We’re going position by position this week and next with our initial roll out of rankings. We will update these in March based on Spring Training activity and injuries.

We’re using Yahoo! eligibility requirements which is 5 starts or 10 appearances. These rankings assume the standard 5×5 categories and a re-draft league. If we forgot someone, please let us know in the comments and we’ll make sure he’s added for the updates. If you have questions for a specific ranker on something he did, let us know in the comments. We can also be reached via Twitter:

• Paul Sporer
• Jeff Zimmerman
• Mike Podhorzer
• Brad Johnson
• Justin Mason
• Al Melchior

There will be differences, sharp differences, within the rankings. The rankers have different philosophies when it comes to ranking, some of which you’re no doubt familiar with through previous iterations. Of course the idea that we’d all think the same would be silly because then what would be the point of including multiple rankers?! Think someone should be higher or lower? Make a case. Let us know why you think that. The chart is sortable. If a ranker didn’t rank someone that the others did, he was given that ranker’s last rank +1.

Key:

• AVG– just the average of the seven ranking sets
• AVG– the average minus the high and low rankings
• SPLIT– the difference between the high and low rankings

Previous rankings:

• OF
• SP
• 1B

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Last Friday we kicked off our ottoneu FanGraphs points league rankings. This year the rankings will include values from myself, Justin Vibber, and Chad Young. We are presenting our individual dollar values, the average of all three individuals, plus the ranking of that average. In addition the tables below include ottoneu eligibility (5 games started/10 games played in the prior year). Players are ranked at their most valuable position, and the hierarchy we are using is C/SS/2B/3B/OF/1B (with 3B and OF being a coin toss in terms of replacement level, we chose to include 3B/OF eligibles at 3B).

Prior Rankings: C/1B/3B

Key:
Split – Difference from highest to lowest $ value
Otto.– Average price across Ottoneu FGpts leagues
AVG. – Average $ value from the four of us
(+/-) – Difference between Ottoneu average price and our average $ value Read the rest of this entry »

I love pouring over ADP data in the dead of winter to see how the next season’s market is shaping up. I didn’t touch on this in the first base/catcher review last time out, but I should mention that ADP is merely a guide and a partially blind one at that. It only takes one other person in your league to throw everything off.

This is where knowing your league is very important because if you know that most of the league takes their cues from ADP, it can be especially helpful. But if you play with a group of folks who march to their own drum – and it doesn’t even have to be the whole league, it can be just 2-3 people – then you’re getting very general information from it at best.

Anyway, I just wanted to make that clear before continuing this series. If anything, this is a jumping off point to give some thoughts on a handful of players at every position. We all know that this is a living, breathing market that is in its infancy for the 2017 season. Enough preamble, let’s get into the middle infield.

Previously: 1B/C

SECOND BASE (click through for ADP data)

• Jose Altuve (pick 4) has a remarkably narrow spread early on with a minimum pick of 3 and maximum of 7. He will go 2nd overall in some drafts by the end of draft season, too.

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Prior to the 2016 season, a number of fantasy enthusiasts — and Marlins fans — took a look at the healthy distances that Christian Yelich would hit flyballs and wondered what could be if he just hit a few more of them. This season, we got a snapshot of what that would look like. For the first time in his four-year career, Yelich hit ground balls at a rate below 60 percent (56.5 percent, to be exact) and drove his flyball rate up to a whopping 20.0 percent. Those trends, in combination with a higher hard-hit rate and a greater average flyball distance, helped Yelich to become the legitimate power source some of us dreamed of, as he hit 21 home runs and 38 doubles.

By hitting grounders at an extreme rate, Yelich wasn’t making full use of some strong power-hitting skills that his indicators suggested he owned. But could there be a hitter who does just the opposite, hitting too many flyballs in the face of flagging power indicators? If his rookie season is a sign of what’s to come, Jorge Polanco is becoming such a hitter.

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Man, no one saw this coming. Didi Gregorius ended up finishing 11th in fantasy value this year, actually making him worthy of a starting shortstop slot in shallow mixed leagues! We certainly didn’t expect this. Our preseason rankings valued him as just the 22nd best shortstop, and the most bullish ranking had him at 16th. Although he only improved marginally on the offensive side from a real baseball perspective, he made enough small gains to push himself into fantasy asset territory.

