2008 Fantasy Baseball: 1B Rankings

by faketeams on Dec 20, 2007 5:07 PM EST in Baseball

Using a ranking system that accounts for a players previous three season's of work and relates those efforts to those of his peers across the five fantasy baseball categories - HR, RBI, SB, R, AVG, I have come up with a ranking of 1B for 2008. Because I did not want diminish the purity of the calcuations, I instead added a "+/-" column to make some commentary on select listed players. You may agree or disagree, and I hope you do. Afterall, which ranking system will have Carlos Guillen as the 3rd best 1B going into the 2008 fantasy baseball drafts?

Does that make Guillen a sleeper or will this good performance get him taken during the run of second-tier SS at a non-sleeper time? FWIW, Guillen ranked no lower than 17th (HRs) amongst the 58 1B-eligibles I used (>130 ABs in 2007). He was 10th in RBI, 1st in SB, 9th in Runs and 7th in AVG. This system rewards those players who can do well in all five categories, and isn't that what every fantasy player tries to do when building a team?

Rank	Player	+/-	Rank	Player	+/-	Rank	Player	+/-
1	Pujols Albert		16	Swisher Nick		31	Hatteberg Scott
2	Berkman Lance		17	Gonzalez Adrian		32	Gload Ross	down
3	Guillen Carlos	down	18	LaRoche Adam		33	Broussard Ben
4	Lee Derrek		19	Jackson Conor		34	Garko Ryan
5	Fielder Prince		20	Jacobs Mike		35	Kotchman Casey
6	Teixeira Mark		21	Pena Carlos	up	36	Thames Marcus
7	Howard Ryan		22	Huff Aubrey		37	Lamb Mike
8	Helton Todd		23	Millar Kevin		38	Loney James	up up
9	Morneau Justin		24	Sexson Richie		39	Boone Aaron
10	Delgado Carlos	down	25	Wilkerson Brad		40	Gordon Alex	up up
11	Youkilis Kevin		26	Loretta Mark		41	Klesko Ryan
12	Konerko Paul		27	Stairs Matt		42	Conine Jeff
13	Martinez Victor		28	Aurilia Rich		43	Hinske Eric
14	Garciaparra Nomar	down down	29	Young Dmitri		44	Johnson Dan
15	Overbay Lyle		30	Casey Sean		45	Erstad Darin	down

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Comments

Pujols

Spots 5-7 will outperform Pujols this year. In that STL lineup....he will be lucky to get 110 rbis.

raygu

by Ray Guilfoyle on Dec 20, 2007 8:36 PM EST reply actions

Com'on Raygu

While I may be guilty of being a homer, I feel your projections are highly unlikely. Howard has the best chance of beating Pujols in runs,rbi's and HR's, but it certainly won't be so great that it off-sets the BA gain the Pujols gets you.

As far as getting >110 rbi's, it should not be to hard if he stays healthy the entire year, even with no name players around him...he got 103 last year with no help last year and he missed what, 20 games?

by Ratdog90 on Dec 21, 2007 11:01 AM EST up reply actions

Me too

I know my first values are based around HR/RBI production with SB thrown in. Unfortunately, AVG and Runs are categories, too.

by faketeams on Dec 21, 2007 11:24 AM EST up reply actions

Pujols

He missed games and played hurt a ton more games, especially down the stretch. Will Carrol made a comment along the lines that it would be scary to see what Pujols puts up if he gets back to health.
It was a down year for him, but still good if not compared to his usual production. The surrounding talent is bad, but can it really get worse? Pujols owners need to hope Rolen bounces back some, Kennedy finds himself, Duncan stays healthy, and Ankiel/Rasmus both have good years.

by Recon on Dec 21, 2007 12:01 PM EST up reply actions

Pujols vs other 1Bman

All First Basemen Year to Date MLB Standard Stats
Player Team AB R H 1B 2B 3B HR RBI BB KO SB CS BA OBP SLG
Fielder, 573 109 165 78 35 2 50 119 90 121 2 2 0.2880 0.3950 0.6178
Howard, 529 94 142 69 26 0 47 136 107 199 1 0 0.2684 0.3920 0.5841
Berkman, 561 95 156 96 24 2 34 102 94 125 7 3 0.2781 0.3862 0.5098
Pujols, 565 99 185 114 38 1 32 103 99 58 2 6 0.3274 0.4286 0.5681

I will take the extra 15 hrs and 30 rbi for teh avg.....and the runs are close. Remember Howard did that while missing some 10-15 games.

raygu

by Ray Guilfoyle on Dec 21, 2007 2:02 PM EST up reply actions

AVG

Albert is still very good across the categories despite last year's drop in power.

by faketeams on Dec 20, 2007 9:45 PM EST reply actions

I still

would not take him in the top 5-6 in my NL only snake draft:
HanRam
Rollins
Howard
Utley
Holliday
Reyes
these are just top of my head....may even go Braun before Pujols.

raygu

by Ray Guilfoyle on Dec 20, 2007 9:52 PM EST reply actions

Guillen 3rd?

13 steals may have been good for a 1st basemen, but you can make that up in the middle or at outfield very easily. 40 to 45 homers from Howard or Prince can't be made up as readily.

by StanHayes on Dec 21, 2007 12:47 AM EST reply actions

Positions

Part of my reasoning to use the stats relative to a players position-eligible peers is the fact that fantasy baseball line-ups must include players at specific positions. One cannot elect to play 8 OF, many of which can steal 15 bases.

I am thinking of adding two adjustments. One would be position scarcity, which would serve to elevate players like Russ Martin, and a "consistency" one that would reward players who do well over time.

The consistency one is further along conceptually i.e. I know what I want to do but need to have the time to do the grunt work.

I worry about position scarcity becuase I really don't think Jorge Posada should be a 3rd round pick just because other catchers are not that good. Or more alarming, Benji Molina whose relative performance and consistency would make him a single-digits selection.

by faketeams on Dec 21, 2007 10:00 AM EST reply actions