2008 Fantasy Baseball: Hitter Rankings

The Top 45 overall hitters have some surprises and undoubtably have players in orders fantasy players would never dream of considering. However, keep in mind that these rankings are biased towards players who contribute across the five fantasy categories. Would I ever draft Derek Jeter as the 12th best hitter? No, but he contributes in three of the five categories. Unfortunately, Runs, AVG and SB are not as easily recognizable as HRs and RBIs.

While there is not a ton of differnece between any two consecutive players in the rankings, the big break occurs between #3 Matt Holliday and #4 Chase Utley. The difference is 14.4 points. Nowhere else amongst these 45 players is the difference more than 4.8 (between #1 Alex Rodriguez and #2 David Wright and between #44 Ryan Braun and #45 Russ Martin.)

One can dismiss this break by Chase Utley's missing six weeks last season and the disappearance of SBs from Albert Pujols and Vladimir Guerrero in 2007. Will Utley remain uninjured in 2008? I'll guess so, but I won't gamble that either Albert Pujols or Vladimir Guerrero recapture their stolen base prowess of previous seasons.