third basemen, they find a guy that works for them. And no, Matt Carpenter is not ranked here yet, (I might put him around 22nd), because you can’t play a guy in a position where he’s not eligible.

No matter where you find your second baseman, though, you need to find one. On to the ranks.

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We are entering year two of the post-Albert era in St. Louis and after an 88-win season that resulted in a wild card berth and a trip to the NLCS that fell just one win short of a World Series appearance, the Cardinals are returning with a largely unchanged infield configuration. For better or for worse, the St. Louis brass opted to leave things as is and let other teams play the free agent market this season. The “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy is in play here and for fantasy purposes, it’s not bad, but the upside is just as limited now as it was just a year ago. Read the rest of this entry »