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Friday, December 31, 2010

Dynasty ranking: Top 25 players age 25 or younger-

Posted by Josh Shepardson at 5:17am

In the ever expanding world of fantasy baseball, one thing seems to permeate all levels of managerial experience, and that is an insatiable desire to read player rankings. For some novice owners, a writer's rankings can serve as a guideline of who to target in drafts or trades. For more skilled owners, rankings may serve as an opportunity to debate with the writer and readers as to the merits of a player they feel is under- or over-valued. Finally, for the snarky, rankings serve as an opportunity to denounce the writers' baseball acumen and poke fun at their inability to put together the perfect set of rankings (which undoubtedly they themselves could do).

Regardless of level of skill, or snark, rankings hold value and interest for seemingly all fantasy baseball managers.

With that in mind, Jeffrey Gross and Paul Singman and I set out to put together our own top 25 rankings of players age 25 or under as of Jan. 1, 2010 (i.e. anyone born in 1985 or later). The league scoring we used as a guideline was a 5x5 roto league that includes two catchers, one corner infielder, one middle infielder, one utility player, five outfielders, nine pitchers of any type (with a 1,250 innings pitched cap) and the other standard positions. No other guidelines or parameters were set.

Each writer put together His list; as expected, the lists varied substantially. As an avid yearly reader, and fan, of The Baseball America Prospect Handbook, I thought it would be fun to post each writer's top 25 list as opposed to a composite list. The idea is that each writer, like each scout in The Baseball America Prospect Handbook, would be held accountable for his list. In the coming days we'll each address our rationale behind our rankings as well as defend our three most questionable or outrageous rankings.

We welcome, actually we encourage, questions and comments about our rankings either below in the comments section, or by e-mail. 

+----+-------------------+-------------------+-------------------+
| Rk | Josh Shepardson   | Jeffrey Gross     | Paul Singman      |
+----+-------------------+-------------------+-------------------+
|  1 | Jason Heyward     | Evan Longoria     | Evan Longoria     |
|  2 | Evan Longoria     | Felix Hernandez   | Carlos Gonzalez   |
|  3 | Carlos Gonzalez   | Stephen Strasburg | Jason Heyward     |
|  4 | Felix Hernandez   | Carlos Gonzalez   | Justin Upton      |
|  5 | Jay Bruce         | Mat Latos         | Felix Hernandez   |
|  6 | Justin Upton      | Justin Upton      | Mike Stanton      |
|  7 | Carlos Santana    | Jason Heyward     | Jay Bruce         |
|  8 | Buster Posey      | Jay Bruce         | Andrew McCutchen  |
|  9 | Mike Stanton      | Carlos Santana    | Carlos Santana    |
| 10 | Mat Latos         | Domonic Brown     | Stephen Strasburg |
| 11 | Clayton Kershaw   | Andrew McCutchen  | Mat Latos         |
| 12 | Andrew McCutchen  | Desmond Jennings  | Buster Posey      |
| 13 | Pedro Alvarez     | Jeremy Hellickson | Clayton Kershaw   |
| 14 | Madison Bumgarner | Clayton Kershaw   | Tommy Hanson      |     
| 15 | Yovani Gallardo   | Mike Stanton      | Pablo Sandoval    |
| 16 | Brett Anderson    | Buster Posey      | Yovani Gallardo   |
| 17 | Tommy Hanson      | Yovani Gallardo   | Jeremy Hellickson |
| 18 | David Price       | David Price       | Domonic Brown     |
| 19 | Desmond Jennings  | Colby Rasmus      | Pedro Alvarez     |
| 20 | Jesus Montero     | Gordon Beckham    | Brett Anderson    |
| 21 | Domonic Brown     | Billy Butler      | Desmond Jennings  |
| 22 | Colby Rasmus      | Jesus Montero     | David Price       |
| 23 | Matt Wieters      | Brett Anderson    | Mike Trout        |
| 24 | Pablo Sandoval    | Madison Bumgarner | Jesus Montero     |
| 25 | Stephen Strasburg | Pedro Alverez     | Madison Bumgarner |
+----+-------------------+-------------------+-------------------+
My e-mail: JoshShep50 AT Yahoo DOT com
Jeffrey's: gameofinchesblog AT gmail DOT com
Paul's: cowchow4you AT gmail DOT com

Feel free to reach me at my e-mail, JoshShep50 AT Yahoo DOT com with any questions, feedback, or any other general inquiries.


Jeffrey Gross said...

@Pat,

Kershaw’s improved F-Strike% gives me a lot of hope for him in 2011. I have him ranked as a top 20 SP next year. Still, I need to see more than one year’s sample of improved control before I believe it is sustainable.


And, by the way, this is comment #100 on this post. All I can say is WOW.

Posted 01/05  at  03:37 AM
PAU said...

Good discussion, and I’ll throw in my thoughts.

I believe Andrus should make the lists.  I understand that he’s shown very little power, and that his CS% was pretty high last year, but I still weight the arguments for (youth, position scarcity, lineup and park) more strongly than the arguments against.  One aspect I don’t believe has been touched upon is the increase in BB.  I’d be far, far more inclined to put Andrus on a list than someone like Pablo Sandoval (to cherrypick off Shepardson and Singman). 

Though he’s certainly intriguing, Sandoval’s inability to adjust in 2010, bad body, questionable power, position, park and potential move across the diamond would probably preclude him from my list.

I wouldn’t expect people to be as bullish on Montero as I am, but he’d quite probably rank higher on my personal list.  The scouting reports, numbers, youth, and possible catcher eligibility would have me salivating if he were attainable in my dynasty league.

