Fresh off the press, just got finished.
Before I unveil the ranks, let me first tell you how I put them together. Inevitably, someone is going to tell me that I am an idiot. It’s going to happen.
Math Has A Purpose?
Yes, folks, math can be used in the real world…er, well, fantasy world. What I did for these rankings was I took the projections from 5 different sources for the 2008 season, and gave each player a score for each of the 5 projection systems. Finally, I put together a composite score and ranked the players based on that composite.
Overall, the system makes sense (to me). Roto leagues are based on awarding teams points based on their performance in each stat category. Traditional roto does this by using the totals; I varied slightly by using the percentage of the highest amount. So let’s say Jose Reyes is projected to steal 68 bases - he gets a 1 in the SB category and everyone else gets a score equivalent to their percentage of meeting Jose’s 68 SB. Make sense?
Anyone familiar with the RC/27 stat might get what I’m doing. The RC/27 stat is basically how many runs a player would score if the entire team was composed of just them. Well, what I did was find a way to score players as if they were their own roto fantasy team, and see how well they would do against every other player. So in the end, this is a roto ranking system completely based off of the roto scoring system.
At no time did I factor in strategy, or opinion. The projections aren’t mine, so what I’m trying to get across is that these rankings might be the most honest and comprehensive you’ll find on the internet.
Surprises
The biggest surprise is Hanely Ramirez 6th and Jose Reyes 14th - yes, that’s Jose Reyes in the 2nd round. This would be surprising, but a while back I did some statistical analysis on the stolen base category and found out that contrary to popular belief, the stolen base category has the lowest correlation with final league standing. So the moral of the story to me is to target players like Ryan Braun who will hit for power and get you 10-15 stolen bases rather than grab someone early who’s main claim to fame is the art of the steal.
Rankings
Rank First Last
1 Alex Rodriguez
2 Albert Pujols
3 Matt Holliday
4 David Wright
5 Johan Santana
6 Hanley Ramirez
7 Miguel Cabrera
8 David Ortiz
9 Jake Peavy
10 Ryan Howard
11 J.J. Putz
12 Chase Utley
13 Jonathan Papelbon
14 Jose Reyes
15 Jimmy Rollins
16 Ryan Braun
17 Vladimir Guerrero
18 Prince Fielder
19 Takashi Saito
20 Joe Nathan
21 Grady Sizemore
22 C.C. Sabathia
23 Brandon Webb
24 Carl Crawford
25 Carlos Lee
26 Alfonso Soriano
27 Mark Teixeira
28 Magglio Ordonez
29 Josh Beckett
30 Lance Berkman
31 John Lackey
32 Carlos Beltran
33 Mariano Rivera
34 Erik Bedard
35 Dan Haren
36 Cole Hamels
37 Francisco Rodriguez
38 Chipper Jones
39 Justin Verlander
40 Nick Markakis
41 Derrek Lee
42 Alex Rios
43 Scott Kazmir
44 Ichiro Suzuki
45 Aaron Harang
46 Aramis Ramirez
47 Garrett Atkins
48 Justin Morneau
49 Travis Hafner
50 BJ Upton
51 Brandon Phillips
52 Huston Street
53 Derek Jeter
54 Adam Dunn
55 Robinson Cano
56 Rafael Soriano
57 Torii Hunter
58 Manny Ramirez
59 Curt Granderson
60 Miguel Tejada
61 John Smoltz
62 Felix Hernandez
63 Chris Young
64 Carlos Pena
65 Bobby Abreu
66 Billy Wagner
67 Carlos Zambrano
68 Javier Vazquez
69 Adrian Gonzalez
70 Roy Oswalt
71 Paul Konerko
72 Jose Valverde
73 Carlos Guillen
74 Daisuke Matsuzaka
75 Roy Halladay
76 Michael Young
77 Bobby Jenks
