You can go directly to Tristan's Top 250 keeper rankings by clicking here.
Call it the year of the Chicago Cubs.
The 2015 season will be the team's 100th at Wrigley Field, though the ballpark itself will be enjoying its 101st season, sporting a new left-field scoreboard and bleachers.
The team will have a new manager, Joe Maddon, who has a World Series appearance (2008) and four playoff berths on his résumé.
A new ace will lead the staff in Jon Lester, whose $155 million investment -- to be paid over a six-year span -- was the second largest among free agents this winter.
And then there is that silly Zemeckian prophecy stating that the Cubs will win this season's World Series, defeating an American League team from Florida.
It could happen, right? After all, this team began the 2014-15 offseason facing 40-1 odds to win the World Series and saw those improve to as favorable as 12-1 during what was an aggressive hot stove transaction period, capped by the Maddon and Lester moves.
But wait!
Then those pesky Cubs -- those playoff-aspiring, let's-snap-that-106-year-title-drought Cubs -- go and throw us a curveball like this: They captured Keith Law's No. 1 ranking among farm systems entering 2015, placing three prospects among Law's top 15 overall in Kris Bryant (No. 1), Addison Russell (No. 4) and Jorge Soler (No. 5). They have the semblance of a rebuilding franchise, a let's-try-to-win-it-all-in-2016-or-beyond squad, rather than one going for it today.
What in the name of William H. Goat is going on here?!
I understand if you're confused; such polarizing decisions often cast doubt upon a team's true intent, giving a look of indecisiveness. It's the kind of strategy that, in a keeper league, sends competing owners into fits. Whom do we try to peddle to these Cubs, prospects or proven talent? Are they rebuilders or contenders?
How about both?
You can be sure that Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer are calculated in their long-range plan, and while Lester's arrival signals the start of the Cubs' contending aspirations, it's being done at no expense to their rebuilding plan. After all, Lester didn't cost a compensation draft pick, nor did the team trade away a single premium prospect in its quest to improve in the short term. It's the kind of strategy that's smart, whether on the field or in the fantasy keeper format.
It's also the kind of strategy that fascinates the keeper-league owner. It tests our constant balance of weighing the value of future planning versus winning today. Specifically, when is the right time to trade our staff ace, a Jeff Samardzija, with an eye on tomorrow, as the Cubs did when acquiring Russell last summer? And when is the right time to push all our chips to the center to acquire Samardzija's replacement at minimal talent cost, a la Lester?
Both approaches are legitimate in a keeper league, and in any given year, you might find yourself in either position (or perhaps in between). In my longtime keeper league, for example, I'm in "Cubs around June 2014" mode, after a half-decade or so of consistent contention. You might prefer to be the team chasing Lester, but some year you're going to need to be in my shoes, or Epstein's at the time he joined the Cubs. If you are, this column is for you -- though it does steal a page from Epstein's 2015 playbook, by throwing their middling approach into the proverbial blender.
These are my semiannual keeper top 250 rankings, a price guide of sorts for dynasty or keeper leagues, be they already existing or just starting from scratch. They are an effective fantasy equivalent of an "Astros cheat sheet," but with a twist: They account for player value even for those owners in the Mariners' or Yankees' boat. Hey, we can't ignore all the old players' contributions yet to come.
The rankings formula
You know the drill: One cannot possibly craft a one-size-fits-all set of keeper rankings, just as I annually remind that I break the one-size-fits-all mold. Fitted hats? Ha!
The reason is that few keeper/dynasty leagues are identical in structure. Beyond the obvious roster size and scoring system, these are some of the variables:
• Player pricing: Do you draft players or purchase them via auction, and are they priced by round selected, auction price or are prices not at all involved? Also, is there annual price inflation?
• Number of keepers: Can you keep one, five, 10 or perhaps your entire roster, and must teams retain an identical number of players?
• Contracts: Do you use them, as in, must you make lock-in decisions on a player for multiple years in advance, or is there a limitation on the number of seasons you can keep a player? Also, is there annual price inflation?
• Farm teams: Does your league use them, and do these players automatically carry over year to year or is there a cost for keeping them?
• Team competitiveness: Are you a contending team, a rebuilding team or are you somewhere in between?
Your homework is to assess each of these valuation factors and adjust, if necessary, these keeper rankings for your own league. For example, a $1 Matt Harvey might be an absolute no-brainer of a keeper over a $31 Max Scherzer in a mixed keeper league, despite the fact that Scherzer ranks seven spots higher on my list (not to mention nearly 60 spots higher in my redraft rankings), especially if there's some sort of long-term lock-in for Harvey at that discounted price.
