Staff rankings: Top 1-100

by
February 24, 2012

The following writers have ranked their top 200: Josh Shepardson, Ben Pritchett, Brad Johnson, and yours truly.

We used FantasyPros.com to create our composite rankings, and if you follow the link provided in our rankings, you can see how ours compared with a slew of other experts’. I speak for at least Josh Shepardson and me when I say that we will continue to update our rankings on FantasyPros and Twitter, perhaps, throughout spring training and the coming month (and change).

Keep on the lookout for updates, and, as always, assume a 12-team, mixed league with standard 5×5 settings. Click on the links with our names to get to our Twitter accounts, where we’ll happily answer your baseball and fantasy questions year-round. Our apologies for having to split up the top 200 into two articles.

2012 Overall Rankings
Player Name Nick
Fleder		 Ben
Prichett		 Josh
Shepardson		 Brad
Johnson		 THT
Composite		 FantasyPros
Expert Consensus
Miguel Cabrera 1 1 1 1 1 view
Albert Pujols 4 2 2 2 2 view
Jose Bautista 3 6 3 3 3 view
Matt Kemp 2 3 4 7 4 view
Joey Votto 7 4 6 5 5 view
Troy Tulowitzki 9 5 5 4 6 view
Jacoby Ellsbury 6 10 11 8 7 view
Evan Longoria 14 8 7 11 8 view
Robinson Cano 8 11 13 10 9 view
Justin Upton 10 9 10 15 10 view
Adrian Gonzalez 15 13 9 9 11 view
Prince Fielder 13 14 8 12 12 view
Carlos Gonzalez 11 7 17 17 13 view
Dustin Pedroia 18 17 12 13 14 view
Ian Kinsler 12 19 15 19 15 view
Curtis Granderson 21 18 16 16 16 view
Clayton Kershaw 17 15 22 22 17 view
Mike Stanton 16 24 23 14 18 view
Roy Halladay 19 16 21 21 19 view
Hanley Ramirez 24 20 14 20 20 view
Justin Verlander 20 12 38 23 21 view
Mark Teixeira 26 22 20 26 22 view
Cliff Lee 22 21 25 27 23 view
Andrew McCutchen 23 23 24 25 24 view
Ryan Braun 5 45 45 6 25 view
Adrian Beltre 29 28 18 29 26 view
Jose Reyes 45 25 19 18 27 view
Tim Lincecum 27 27 26 40 28 view
David Wright 30 26 33 38 29 view
Mike Napoli 34 37 30 35 30 view
CC Sabathia 37 31 37 34 31 view
Josh Hamilton 46 39 31 24 32 view
Felix Hernandez 28 29 39 44 33 view
Ryan Zimmerman 41 41 32 28 34 view
Matt Holliday 38 44 35 30 35 view
Cole Hamels 31 35 46 36 36 view
Brett Lawrie 35 48 27 46 37 view
Nelson Cruz 32 38 44 43 38 view
Carlos Santana 40 49 29 45 39 view
Desmond Jennings 33 65 28 41 40 view
Hunter Pence 39 33 68 31 41 view
Jered Weaver 25 32 55 60 42 view
Starlin Castro 44 52 40 39 43 view
Pablo Sandoval 49 61 34 32 44 view
Dan Uggla 60 30 42 56 45 view
Zack Greinke 58 46 36 49 46 view
Paul Konerko 54 36 58 42 47 view
Eric Hosmer 48 34 53 58 48 view
David Price 50 42 51 53 49 view
Ben Zobrist 51 57 41 48 50 view
Jay Bruce 68 40 43 51 51 view
Brandon Phillips 55 58 64 33 52 view
Alex Rodriguez 59 59 57 37 53 view
Dan Haren 36 43 79 63 54 view
Jon Lester 64 47 56 61 55 view
Brian McCann 56 55 66 54 56 view
Michael Young 52 51 84 50 57 view
Madison Bumgarner 53 78 47 62 58 view
Stephen Strasburg 47 74 52 68 59 view
Kevin Youkilis 72 60 60 52 60 view
Asdrubal Cabrera 43 66 62 74 61 view
Elvis Andrus 61 53 82 55 62 view
Michael Morse 69 56 70 59 63 view
Rickie Weeks 70 62 65 57 64 view
Matt Cain 42 50 100 65 65 view
Shane Victorino 57 68 74 64 66 view
Alex Gordon 75 63 50 76 67 view
B.J. Upton 62 76 49 79 68 view
Yovani Gallardo 87 73 48 78 69 view
Michael Bourn 66 54 91 75 70 view
Lance Berkman 74 79 69 70 71 view
Craig Kimbrel 65 87 61 82 72 view
Matt Moore 73 83 77 67 73 view
Jimmy Rollins 79 70 63 93 74 view
Adam Wainwright 77 71 95 71 75 view
James Shields 85 80 88 66 76 view
Matt Wieters 88 94 54 84 77 view
Buster Posey 95 69 71 86 78 view
Ian Kennedy 67 89 99 72 79 view
Yu Darvish 80 86 104 69 80 view
Corey Hart 81 77 73 112 81 view
Jason Heyward 76 92 89 90 82 view
Joe Mauer 91 64 107 88 83 view
C.J. Wilson 78 85 94 97 84 view
Adam Jones 63 81 113 98 85 view
Carl Crawford 86 93 85 94 86 view
Aramis Ramirez 71 91 59 143 87 view
Howard Kendrick 94 75 124 73 88 view
Shin-Soo Choo 83 121 75 89 89 view
Jason Kipnis 98 101 86 83 90 view
Chase Utley 140 67 115 47 91 view
John Axford 84 100 78 118 92 view
Jesus Montero 101 112 72 96 93 view
Josh Johnson 117 82 102 80 94 view
Jonathan Papelbon 92 113 76 106 95 view
Michael Pineda 97 98 87 105 96 view
Mat Latos 104 103 80 103 97 view
Drew Stubbs 99 99 67 126 98 view
Brett Gardner 90 88 126 99 99 view
Mariano Rivera 89 110 96 109 100 view