78 Eric Byrnes
79 Chone Figgins
80 Kelvim Escobar
81 James Shields
82 Corey Hart
83 Brian Roberts
84 Ryan Zimmerman
85 Troy Tulowitzki
86 Jeff Francoeur
87 Hunter Pence
88 Rafael Betancourt
89 Rich Hill
90 Vernon Wells
91 Victor Martinez
92 Fausto Carmona
93 Nick Swisher
94 Todd Helton
95 Jason Bay
96 Brad Hawpe
97 Hideki Matsui
98 Francisco Cordero
99 Russell Martin
100 Matt Cain
101 Matt Capps
102 Chris B Young
103 Joakim Soria
104 Andruw Jones
105 Brett Myers
106 Adrian Beltre
107 Tim Lincecum
108 Jered Weaver
109 Brad Lidge
110 Trevor Hoffman
111 Ian Kinsler
112 Delmon Young
113 Yovani Gallardo
114 John Maine
115 Dan Uggla
116 A.J. Burnett
117 Manny Corpas
118 Raul Ibanez
119 Jonathan Broxton
120 Mike Lowell
121 Ted Lilly
122 Gary Sheffield
123 Pedro Martinez
124 Jermaine Dye
125 Jim Thome
126 Chad Billingsley
127 Francisco Liriano
128 Jason Isringhausen
129 Placido Polanco
130 Brad Penny
131 Johnny Damon
132 Juan Pierre
133 Bob Howry
134 Matt Kemp
135 Ben Sheets
136 Ken Griffey
137 Rafael Furcal
138 Ian Snell
139 Pat Burrell
140 Kosuke Fukudome
141 Joe Mauer
142 Jeremy Bonderman
143 Rickie Weeks
144 Kevin Youkilis
145 Chad Cordero
146 Troy Percival
147 Tim Hudson
148 Carlos Delgado
149 Orlando Cabrera
150 Howie Kendrick
151 Derek Lowe
152 Michael Cuddyer
153 Ryan Garko
154 Joe Blanton
155 Joba Chamberlain
156 Edgar Renteria
157 Aaron Rowand
158 James Loney
159 Jeff Francis
160 Carlos Marmol
161 Alex Gordon
162 Josh Willingham
163 Kelly Johnson
164 Jeremy Hermida
165 Adam Wainwright
166 Dustin Pedroia
167 Chien-Ming Wang
168 Shane Victorino
169 Aaron Hill
170 Edwin Encarnacion
171 Josh Hamilton
172 Josh Fields
173 Jorge Posada
174 Jose Guillen
175 Frank Thomas
176 Bronson Arroyo
177 Freddy Sanchez
178 Oliver Perez
179 JD Drew
180 Hank Blalock
181 Brian Mccann
182 Jhonny Peralta
183 B.J. Ryan
184 Adam Laroche
185 Billy Butler
186 Jeremy Accardo
187 Jacoby Ellsbury
188 JJ Hardy
189 Joey Votto
190 Andy Pettitte
191 Clay Buchholz
192 Khalil Greene
193 Orlando Hudson
194 Gary Matthews
195 Barry Bonds
196 Jeff Kent
197 Melky Cabrera
198 Mark Teahen
199 Tom Gorzelanny
200 Gil Meche
201 Curt Schilling
202 Troy Glaus
203 Hiroki Kuroda
204 Ty Wigginton
205 Tony Pena
206 Barry Zito
207 Randy Johnson
208 Dustin McGowan
209 Phil Hughes
210 Willy Taveras
211 Randy Winn
212 Zack Greinke
213 Aubrey Huff
214 Mark Buehrle
215 Moises Alou
216 Greg Maddux
217 Mike Cameron
218 Lyle Overbay
219 Kevin Kouzmanoff
220 Rick Ankiel
221 Bill Hall
222 Austin Kearns
223 Kevin Gregg
224 David Dejesus
225 Felipe Lopez
226 Mark Ellis
227 Garret Anderson
228 Eric Gagne
229 Casey Kotchman
230 Chris Duncan
231 Conor Jackson
232 Coco Crisp
233 Dontrelle Willis
234 Shaun Marcum
235 Luis Castillo
236 Kevin Slowey
237 Julio Lugo
238 Rich Harden
239 David Bush
240 Milton Bradley
241 Stephen Drew
242 Corey Patterson
243 C.J. Wilson
244 Ervin Santana
245 Melvin Mora
246 Brian Wilson
247 Richie Sexson
248 Jamie Walker
249 Chuck James
250 Kerry Wood
251 Nate Robertson
252 Xavier Nady
253 Luke Scott
254 Jon Garland
255 Jason Giambi
256 Adam Lind
257 Mark Reynolds
258 Casey Blake
259 Joe Crede
260 Akinori Iwamura
261 Jack Cust
262 Daniel Cabrera
263 Chris Carpenter
264 Daric Barton
265 Wandy Rodriguez
266 Geoff Jenkins
267 Kenji Johjima
268 Mike Jacobs
269 Adam Jones
270 Scott Baker
271 Evan Longoria
272 Yuni Betancourt
273 Yunel Escobar
274 Matt Garza
275 Matt Diaz
276 Mike Mussina
277 Lastin Milledge
278 Joe Borowski
279 Orlando Hernandez
280 Kenny Lofton