This is the player valuation formula I use:
• 2015 performance: 20 percent
• 2016 performance: 20 percent
• 2017 performance: 20 percent
• 2018 performance: 20 percent
• 2019 performance and beyond: 20 percent
The rationale for weighting 2015 equally to 2019 and beyond is simple: We already provide rankings, projections and profiles for hundreds of players that were designed to aid your title quest this year. While 2015 might warrant greater weight if your keeper league is drafting fresh -- a sooner-than-later strategy becomes wiser the larger the available pool of proven players -- this page serves fantasy owners needing to project players over several seasons. If your goal is to win now -- and kudos to you for being in a contender's position -- our Draft Kit is excellent for your needs.
Ah, but this year, there's a twist
There's good news to my faithful followers of the keeper top 250 over the years. In this sixth edition of the preseason rankings, there's an added wrinkle. This year's edition will remain updated throughout spring training, up until shortly before Opening Day.
Updates will roll out on Fridays, though I will stress that changes might be minimal in a five-plus-year ranking system; it would take significant news to change a player's keeper-league stock by a noticeable margin. But I'll keep you apprised of these moves as spring training progresses. Now, let's get to it!
Tristan's Keeper Top 250
The full list of my rankings can be seen on the right, but the entire list in its previous format -- including eligible positions and past rankings -- as well as rankings broken down by positions can be seen on their own pages:
Tristan's Keeper Top 250
Keeper Top 250, broken down by position
Now, let's examine some of the more intriguing stories within the ranks.
Individual player examinations
Bryce Harper: We keep waiting. Waaaaaitinnnnng. Harper, the No. 1 pick in the 2010 amateur draft and a prospect widely regarded as one of the best of the past quarter-century at both the time of that selection and on his April 28, 2012, major league debut, has in three seasons fallen well short of his prime-of-career MVP prognostications. In fact, his fantasy performance has gone backward. He finished 83rd on the 2012 Player Rater, 125th in 2013 and 353rd in 2014. It's those facts -- plus his fourth-round redraft ranking -- that make him look like an awkward first-round candidate in a keeper/dynasty league drafting fresh.
Still, it's easy to forget that, despite his three years of experience, he's only 22 years old; only 11 players who have ever appeared in a big league game have a more recent birthdate than his. Harper is years from his physical prime, the kind of player you might typically expect to debut now rather than two years ago. If there's any factor that justifies a fantasy owner taking a step back from him this year, it's health; he has appeared in only 357 of 466 regular-season games thus far. I look back at what I had forecast for him in this space last spring, though, and I don't think I was unrealistic:
2014 (age 21): .288 AVG, 28 HRs, 90 RBIs, 16 SB
2015 (age 22): .297 AVG, 33 HRs, 102 RBIs, 15 SB
2016 (age 23): .302 AVG, 38 HRs, 115 RBIs, 11 SB
Sure, Harper fell short of that 2014 projection, partly due to injuries. But those stat lines showed that I hardly expected the MVP-caliber breakthrough in 2014. Frankly, I didn't in 2015 either, and I still don't. It could happen, but more likely, the first-round jump for Harper will happen in 2016. I do, however, think it's coming. Oh, and since projections are fun, let's add a new line:
2017 (age 24): .295 AVG, 40 HRs, 121 RBIs, 9 SB
George Springer: The 30/30 man is quickly becoming a thing of the past. From 1995 to 2004 -- a 10-year span -- there were 23 instances of a 30/30 season; from 2005 to 2014 -- the subsequent 10-year span -- there were only 14. There hasn't been one since Ryan Braun (41/30) and Mike Trout (30/49) did it in 2012. That's why Springer is such a rarity, an athletic slugger who has averaged 38 home runs and 41 stolen bases per 162 games played as a professional, including 37/45 numbers in 2013 in the minors alone. Springer's critics will point out that he swiped just 11 bags in 94 games between the majors and minors in 2014, but I'll remind that he battled hip, knee and quadriceps issues that surely hampered him on the basepaths.
He is one of the few players for whom you could project a 40-homer, 30-steal season in the next half-decade, and even if you're bearish on his steals, a 35/20 campaign seems to have reasonable odds. With better fortune in the injury department, he could total as many as 175 home runs and 125 stolen bases from 2015 to 2019.
