Every time I think that I am out, I get pulled back in! It looks like Tristan's travels have once again taken him away from Bristol for a short time, and he's left the keys to the rankings kingdom on my desk, along with a missive on how I should not shall we say, mess them up while he's away.
I've always had trouble with what seems like a simple question in fantasy baseball circles: "Is Player A better than Player B, or is it the other way around?"
That's the basic problem with the whole concept of rankings, isn't it? After all, it all depends on what you mean by "better," and I've found over the years that, more often than not, we're not talking about the same thing when we use that word.
Let's take catchers as an example. If I were to rank the 10 "best" at the position, season-to-date, I could present to you either of the following two lists and feel satisfied that I've done the job accurately. (Note: For this exercise, I'm referring to players only at the primary positions they have played this season, so Evan Gattis, for example, is not included among catchers.)
Obviously, you may agree more with one of these lists than the other, and clearly there is plenty of difference between the two. However, until you know how I've come to these conclusions, both of these rankings are fairly meaningless.
The one on the left, with Buster Posey at No. 1, is my ranking of which of these players has given you the most overall value in the five basic rotisserie categories so far in 2015: batting average, home runs, runs scored, RBIs and stolen bases. I won't get too deep into the math involved, but the general gist is that in order to create this list, I assigned each of the five statistics a relative value, based on the total leaguewide production in those categories.
Adding up each individual player's share of those stats, along with a slight adjustment to account for playing time, allows you to place each of these players fairly accurately in terms of the overall major league hierarchy. This gives you a nice, neat, single-number value that you can then use to compare all of the players at a single position -- in this case, catchers -- to see which one has been the most valuable in leagues that use this rotisserie format.
Of course, the main issue with this kind of ranking is that when it comes to looking at any single position, you're ending up with a comparison of apples to oranges. In rotisserie leagues, it really doesn't matter how many home runs or stolen bases you get from your catcher compared to other catchers. All that matters is how your team-wide total in each category ends up relative to the other teams. As a result, you end up with a valuation system that doesn't really tell you which catcher is objectively performing better fantasy-wise relative to his positional peers.
That's where our second list -- the one with Russell Martin at No. 1 -- comes in. This list uses the same basic relative valuation as before, only instead of using the entire league as the data point for comparison, we're only going to weigh the statistics of individual backstops against how the rest of their catching brethren have performed in 2015.
As you can see, the results of this exercise give a slightly different opinion of who is "better" between, say Stephen Vogt and J.T. Realmuto. Using this second set of valuations makes a lot more sense in the DFS format, where knowing which catcher has the highest probability of outscoring the rest of his peers on any given day -- which is essentially what I've tried to capture with the math here -- has a ton of value.
Here's a quick look at a few names at each of the other positions whose valuation as a hitter sees a significant change depending on exactly how you've decided to make the comparison:
Of course, there are still a lot of other factors than just rankings that enter into the mix when deciding on who to have in your starting lineups in both season-long rotisserie leagues and DFS formats. However, even if we're never going to all agree on the rankings themselves, perhaps we can all get on board with the concept that not all rankings serve the same purpose, and that at least starting with the right list is the "best" way to begin the process.
New ESPN position eligibility
The following players added new position eligibility within the past week. As a reminder, position players need to appear 10 times at a new position to gain in-season eligibility, while pitchers need to make three starts to earn starting-pitching eligibility or five relief appearances to earn relief-pitching eligibility.
Alex Guerrero (3B), Tyler Saladino (3B), David Goforth (RP), Andrew Romine (1B), Trevor May (RP), Bud Norris (RP), Andres Blanco (3B).
The following players are within two games of earning new eligibility, with their total games played noted at the listed position:
Andres Blanco (2B, 9 games), Corey Hart (1B, 8 games), Skip Schumaker (2B, 9 games), Joaquin Arias (SS, 8 games), Cliff Pennington (2B, 9 games), Trevor Plouffe (1B, 8 games), Justin Turner (1B, 9 games), Kris Negron (OF, 9 games), Pete Kozma (3B, 9 games), Logan Forsythe (3B, 8 games), Brock Holt (1B, 8 games; SS 9 games), Will Middlebrooks (SS, 8 games), Rey Navarro (2B, 9 games), Jefry Marte (1B, 8 games), Luis Sardinas (2B, 8 games), Cory Spangenberg (3B, 9 games), Jake Elmore (3B, 9 games).
Going-forward rankings: Week 16
Listed below are my updated, going-forward rankings. These are based on an ESPN standard league of 10 teams and rotisserie 5x5 scoring. Click here to see these rankings sorted by position.