Fantasy Baseball Rankings powered by FantasyPros, the leading aggregator of expert fantasy advice.


17 Comments
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Brad Johnson
13 years ago

What do you mean?

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NoPepperGames
13 years ago

Numbers next to the rankings would be REALLY helpful.

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Brad Johnson
13 years ago

Constraints.

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BobbyRoberto
13 years ago

I took these top 100 rankings and figured the average absolute difference for each person as compared to the THT Composite.

Nick Fleder’s picks were closest to the THT Composite pick, off by an absolute average of 6.6.

Ben Prichett-7.2
Brad Johnson—7.7
Josh Shepardson—9.8

Josh, therefore, has the most unique rankings.

Notable players:
Chase Utley was ranked as high as 47 and as low as 140.  He had the biggest difference among all players in his spot in the rankings.  I guess this would make him the biggest question mark, with rankings of 47, 67, 115, and 140.  He’s all over the place.  In a 12-team league, he could be considered as early as late 4th round (47th pick) or as late as the middle of the 12th round (140th pick). 

Aramis Ramirez was next on this list, with rankings as high as 59 (late 5th round in a 12-team league) to as low as 143 (late 12th round). 

Drew Stubbs was an interesting one.  His THT Composite is 98 (early 9th round).  Nick and Ben both have him ranked 99th.  Josh has him at 67 (6th round), Brad has him at 126 (11th round).

Interesting stuff.

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Brad Johnson
13 years ago

For fantasy purposes, Dusty Baker scares me a lot. I still feel like Baker would shift Stubbs into a 450-500 PA role if he found someone he was comfortable putting in center. And with Baker, that seemingly could be any ol’ veteran that wanders onto the roster. Yea, feelings, booooo.

I wonder how our composite rankings compare to FantasyPros ECR. On the one hand, we worked with a biased name list and probably ended up with some anchoring effects (the list was roughly in value order and we drag/drop in the order we want). On the other hand, I suspect that we have our own little group think cluster over here at THT that is distinct from the general “expert” population.

Oh, and ignore my Utley pick. Call it my one homer pick (actually, I think I picked Hamels over Lincecum…two homer picks).