Billy Hamilton: I hate building a keeper/dynasty team around speed, but Hamilton's is something special. Sure, he stole only 56 bases as a rookie, but he did that behind a .292 on-base percentage, which was easily his worst in any professional season. A year of experience might be good for him, and he's an 80-speed prospect who reminds me a lot of Vince Coleman, who averaged 88 steals during his ages 24-28 seasons (1986-90). If the most optimistic of us believed Hamilton could be an 80-steal performer a year ago at this time, why expect less now?
Manny Machado: I'm repeating myself (again), but considering Machado's 2014 ended in a near-identical surgery to his 2013 -- the difference being that, this time, it was on his right knee -- it's fair to steal my line about him in this space last year. "In a keeper league, this spring probably represents your final time to acquire him cheap, and by cheap I mean a price tag outside the top 50 players in fantasy baseball." If you bought him after reading those words then, remain patient; if you didn't, try to now, because his price might be even lower now that he has two reconstructed knees. Machado is only 22 years old -- he's 102 days older than Harper -- and after a poor 50-game start to 2014 that was likely influenced by his ongoing recovery from surgery, he batted .344 with a .586 slugging percentage in his final 32 games.
Chances must be taken in keeper/dynasty leagues. Machado is a risk I'm taking.
Xander Bogaerts: Another 22-year-old, Bogaerts' career seems to have been slowed by not having had a full-time, committed role, something he should have entering 2015. Only four times in his career has he enjoyed a streak of at least 10 starts at the same position, and he has never made more than 22 straight starts at a single position. But with Pablo Sandoval now at third base and Hanley Ramirez expected to man left field, shortstop is Bogaerts' for the taking. He needs to capture it, restore the walk rate he showed in the minors and continue the small improvements he made in his swing-and-miss rate, isolated power and fly ball/line drive rates during the second half of 2014. Ranking him among the top 50 keeper/dynasty players might be the boldest call of the bunch; I believe that much in him as a prospect.
Kris Bryant: The pessimist will point out that Bryant might not make the Cubs' Opening Day roster and that the missed time will make him look over-ranked. The optimist will recognize that, among players who have yet to debut in the majors, he has the best odds of winning a home run crown during the first five seasons used in the keeper/dynasty rankings formula (2015-19). The 40-homer club is an exclusive one nowadays; I think Bryant has better-than-even odds of joining it by 2019. Even if he struggles as a rookie in 2015, he demands as much patience in these formats as anyone ranked among the top 250.
Jose Fernandez and Matt Harvey: The two Tommy John surgery returnees are the most debatable names on the starting pitching list entering 2015. Each makes a compelling case for top-10 starting pitcher status. At the same time, there's a realistic chance that neither one makes as many as 100 starts the next five years combined. To be clear, I believe both reside far closer to the former side of that scale. Given the choice, I'll take Harvey. He's four years older -- I worry more about younger pitchers facing conservative pitch counts -- and further along in his rehabilitation. But I have them ranked within a round of each other, and I can't fathom a keeper/dynasty ranking set that would have either outside the top 25 starters.
Javier Baez: I've got such a feeling that Baez is to 2015 what Jedd Gyorko was to 2014, a player whose previous year was tantalizing enough that people began shooting him up redraft boards, setting themselves up for fantastic levels of disappointment. Yes, that's overstating Baez's 2014; he played in only 52 games and batted .169. The comparison, though, is founded upon the prevailing assumption that he will start for the Cubs all year and be a smashing success, but I'm not so sure that's true. I think 2016 is the time to board the Baez bandwagon. He has a lot of holes in his swing to fix before his 30-plus-homer power really comes out, but I'm confident that it will. Be patient, because this might be how it plays out:
2015 (age 22): 4 months MiLB, 2 months MLB, .215 AVG, 18 HRs, 47 RBIs, 7 SB
2016 (age 23): Up for good, .235 AVG, 24 HRs, 63 RBIs, 15 SB
2017 (age 24): .244 AVG, 26 HRs, 68 RBIs, 14 SB
2018 (age 25): .250 AVG, 30 HRs, 78 RBIs, 12 SB
Joc Pederson: While I'm pessimistic about Pederson's fantasy prospects as far as 2015 are concerned, I'm confident that his future is bright. Though his upside in either category pales in comparison to the aforementioned Springer's, Pederson is a legitimate 20/20 candidate in his own right, and as he gains experience in the Los Angeles Dodgers' outfield, I think he will improve to the point that he might be an annual top-25 selection for our purposes. It's his role this year that concerns me; I have this sneaking suspicion that he will be platooned more often than is necessary and that his role might be the one that drives fantasy analysts battiest early in the year.