281 Eric Chavez
282 Micah Owings
283 Jeremy Guthrie
284 Ryan Theriot
285 Jose Lopez
286 Justin Upton
287 Jason Bartlett
288 Mark Derosa
289 Scott Rolen
290 Justin Germano
291 Ryan Church
292 Brian Giles
293 Wily Mo Pena
294 Paul Byrd
295 Jason Kubel
296 Andy Sonnanstine
297 Chris Capuano
298 Randy Wolf
299 Jarrod Washburn
300 Jacque Jones
301 Asdrubal Cabrera
302 Felix Pie
303 Doug Davis
304 Dmitri Young
305 Chad Tracy
306 Tim Wakefield
307 Nick Johnson
308 Marlon Byrd
309 Jose Bautista
310 Nate Mclouth
311 Todd Jones
312 Michael Bourn
313 Tadahito Iguchi
314 Brian Bannister
315 Kevin Millwood
316 Travis Buck
317 Frank Gutierrez
318 Boof Bonser
319 Andre Ethier
320 Jake Westbrook
321 Ray Durham
322 Shawn Hill
323 Scott Olsen
324 Rocco Baldelli
325 Bengie Molina
326 Steve Pearce
327 Joel Pineiro
328 Miguel Bautista
329 Jason Schmidt
330 Ronnie Belliard
331 Jason Bergmann
332 Carlos Quentin
333 Pedro Feliz
334 Noah Lowry
335 Jamie Moyer
336 Carlos Silva
337 Andy Laroche
338 Tom Glavine
339 Jack Wilson
340 John Danks
341 Maicer Izturis
342 Jose Contreras
343 Chad Gaudin
344 Ben Broussard
345 Braden Looper
346 Ryan Freel
347 Geovany Soto
348 Jason Marquis
349 Ramon Hernandez
350 Ian Kennedy
351 Shawn Green
352 Bartolo Colon
353 Ubaldo Jimenez
354 Jonny Gomes
355 Nomar Garciaparra
356 Cliff Floyd
357 Mark Grudzielanek
358 Matt Murton
359 Paul Maholm
360 Aj Pierzynski
361 Ivan Rodriguez
362 Brendan Harris
363 Jon Lester
364 Anthony Reyes
365 Juan Rivera
366 David Eckstein
367 Joe Saunders
368 Matt Stairs
369 Kevin Millar
370 Kazuo Matsui
371 Carlos Gomez
372 Dave Roberts
373 Jason Varitek
374 Jeff Suppan
375 Jim Edmonds
376 Jarrod Saltalamacchia
377 Matt Morris
378 Jayson Werth
379 Kyle Lohse
380 Kyle Kendrick
381 Danny Richar
382 Ronny Paulino
383 Scott Hairston
384 Cameron Maybin
385 Aaron Cook
386 Jason Hirsh
387 Jair Jurrjens
388 Craig Monroe
389 Ross Gload
390 Kevin Mench
391 Jesse Litsch
392 Dan Johnson
393 Homer Bailey
394 Carlos Ruiz
395 Rajai Davis
396 Brandon Inge
397 Erik Aybar
398 Joey Gathright
399 Scott Podsednik
400 Brad Wilkerson
401 Cody Ross
402 JR Towles
403 Josh Anderson
404 Alex Gonzalez
405 Manny Parra
406 Ian Stewart
407 Paul Loduca
408 Reggie Willits
409 Colby Rasmus
410 Matt Belise
411 Ben Francisco
412 Jonathan Sanchez
413 Jay Payton
414 Sergio Mitre
415 Cliff Lee
416 Alexi Casilla
417 Bobby Crosby
418 Fred Lewis
419 Franklin Morales
420 Reed Johnson
421 Kurt Suzuki
422 Juan Uribe
423 Ryan Doumit
424 Matt Antonelli
425 Johnny Estrada
426 Livan Hernandez
427 Jay Bruce
428 Marcus Giles
429 Brandon Morrow
430 Andrew Miller
431 Ryan Dempster
432 Matt Chico
433 Brandon McCarthy
434 John Buck
435 Omar Vizquel
436 Michael Barrett
437 Josh Bard
438 Jose Castillo
439 Mark Loretta
440 Chris Snyder
441 Ryan Raburn
442 Brendan Ryan
443 Edinson Volquez
444 Kevin Frandsen
445 Gabe Gross
446 David Dellucci
447 Adam Loewen
448 Jason Kendall
449 Chris Burke
450 Vicente Padilla
451 Elijah Dukes
452 Dioner Navarro
453 Tony Pena
454 Kason Gabbard
455 Chris Shelton
456 Brandon Wood
457 Marco Scutaro
458 Zach Duke
459 Brian Schneider
460 Sammy Sosa
461 Adam Eaton
462 Edwin Jackson
463 Mike Pelfrey
464 Gregg Zaun
465 Yorvit Torrealba
466 Yadier Molina
467 Eugenio Velez
468 David Ross
469 Scott Moore
470 Gavin Floyd
471 Miguel Montero
472 Cristian Guzman
473 Chris Iannetta
474 Jo-Jo Reyes
475 Miguel Olivo
476 Nick Punto
477 Jesus Flores
478 Kyle Davies
479 Cesar Izturis
480 Jeff Mathis
But do they work?