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Ben Pritchett
13 years ago

To your point BobbyRoberto, I was planning an article about the usefulness of standard deviation in rankings from several sources. I actually think that it may be more useful for in-draft purposes than the rankings themselves.., great research BobbyR by the way…

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Brad Johnson
13 years ago

NoPepperGames:

Here’s kind of the best we can do for you in terms of providing numbers with the names. http://www.fantasypros.com/mlb/projections/1b.php

You can tab around to each position. Solid tool although I foolishly like to keep my projections in my head.

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Ben Pritchett
13 years ago

Note: I didn’t get a chance to adjust my rating on the heels of the Ryan Braun news. Adjust him to number 4 overall and number 2 OF. He’d be number one in both for me but baseball is a mental game too and I just don’t see how this doesn’t way on him especially in the early goings.

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Brad Johnson
13 years ago

No thoughts: Big boards confuse more than they enlighten. At least for me.

Our picks on Utley are interesting. I had Braun in the 20’s even when I was expecting him to miss 35 games.

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Ben Pritchett
13 years ago

“*weigh on him”, I’m correcting my post above. IPhone commenting doesn’t always work out the way we want it too.

I think it’s interesting that I rank completely differently than everybody else. It almost makes me question if I’ve got it together as much as I think I do.

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Brad Johnson
13 years ago

Shane,

As I recall from last year, we already drafted the same. I think we took each other’s next pick every round. So I doubt making my rankings public will change that dynamic.

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Derek Ambrosino
13 years ago

…We’ll take that as a compliment, Shane.

But, here’s the question, how fun was it *really* to “dominate every league you were in?” Is it fun to play pick-up basketball with sixth-graders too?

I understand those who like to put in their own work as opposed to getting stuff for free, but frankly that’s the direction in which all of society is moving. Knowing information isn’t necessarily as important as knowing how to access information that you can be confident is high-quality and current. One on hand, it’s lamentable, though there’s a fair bit of romanticism anchored to that feeling. On the other hand, it’s about increasing the overall efficiency of the information ecosystem.

…And, what information did you – or do we, for that matter, actually create yourself either? You’re not breaking relevant news, nor are you the man behind the invention of BABIP, so you’re just using information asymmetry to your advantage too, mainly because you had access to info that previously wasn’t as accessible.

So, continuing to take your comment very seriously, I’d suggest you consider one of two directions. One, embrace enhanced competitiveness and see a stronger correlation between joy derived from achievement and level of difficulty of that achievement. Or, two, start to migrate your efforts where the majority of the fantasy gaming world is still behind the curve. In thinking daily fantasy gaming. Strategies and analysis focused on this form of fantasy gaming is much less evolved – or at least the highly evolved info is certainly less present in the public domain and mainstream outlets.

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Shane Meredith
13 years ago

The little symbol :-J at the end of my post means tongue-in-cheek. I didn’t think anyone would know what that meant, cause I had to look it up myself. Yes, I was only kidding (well, half anyway) grin.

If I’m going to be in a league, I would much prefer to have other managers that frequent the top baseball sites and know the advanced metrics. It leads to great conversations when trades are offered, drafts are done, etc.

I love the Hardball times (and other sites) and I actually like the competitiveness of leagues much more, although 2nd place finishes every year to different people is getting a little annoying. grin

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Derek Ambrosino
13 years ago

Shane,

I thought you might be kidding, but I have heard people make complaints like yours in earnest before, so I felt like it was worth “going on the record” in reply to that argument – whether you were being sincere or sarcastic.

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Shane Meredith
13 years ago

I think all baseball sites should not be allowed to publish fantasy articles until after April 1 of each year. It’s things like this that have ruined fantasy baseball for me. In the old days, I dominated every league I was in. Now, any Joe Schmoe can come here or a few other sites, and get his drafting strategy with out putting in much effort.

:-J

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NoPepperGames
13 years ago

Thanks.  Like that tool.

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Daniel Hayes
13 years ago

Josh, you said on twitter that overall rankings are silly.  You said it after looking at your rankings.  OMG.

Verlander 38
Lawrie 27
Jennings 28
Haren 79
Pence 68
Cain 100
Wieters 54 lol

I’ll overlook your rankings, thanks.

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