clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

First Base Rankings: By the Numbers

Dave issues the site's second set of First Base Rankings for the 2017 fantasy baseball season. These projections are converted directly over from The Jr Circuit Projections Dave creates.

By Dave Morris Jr
Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Earlier this off season we began our early ranking series project. In these posts Ray would provide the site with his Top-20 Rankings at each position. Following this post, I'd run a set of Jr Circuit Projections for the 20 players that Ray ranked earlier. Obviously this led to some players being ranked one spot, while their projections at least seemed to indicate they should be ranked another.

In my opinion this was fine. You will always receive a "rock-hard" ranking when you convert a set of projections into dollar values. The problem being is that a set of projections is only a snap-shot in time of what we expect a particular player to produce on the field. Things like playing time and team context changes can drastically alter a projection and in turn a ranking. When Ray issues a ranking list for a particular position, these things are also taken into consideration and the players are ranked accordingly. Perhaps it's only a fifteen percent chance Ray's 6th ranked second baseman falls into a platoon this year. On the projection side of things, nailing down his expected plate appearances will be crucial, but still difficult. On the pure ranking side, the ranker needs to figure out if the other players around said 6th ranked second baseman have a fairly good chance of producing a similar stat line, but without the threat of a loss in playing time. If so, perhaps the other second baseman gets ranked higher, even though the projections say otherwise. Again, that particular 6th ranked second baseman's projection could change substantially if a platoon is formed.

Anyway, all of this is to say that while some criticism was received regarding players being ranked one way and projected another, in my opinion, this is perfectly acceptable for this process, especially in November. And with that being said... I still create a set of projections yearly. Of course some of these will look strange as team rosters change through free agency and trade, but rest assured, the projections and rankings will be updated as draft season approaches.

Enough words. Below you will find my early 2017 Jr Circuit Projections for the First Base Position. These projections are then converted into a ranking list.

Rank Tier Player AB BA HR R RBI SB
1 1 Paul Goldschmidt 566 0.290 28 101 101 20
2 2 Anthony Rizzo 569 0.286 32 93 99 3
3 2 Miguel Cabrera 544 0.312 28 84 98 1
4 2 Joey Votto 520 0.313 26 91 81 8
5 2 Edwin Encarnacion 541 0.265 38 90 111 2
6 2 Freddie Freeman 586 0.292 27 95 88 5
7 3 Daniel Murphy 571 0.311 19 81 88 6
8 3 Jose Abreu 605 0.287 27 74 99 1
9 3 Albert Pujols 592 0.261 32 78 104 5
10 3 Matt Carpenter 569 0.276 25 101 81 3
11 3 Hanley Ramirez 524 0.274 24 77 90 10
12 3 Eric Hosmer 590 0.274 19 80 90 6
13 3 Chris Davis 551 0.230 39 93 94 1
14 4 Tommy Joseph 585 0.261 34 83 77 1
15 4 Wil Myers 534 0.250 21 84 76 19
16 4 Carlos Santana 562 0.244 28 79 86 7
17 4 Adrian Gonzalez 536 0.275 22 69 89 0
18 4 C.J. Cron 558 0.269 23 64 86 3
19 5 Brandon Belt 501 0.274 19 73 72 4
20 5 Greg Bird 398 0.276 27 63 72 3
21 5 Lucas Duda 500 0.244 28 70 82 1
22 5 Chris Carter 508 0.217 36 72 86 3
23 5 Brad Miller 542 0.243 22 66 68 9
24 5 Josh Bell 440 0.291 13 61 63 6
25 5 Justin Bour 443 0.264 23 51 79 1
26 5 Mike Napoli 471 0.236 24 66 72 4
27 5 Wilmer Flores 454 0.266 20 55 64 1
28 6 Travis Shaw 431 0.252 19 59 67 3
29 6 Mitch Moreland 458 0.252 20 49 69 1
30 6 Joe Mauer 507 0.266 9 65 55 2
31 6 Brandon Moss 428 0.234 25 60 67 1
32 6 Adam Lind 380 0.270 16 51 60 0
33 6 Luis Valbuena 436 0.244 20 61 55 1
34 6 Dan Vogelbach 420 0.246 14 58 68 2
35 6 David Freese 449 0.256 13 57 58 1