Moustakas is fringe for me.  The numbers were unbelievable.  His AA home/road splits do lend a bit of credence to his doubters and back up what Josh said about playing in the Texas League and PCL.  Finally, there are those that don’t even think Moustakas is the best prospect in the Royals’ system (BA ranks both Hosmer and Myers above him).  To be fair, that’s no indictment of Moustakas- only a testament of the incredible minor league talent the Royals have- but I think it’s worth noting.

I’d have a difficult time placing Justin Upton and Mike Stanton.  Their raw tools are unbelievable, and their performance to date at such a young age is impressive.  The contact issues are a major concern, though.

I wouldn’t put Santana above Posey yet, though I concede he could definitely get there.  I’d take Posey with his larger MLB sample over Santana.  Santana’s injury is a mild concern, but not great.  Unless you’re in an OBP league, Santana’s patience is almost a detriment.  Though I could see the Indians giving him time at DH (or even 1B), the walks will mitigate some of extra PA benefits, hurting his non-run counting stats.  All that said, Posey>Santana is just my opinion, and I don’t mind seeing Santana above Posey on lists such as these.

I’m a bit surprised nobody’s mentioned Starlin Castro.  Though he basically provided only an empty average last year, he’s only 20 years old.  He’s got great wrists, and I’m among the many that expect him to develop a bit more power as some of the 36 combined 2B and 3B he hit last year gain loft.  There’s still a lot of projection left, but I could see him going .300 20/20 if he can up his SB success rate.

I’d personally rather have Kersh than Latos.  Latos has had difficulties staying on the mound in the past, and he experience a big jump in innings in 2010.  To me, there’s similar production with Kersh having less variance in their range of outcomes. 

That Gross ranks Hellickson above Kershaw is unfathomable to me.  I’m as impressed with Hellickson as the next guy, but it doesn’t make sense to me.  Kershaw is younger, has a much longer track record of success in the majors, has better stuff in both my opinion and the opinion of all the scouting reports I’ve seen, and plays an unbalanced schedule against the NL West (with half his games in Dodger Stadium) instead of the murderer’s row of the AL East.  I think I can anticipate some of the arguments Gross would make (Kershaw’s xFIP and BABIP with HellBoy’s control and command), but I still can’t come close to seeing it.

I’m not sure Bumgarner makes my list.  His secondary stuff still needs improvement in my opinion, and I’m not convinced he’ll be able to get RH hitters out (hell on lefties, though). 

I’m loathe to include relievers, but Neftali Feliz and Kenley Jansen might merit inclusion.

Posted 01/05  at  12:44 PM
Justin said...

@ Josh

I really like Bruce as well, I honestly believe his power was zapped by that wrist injury (many have said it takes a year to come back from). His power was outstanding before and after that year period.

The question I have is…Can he sustain the average and OBP that he had last year?

I have Stanton in a keeper/simulation league and someone offered me Bruce and another smaller prospect…intriguing to say the least

Posted 01/05  at  12:50 PM
Josh Shepardson said...

@ PAU

I’ll try and address more from your post when I get a chance.  However, I did want to point out that I’ll be discussing my Bumgarner ranking in a follow up piece at a later date (soon).  As a teaser, I’d suggest checking out Bumgarner’s run values for each of his pitches, I was a bit surprised, and after you brought up his splits, I took a gander to see how severe they were.  As you suggested, he’s hell on lefties, but he was at least passable against righties, so any improvements there should really lead to pretty big on field dividends.  More than anything, he really needs a put away pitch to drive his K/9 up against righties, otherwise his walk rate was stellar.

Posted 01/06  at  02:55 AM
PAU said...

Very interesting on the pitch values for MadBum.  (Obviously) not what I expected.  Most scouting reports have questioned his secondary pitches, while lauding the fastball, and my own observations were the same (possible confirmation bias).  It’s always interesting to see when the stats and observations don’t dovetail.

I look forward to the piece, and I think I’ll have to scrutinize him more closely.  The control and command are definitely impressive for someone his age.  The effectiveness of his change last year is the most surprising to me given his arm angle.  If that number doesn’t regress too much- or swing the other way completely- I’ll need to re-evaluate.  I might want to re-evaluate him anyways… I’ll let you do the legwork, though, with your piece.

I look forward to the next response.  For what it’s worth, the only ranking that really threw me is Hellickson above Kershaw (Jeff’s list).  It’s much easier to snipe at these lists than generate them, and it’s good to see and hear opposing opinions.  Small differences in opinion tend to get disproportionately magnified for these lists, especially when the back and forth is in text.  As always, thanks for the good discussion.

Posted 01/06  at  11:38 AM
Ross said...

@Jeff Gross
@Josh Shepardson

is there another way to follow you on twitter besides THTfantasy or THTlinks?

thanks

feel free to contact me via email or @rossandheckler

Posted 01/06  at  02:18 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

Ross,

you can also follow me at:
-http://www.gameofinches.blogspot.com (David MVP Eckstein)
-Twitter: @DME_GOI, but 90% of my tweeting for baseball is on THTFantasy.

Posted 01/06  at  02:33 PM
Josh Shepardson said...

With the news of Matt Garza being dealt, I’d probably rank Hellickson somewhere in the 18-21 range.  I’d have to revise things and further look at Hellboy’s numbers, but now that he’ll be starting the year in the Rays rotation, that would certainly be enough to get him on my list.

Posted 01/07  at  03:47 PM
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