Yea, can’t tell you that. This is my first year using this method to rank players, and really I think they came out quite well. To me, these rankings are probably the best ones out there if you are trying to get players at good value. For example, Matt Holliday looks to be - statistically speaking - the 3rd most valuable player in roto this year, but is ranked 7th by Yahoo!. This means that if you have the 5th or 6th pick, well, grab Matt one or two picks earlier than he is rated and you’ll likely get yourself a bargain.
Testing in the field
So what I’m going to do this year is that I will join one of Yahoo!’s competitive roto leagues and force myself to follow these ranks without any deviations. Can’t have a better testing method, a randomly selected public leage where my opponents have no prior info about my drafting strategy. Then, I’ll let you know how the draft goes, and a few updates to see if this is worth repeating.
Coming soon
Later this week/weekend I’ll grab some average draft position stats (ADP) and find the biggest steals in the drafts, as well as the players to avoid taking too soon.
6 responses so far ↓
1 Micah // Feb 10, 2008 at 8:09 pm
This looks really great, but there are three things that are SUPER important in drafting a team that this fails to consider:
1) Position scarcity (you must bump up catchers and second basemen, and bump down starting pitchers, third basemen, etc.)
2) The relative risk factor. Some players/positions are simply less likely than others to live up to their projections. Example: starting pitchers (let’s choose Hamels, Verlander and Kazmir as examples) are ranked relatively high by your system, since the consensus of the 5 projections is that many will have good seasons. But that’s far less likely to happen than for a hitter to reach his projected numbers.
3) Finally, a number of the top relievers are ranked EXTREMELY high based on this system (Putz, Rivera, Papelbon, Saito, etc.) but that’s hard to figure out. Did you perhaps give them more credit for low ERA and WHIP than they should deserve given their low IP totals? That seems likely…
2 Howell // Feb 11, 2008 at 5:35 am
With those rankings you are just going to end up with a team full of closers if you do no deviations. Also, last four years in my league I’ve finished first twice, and second and third once, while either leading or being in second in SB each year. So in other words I have no idea why you chose to bump people down just because they like to SBs. Reyes gets you an instant 6-7 points in SBs and can win the category if paired with one other base stealer. That’s 12 points in two players! While someone like a Howard is great, there isn’t one category that he dominates in the same way Reyes dominates steals. Not only that, but Reyes and Hanley play SS. Compare the dropoff between the #1-10 SSs and 3B.
3 eric // Feb 11, 2008 at 9:49 pm
good comments…let me try and answer:
-micah: all those items will be addressed when I factor in ADP. It will still be skewed, but will be addressed. But the reason for the rankings was to see how accurate a completely math (read: no strategy) based system could be.
basically, the system doesn’t factor IP because it assigns ranks based on relative roto standing if each player were their own team.
-howell: yep, lots of closers.. well, 3 closers or so. i’m still going to draft with the intention of filling positions before i get depth.
as for “bump people down” because they are base stealers? I didn’t bump them down, their projections did. basically, I’m starting to realize that although you may have done well in your league and the SB category, the statistical correlations don’t hold up to suggest that holds true for all teams/ leagues.
check back in a couple of days and I’ll show you how factoring in ADP helps address both of your concerns… maybe not 100%, but it will be much more of a polished product than this attempt.
thanks guys
4 Frosttie // Feb 13, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Brandon Phillips at #51?!?!? Are you freakin’ serious?! Carl Crawford should be #51 my friend. Lol, and you get paid to do this………
5 Dave Jordan // Mar 18, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Ranking so many closers so high just shows a lack of rotisserie experience. No veteran player would consider drafting a closer before about Round 8 (~100 players in).
Do more homework.
6 eric // Mar 18, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Dave Jordan… learn to read. Really, it’s kind of nice if you actually read the things I write before you ignorantly criticize. Thus, I have to assume you are functionally illiterate and will not be able to follow what I am about to quote from my own post which you failed to read the first time around…
“Anyone familiar with the RC/27 stat might get what I’m doing. The RC/27 stat is basically how many runs a player would score if the entire team was composed of just them. Well, what I did was find a way to score players as if they were their own roto fantasy team, and see how well they would do against every other player. So in the end, this is a roto ranking system completely based off of the roto scoring system.
At no time did I factor in strategy, or opinion.”
These are completely math-driven rankings which contain no strategy or opinions. This is an experiment of mine… which by the way has not failed as it hasn’t been tested. How many totally unique ranking systems have you created and tested Allen Jordan?
Let people try new things. And by the way, your failed to notice that I also have an adjusted rank that factors in ADP… so thanks for really taking the time to consider what I am doing here on my site before you slammed me.
Seriously… I think top 3 finishes in all 4 of my roto leagues last year was homework enough, and I’d love to see your completely original work in terms of ranking systems, because I somehow doubt one exists…
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