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Right now I am in the middle of writing preseason player profiles for several publications. Like most people, I examine a player’s stat page for most of the information. Additionally, I have access to our database and have created some cheat sheets to help with looking for possible changes in a hitter’s profile to help explain stat changes like a significant bump in home runs. Today, I’ll start with making my hitter sheet available and go over a few players with the information.

I find hitters to be the tougher than pitchers to determine if changes in production are from a new approach or from just plain luck. To help find such changes in approach, I determine changes in several metrics which would point to an overall talent adjustment. The stats I examine are:

Swing based
Pull%
GB%
Hard%

Eye base
BB%
K%

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Asdrubal Cabrera has had a number of up and down seasons in the past few years, and from my outside perspective it seems to be, at least in some part, related to a significant quadriceps injury he suffered in 2013 (view the video). Cabrera entered the 2013 season as a two time All Star shortstop, and during the first two months he was off to a pretty standard Asdrubal Cabrera type season: above average offense and mediocre defense.  After this injury, from which he missed three weeks of playing time, he languished offensively for more than two entire months.  From June 26th, the day he returned, until September 4th, he produced a miserable .221/.276/.329 line with .267 wOBA and 65 wRC+. From September 6th on, he went back to his more standard .272/.330/.519 with .368 wOBA and 134 wRC+.  With the benefit of hindsight, we can all agree he likely came back from his quad injury too soon. 

The struggles of the 2013 season may have prepared Cabrera for his 2016 campaign, as it turned out to be very similar to 2013 in many ways.  During spring training, Cabrera suffered another quadriceps related injury, this time to his patellar tendon, the bit that connects your kneecap to your lower leg.  This injury served to plague him throughout the season, leading him to the disabled list in early August after suffering what, to me anyway, looked like a potentially serious injury (view the video).  Similar to 2013, Cabrera came back from this injury exceptionally quickly, this time missing only 18 games, but, unlike 2013, this time came back with a fury. And a new hair color.

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I was bearish on Addison Russell heading into the 2016 season. It had far more to do with his likely placement in the Cubs’ batting order than his actual performance expectations. Because he recorded all his plate appearances from the bottom half of the order, he amassed just 598 of them, despite remaining healthy all season and missing nary a game due to injury. That hurt his counting stats, though aside from his mediocre runs scored total, were still fairly strong from a fantasy contribution perspective. They could have been better, of course. A spot in the bottom half of the lineup had something to do with his rank of just 16 in fantasy earnings among shortstops (17 if you include Jean Segura). So although his home run total jumped from 13 to 21 and ISO spiked from .147 to .179, he was still a disappointment to fantasy owners.

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Eduardo Nunez: 2017 Projection

The 29-year-old Nunez went from being a Twins bench player to a top-40 fantasy player. Looking over his year-to-year profile he was basically the same player he’s been for his career, but he was given a full season of plate appearances for the first time in 2016. For example, his 2016 triple slash line (.288/.325/.432) is almost identical to his 2015 line (.282/.327/.431).

Two small differences, besides the playing time which was a huge difference, were important with his 2016 season. The first was an improving power profile.

I am a little worried the home runs may not be as high playing in San Francisco, but they should be in the double digits.

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If you joined me for yesterday’s Way Too Early Rankings, I spent most of the article discussing the ridiculous depth atop the shortstop depth chart. The first seven guys are stars. The eighth guy is Jean Segura (unlisted in the linked article). He’s one repeat season away from joining the fantasy stars of the position.

As with second base, shortstop is typically a place you go in the late rounds for stolen bases and empty batting average. That’s all changed. While it’s not as deep as second base, there are enough high quality options for most leagues.

The breakout seasons of 2016 fell into two categories: young players getting their first shot and mushroom-fueled veterans. You know the one I’m talking about, it’s red with white polka dots. Using these two profiles, let’s try to predict who might outperform expectations in 2017.

Before we continue, I want to be clear about something. Most of what we’re discussing below can be categorized as exceedingly unlikely. I’m just trying to find players who may improve in some kind of predictable way.

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