Rotographs Positional Rankings
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.
At the backend, I cut off the lists where it started to be just one person ranking a guy so we ended up with:
- 200 SP
- 90 RP
- 60 C
- 60 1B/UT
- 40 2B
- 45 SS
- 50 3B
- 150 OF
Here is the top 10 at each position for a little taste:
| RK | SP | RP | C | 1B |
| 1 | Clayton Kershaw | Aroldis Chapman | Buster Posey | Miguel Cabrera |
| 2 | Felix Hernandez | Craig Kimbrel | Jonathan Lucroy | Paul Goldschmidt |
| 3 | Chris Sale | Greg Holland | Evan Gattis | Jose Abreu |
| 4 | Max Scherzer | Kenley Jansen | Devin Mesoraco | Edwin Encarnacion |
| 5 | Stephen Strasburg | Mark Melancon | Yan Gomes | Anthony Rizzo |
| 6 | Corey Kluber | Dellin Betances | Brian McCann | Freddie Freeman |
| 7 | David Price | Cody Allen | Salvador Perez | Adrian Gonzalez |
| 8 | Madison Bumgarner | David Robertson | Yadier Molina | Albert Pujols |
| 9 | Zack Greinke | Trevor Rosenthal | Travis d’Arnaud | Prince Fielder |
| 10 | Yu Darvish | Steve Cishek | Russell Martin | David Ortiz |
| RK | 2B | SS | 3B | OF |
| 1 | Jose Altuve | Troy Tulowitzki | Josh Donaldson | Mike Trout |
| 2 | Robinson Cano | Ian Desmond | Anthony Rendon | Andrew McCutchen |
| 3 | Ian Kinsler | Hanley Ramirez | Adrian Beltre | Giancarlo Stanton |
| 4 | Dee Gordon | Jose Reyes | Evan Longoria | Carlos Gomez |
| 5 | Brian Dozier | Starlin Castro | Kyle Seager | Jose Bautista |
| 6 | Jason Kipnis | Alexei Ramirez | Nolan Arenado | Adam Jones |
| 7 | Dustin Pedroia | Elvis Andrus | Todd Frazier | Yasiel Puig |
| 8 | Daniel Murphy | Ben Zobrist | Pablo Sandoval | Jacoby Ellsbury |
| 9 | Neil Walker | Jimmy Rollins | Chris Davis | Michael Brantley |
| 10 | Kolten Wong | Alcides Escobar | Carlos Santana | Ryan Braun |
The top 300 is now included in this spreadsheet. If you have questions, comments, or concerns, please put them below.
Rankings based on 5×5 roto, 12 teams, single-catcher with Middle Infield and Corner Infield spots, 14 hitters and 9 pitchers. Each ranker had their own mix of projections and intuition.
Last Update: 2/17/15
Downloadable spreadsheets are my drug.
Great stuff! In the future, the ability to sort the players based upon being in the NL-AL on the spreadsheet would make it great for those who play those formats.
I will do that over the weekend and update the spread when I update the top 300s.
That’s great. Thank you.
Insert a column, enter NL or AL, and then sort. Don’t have to wait until tomorrow.
<3
This spreadsheet has games played by position. Please-o-please tell me this is going to be part of the ordinary FG stat reports this year!
One thing that jumps out at me is that there seems to be a major dropoff from the the 14th rank pitcher (Lester) to the 15th rank Carrasco). This begs the question is it worth it to try to grab 2 (or possibly 3 in a 10 team league) of those top 15 pitchers?
Guys below Lester include Cobb, Arrieta, Harvey, Wainwright, Alex Wood, Cole, Teheran, Ross, Lee, and Stroman who all have ace upside. I’d take a lot of those guys over Lester but no matter how you rank them I don’t think the drop off is significant to rush to take 3 or even 2 top 15 guys.
I totally agree with this sentiment. In my Keeper league, I’m planning to keep Cobb, Wood, & Teheran and give 0 effort to get anyone above them. I’m also counting on my league mates to panic and grab SPs while I build my offense.
I like getting 2 top of the top #6 to #10 ranked pitchers. I am not for the elite level in case of an injury, but still should have good results. And if one goes down, I at least didn’t invest too much in him and have a back up.
Jeff interesting tactics ranking Carlos carrasco as the 18.5 best pitcher … I like it
I personally disagree. Value lost to injury is wasted regardless if you used other picks/$ at the same position. It could of went to a bat. I am not investing in beach front property with rising sea levels. To me paying for pitchers is the same. Best forumla to finish mid pack is draft an ace or 2. Best formula to win a league is load up on high floor O and hope to hit it big later with pitching. You risk a low place finish, but in my opinion have higher odds of winning. 2 top 10 pitchers is too heavy of a risk in my eyes.