Byron Buxton: I really hope the Minnesota Twins don't let Buxton play in the majors this season, barring some sort of miraculous turnaround that puts him into the Minor League Player of the Year discussion and warrants a September call-up. After such an injury-plagued 2014, he could use a year playing under less pressure to hone his swing -- got to flash it in only 181 trips to the plate, counting the Arizona Fall League -- especially since, to this point in his professional career, he has yet to show the kind of power scouts expect will come. Frankly, little changed for Buxton from a career standpoint other than a delay to his arrival in Minnesota. I think he has an MVP in his future, and there is an outstanding chance that he will be celebrating his 25th birthday while we're ranking him in our first round for the upcoming 2019 season.
Prince Fielder: His was one of the more difficult rankings among veteran players, because as a 30-year-old, Fielder would seem to have time to resurrect his career and put forth at least three to five more productive seasons. Still, he is coming off consecutive disappointing campaigns, and with his body type, it's a fair question to ask how well he might hold up during the latter stages of his career. Fielder's top two comps through their age-30 seasons on baseball-reference.com are Mark Teixeira and Rocky Colavito, two players who experienced sharp downturns in both performance and health by the age of 32. A conservative ranking seems wise.
David Ortiz: The end has to arrive sometime, and at the age of 39, Ortiz is probably a lot closer to it than you think. He's the kind of player with whom you don't even examine keeper/dynasty ranks; he's a year-to-year rental in those formats, and I'm not sure you want more than a one-year lease at this stage.
Carlos Correa: Last year at this time, I predicted that Bryant would be the ranked prospect who made the most substantial jump in these rankings; this season I'd pick Correa to make that kind of upward move. Correa, the 2012 No. 1 overall amateur draft selection who is now 20 years old, should get his first taste of Double-A ball in 2015, and by year's end he might be ready to take over shortstop for the Houston Astros or at worst be forecast for future 30/15 campaigns at that position. This is a year when Correa hype should explode. Now is an excellent time to try to acquire him, if he's at all affordable. After all, his 2014 campaign ended prematurely on a bad slide, resulting in a fractured fibula, and as savvy fantasy owners know with prospects, injuries are a good time to swoop in and acquire prospects on the cheap.
Jurickson Profar: I genuinely don't know what to do with the guy. He's 22 years old, which gives him plenty of time to get his career back on track following a barrage of injuries, but he also missed the entire 2014 campaign due to shoulder problems, is likely to also miss 2015, and has since slipped in the Texas Rangers' future depth chart. A healthy Profar, in 2016, could be back to being one of the 10 to 15 most attractive keeper/dynasty-league middle infielders in the game or, if his bad luck continues, he'll be entirely forgotten. Few prospects within my initial top 250 warranted closer attention than him from March through May; now he's out and forced to fight his way back in.
Too soon ...
They didn't miss my top 250 by much, but at their age and development level, the following three couldn't quite justify inclusion.
Julio Urias: He's 18 years old and spent all of 2014 in high Class A ball, but let's point out that he dominated high Class A ball at the age of 18, with a performance that hadn't been matched in the previous quarter-century. Urias is that polished and that advanced a prospect, with four potentially good big league pitches. I'd say that his odds of debuting in L.A. before his 20th birthday -- which arrives on Aug. 12, 2016 -- are good. There's plenty of time for him to slip back beneath this track, but right now he's on one that might exceed Clayton Kershaw's, and that's the main reason he was very close to making the cut.
Lucas Giolito: He's two years and 29 days older than Urias and is the one with a Tommy John surgery on his résumé, but otherwise he is no less the prospect that Urias is. In fact, Keith Law recently ranked Giolito one spot better of the two. Both should arrive sometime in 2016, but Giolito is the one with slightly better odds, though there's little doubt that both have top-10 fantasy starting pitcher potential in the long term.
Kyle Schwarber: A personal favorite, Schwarber narrowly missed the cut mostly due to questions about his position. Though he was drafted a catcher, he's simply not a catcher, with a corner outfield or designated hitter role considerably more likely once he arrives, perhaps by late 2016. I liken him to a left-handed Josh Willingham -- albeit a healthier version -- with the kind of potential that might see him hit 30 home runs and draw 100 walks consistently for a half-decade or so, even if he struggles to bat much higher than .260. Frankly, if I were convinced he would catch, he would have been included.