A drop off from Lester to Carrasco??? I think most of us would prefer Carrasco to Lester, and perhaps several other pitchers above him. I have Carrasco in my top 10.
this is great! just a suggestion for next time, freeze top row on all of the tabs.
Which projections are shown?
Average of Fans and Steamer (Sometimes just Steamer when we had to add a player). We hope to have an average of Steamer, Zips and Fans for the top 300 list
Just spot-checking, looks like only Steamer is presented here. Anxious for the Top 300 averages!
You said to list my concerns below, so…
The future availability of water in the Western U.S.
Labor force participation rates and balancing incentives/disincentives to work
The aging of the American infrastructure and the costs (and willingness) to address
Mutated, super-infectious, antibody-resistant strains of diseases
The Blue Jays’ 2B and SP5 productivity
Why is my cat such a maniac…I mean, can’t she cut that sh!t out already? I’m trying to sleep. She carries the wireless computer mouse downstairs and lays it beside the bed at 3 AM, and then looks at me expectantly, ready to play. I know cats like mice, but this is F’ING RIDICULOUS.
Hopefully Mets and Jays work out a 2b trade, Jason B. We need to open 2B for Dilson Herrera or even Flores if they somehow land another SS.
Blue Jays 2B should be quickly resolved once people recognize the abilities of Mr. Devon Travis.
As a Met fan and friend of the Blue Jays ever since Olerud made a run at .400, I think we need to get a conversation going about the Universal Living Wage (a.k.a. Basic Income, a.k.a. paying people enough to live on just for being citizens). Also, yeah what would you give us for D. Murphy? He’s the best at catching the 3B napping and stealing third!
If you leave the mouse out, it will be in my mouth at some point. Just like your wallet, and the checkbook, and ink pens and highlighters, and picture frames, and books, and anything else I can sink my little kitty teeth in. That’s on you, buddy.
Now feed me.
You guys must still be under the false impression that Wainwright’s offseason surgery is more serious that the minor cleanup operation that it really was, otherwise he should be at least 7th place on the SP list.
It’s not only that (which I think is still an unknown, I don’t think you can be definitive either way on his injury), but his strikeout rate also dropped substantially and he did have a 3.34 xFIP thanks to a career-best 5.3% HR/FB rate. He’s 33, the mileage is piling up, and the strikeouts are going down. I don’t think he’s a guaranteed top 10 guy. The thing is, he must be a 220+ IP guy to be elite. His game is volume and betting on volume from a 33-year old isn’t always wise.
…betting on volume from a 33-year old (coming off multiple surgeries) isn’t always wise.
wainwright is going to become halladay like. he is not a top 10 pitcher.
I like Wainwright, but for the reasons my fellow commenters mentioned, I won’t count on him for past-Waino production, and I imagine someone will pay for him like they can. So probably no Wainwright on my teams.
But the real reason I’m commenting is to say that I got into a thing about him in the comments section of a mock draft with a Cardinals fan. Dude cites his Ws and WHIP from 2014. I point out Ks and BABIP. He says Ks and BABIP are overrated. Which you can make a case for, unless you just cited wins.
I acknowledge the above concerns but I still think the hate on Wainwright has gone way too far this year. This is still a guy coming of back-to-back top 3 NL CY finishes, who hasn’t posted a FIP > 3.11 since 2008. He was a top 5 SP going into 2014, and he posted another top 5 SP season in 2014. I’d say 15-20 is reasonable but Waino outside the top 25 is madness, imo.
Can you explain why Carlos Santana is listed at 3B? He played more games at 1B and qualifies in Yahoo! as a C.
The Y! qualification rules are very loose and not universal so slotting guys based on that wouldn’t be useful for everyone and Santana’s value is much higher at 3B than 1B so we put him at his best position. Same reason 1B-elig catchers aren’t listed there. It’s never fruitful to use Cs at 1B.
Guys like Rendon were tougher because 2B and 3B are both pretty useful, but if a guy qualifies at two or more spots and one is 1B, then he goes at the other spot.
Where will Santana rank at C or 1B?
He won’t. He’s not a catcher in the overwhelming majority of leagues and you’re better off using him at 3B over 1B in all cases. He’s probably high-teens, low-20s 1B if you really wanna use him there. For me personally, it’d probably be 15th at 1B. But again, maximize his value and use him as 3B.
They hate Joey Votto now. This makes me sad.
:’^(
I actually love Votto, but he has to return to his 2013 levels to be elite and even then, his elite-ness is drawn from areas not normally associated with 1Bs – AVG and Rs. His HRs were 9th and RBIs were 17th among 1B that year.
I’ve got him 10th which is highest in the group, but I completely understand the case to have him a few ticks lower.
I can’t really make much of an arguement against that. I still like him better than AGone, Pujols, Fielder, and Ortiz. I understand why he’s not ranked higher than those four though given his last two seasons.
Shortstop is such a headache. Three of the top four guys have injury concerns significant enough to dissuade me from paying their market value, and after Reyes there is a free fall in value. Paul, would you care to offer your thoughts on what Tulo, Desmond, Hanley, and Reyes would be worth in a standard 5X5 Yahoo auction draft ($260 budget)? It’s keeping me up at night!
only desmond is worth the money. SS is crap. the top 4 then junk. 3 of them are injury concerns. maybe one of them guys can provide some good value like the cheap alexei ramirez last year. if I can get desmond for a decent price I would but other than that I wait until late to get one.
But the injury concerns are baked into the price already. Otherwise Tulo would be a consensus top 2-3 guy. If he does manage to stay healthy (he won’t) he’ll provide more value than just about anyone else you can draft at his position.
1 SS no MI slots
I know this isn’t the right forum but when does the pitching guide come out?
Soon! Working on it as we speak! Update coming early next week.
Why no rankings from Eno? Really wanted to see his pitcher rankings.
I’ll point out pitchers I like better than the consensus!
How is Semien not ranked anywhere? You guys have some ss that won’t get regular playing time on the list.
24th at 3B. Doesn’t qualify at SS.
Semien qualifies at SS in OttoNeu. I am not sure why anybody bothers with non-OttoNeu leagues.
Apparently, we all forgot to consult with you first about what we should enjoy. Please leave your email address so this doesn’t happen again.
Santana is a C in Ottoneu. Betts is a 2B.
Yes and Y! has some unique ones too, but we’re catering to the larger scale and those two qualifications won’t be available to most coming into the season.
Incorrect.
How do you figure? CBS+ESPN > Y!+Ottoneu and neither CBS nor ESPN has those two qualifications. I don’t get why you’re upset.
Is CBS baseball better than CBS football? I play in Yahoo football leagues and got talked into a CBS football league–MISERABLE experience. Site, set-up, and the fact that you have to PAY makes it terrible in my eyes
what’s the downside to also ranking guys at their Yahoo positions? it’s easy enough for readers to exclude them if they aren’t eligible in a position in their leagues. This way, you can actually cater to everyone and not just pick and choose arbitrarily.
For OttoNeu purposes (and I assume we all agree nothing else matters), Anthony Rendon plays 2B, as does Mookie Betts. Carlos Santana is a catcher.
Utley?
11th at 2B
It would be awesome if the Rotographs team did one of these for points leagues. I know there are more Roto players than points, and points leagues have a lot of non-standard variations, but I think points has been a growing format, and leagues have enough scoring commonality that the top 100 overall and top 10 by position would be useful to the majority of us. If you want to be extra awesome, calculate total projected points for each of the major standard points formats (ESPN, CBS, Ottoneu, etc.)
Not sure I share the Miggy love. Latest MASH report says May 2015. So that’s a month for a guy who’s not getting any younger. Not saying there’s going to be a diminished skill set necessarily (crazy he’ll only be 32..), but he’s been getting nicked up the past 2 years, so why are we assuming he returns to pre-2014 numbers after the injury, and with no spring training.
On the flip-side we’ve got Jose Abreu, who Dan Farnsworth seems to like (greatest Cuban prospect..ever?) with a clean injury history and according to Pod underachieved in regards to home park HRs. Better home park, improved lineup. I see the AVG projection, but I’m not sure I agree with it, that’s quite a swing a for guy that hit .350 the second half.
I’d have to agree with Jeff on this one, but I’d love to hear more seeing as I’m sitting at 2nd overall in a 6×6 OPS league.
Did each person rank the same amount of players? If so, a player that wasn’t ranked should be assigned a value greater than the number of players ranked. As it is, the Average formula is ignoring the blank cells instead of looking at them as not in the top 200 (using SP’s as an example). By doing this, Bud Norris drops 20 spots.
Is there any way the NL/AL sort can be applied to all positions?