March 20, 2013

Fantasy Tier Rankings

First Basemen

by Josh Shepardson

Next up on the tier rankings is first base. Below you'll find the tier breakdown at the position.

For those just now stumbling upon the series, and for those who need a refresher, the tiers are broken down by stars. Five-star players are the studs at their respective positions. In general, they are the players who will be nabbed in the first couple of rounds of the draft, and they'll fetch auction bids in excess of $30. Four-star players are a cut below the studs. They will also be early round selections, and they're projected to be worth more than $20 in most cases. Three-star players are the last tier in which players are projected to provide double-digit dollar value in auctions, and two-star players are projected to earn single digits in dollar value. One-star players are late-round sleepers and roster placeholders. As was the case with our positional rankings series, the positional tiers aren't simply a regurgitation of the projected PECOTA values.

We retained last year's roster requirements for the positional tier series. Dollar values come from our PFM using a 12-team, standard 5x5 scoring format, with 23-man rosters and the following positions: C (2) 1B (1) 2B (1) 3B (1) SS (1) CI (1) MI (1) OF (5) UT (1) P (9). The minimum bid for players is $1, and, as we did last year, we'll allocate $180 of a $260 budget to hitters. Players needed to play in 20 games at a position to qualify there. The PFM is customizable, so if your league uses a different format, you can adjust it to match your league settings and see how it impacts players’ dollar values.

Dollar values for players reflect the position at which they are most valuable. Therefore, catchers who are first-base eligible, such as Buster Posey and Joe Mauer, will have higher dollar values than they would posting their projected numbers as exclusively first-base-eligible players.

Five Stars

Player

The rest of this article is restricted to Baseball Prospectus Subscribers. Not a subscriber? Click here for more information on Baseball Prospectus subscriptions or use the buttons to the right to subscribe and get access to the best baseball content on the web. Cancel anytime. That's a 33% savings over the monthly price! That's a 33% savings over the monthly price! Already a subscriber? Click here and use the blue login bar to log in. Related Content:  Draft,  First Base,  Fantasy 23 comments have been left for this article. BP Comment Quick Links code of conduct boatman44 (72080) Nice list Josh and a lot of sense written concerning Paul Goldschmidt.cheers Mar 20, 2013 07:00 AM link rating: 0   Josh Shepardson BP staff (55364) Thanks. Mar 20, 2013 12:23 PM link   tballgame (21265) A little less love for Mitch Moreland than Ron Washington has shown. You expect Berkman to get more PT than Moreland? Mar 20, 2013 07:19 AM link rating: 0   Josh Shepardson BP staff (55364) Moreland received less than 400 plate appearances last year, and he rarely faces lefties. He doesn't hit righties as hard as other platoon first basemen such as Garrett Jones and Adam Lind. The presence of Mike Olt in Triple-A would have me a bit concerned if I owned Moreland as well. Overall, I'm just not a fan. Mar 20, 2013 12:26 PM link   bheikoop (32208) I'm starting to find PECOTA more and more laughable. E5 is a career .264 hitter with back to back seasons of .270+ (which seem to be supported by his batted ball data and hitter profile). PECOTA isn't projecting him to get injured, which appears to be the only historical benchmark for his low batting averages. What has the correlation co-efficiency been for PECOTA recently? Mar 20, 2013 07:44 AM link rating: 0   bheikoop (32208) Oh, but nice write-up overall. Signed, Nota Jaysfan Mar 20, 2013 07:44 AM link rating: 0   Josh Shepardson BP staff (55364) Thanks for the kind words about the write-up. For what it's worth, had E-5 hit just 30 homers instead of the 42 he hit last year, and those 12 flyballs resulted in outs, he'd have finished with a .258 average. I used the 30 homers because that is what PECOTA projects him to hit this year. I am more optimistic about how he'll perform this year, but I can understand why PECOTA projects his average to fall below .260. Mar 20, 2013 12:30 PM link   Jason Collette BP staff (6672) but does that mean we can ignore the averages of .251, .225, and .244 from the three previous seasons? those also came in seasons where he demonstrated similar walk and strikeout rates. While I agree with you that the projection is a bit low for my comfort level (as an extremely biased E5 guy), I see where it is coming from. Mar 20, 2013 08:23 AM link   Nathan White (17028) No one from BP seems to answer this type of question lately (i.e. how is PECOTA doing?) A post-mortem on last year would be great. My apologies if I missed it. Mar 21, 2013 09:10 AM link rating: 0   swarmee (40459) There was a link that compared it with about 7 other projection sets from 2012 and it came in second in most of the comparisons. One was better at projecting the hitting, while a different one had a better pitching projection, so in all, the takeaway was that PECOTA had better all-around projections. Mar 21, 2013 10:22 AM link rating: 0   wsands3 (72164) seems like 79 RBI for freeman is low considering he is hitting clean up Mar 20, 2013 08:09 AM link rating: 0   Josh Shepardson BP staff (55364) FWIW, I think part of the reason for the lowish RBI projection is that he's projected to receive just 595 plate appearances. Mar 20, 2013 12:33 PM link   BPKevin (48561) Who is Adam Lind's platoon partner? He's crushing the ball this spring. I know, it's only spring training... Mar 20, 2013 08:53 AM link rating: 0   Josh Shepardson BP staff (55364) The Blue Jays depth chart shows a revolving door at DH when Lind isn't play (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/index.php?tm=TOR) and I think that makes sense. You could see Bonifacio play a variety of positions in the field, and the regulars receive a partial day off serving as the DH. Mar 20, 2013 12:36 PM link   BPKevin (48561) Thank you. Could we expect to see Lind spell E5 at 1B too? The depth chart shows Lars Anderson and Mark DeRosa. Great article and responses to question. Thank you. Mar 24, 2013 05:58 AM link rating: 0   abskippers (49251) Am I totally missing something on Berkman? He didn't crack the honorable mentions in the positional rankings and scrapes the bottom of the 2-star barrel here. I know there's the health concern, but he appears to be playing every day in spring training and he's slated to DH. He was born to hit a baseball and he's moving to a park made for hitting baseballs. And while much has been made of his declining production vs. lefties, in an absolute sense (.800 OPS vs. LHP in '11, .777 career) it's far superior to what Rizzo, Ike D or Hosmer have shown. Last weekend I got Berkman at CI for $7 when Ike went for $15, Hosmer $18 and Rizzo for $24 (those reflect post-keeper inflation). I kind of wanted Ike myself but not at double the price of Berkman. I have another draft Saturday and will probably do the same. Am I not aware of just how serious his knee problems might be, or has Wash declared he will be in a strict platoon at DH or something? Mar 20, 2013 09:56 AM link rating: 0   Josh Shepardson BP staff (55364) I still like Berkman, but I think he carries risk. You mention the fact he's coming off an injury marred 2012 season, and that hurts his ranking. He's also getting long in the tooth (37), so there is some risk of a cliff season. Toss-in that he had a crummy 2010 season before rebounding in 2011, and there are enough questions that a higher ranking could lead to disappointment. Mar 20, 2013 12:39 PM link   seabass77 (20338) Curious about Morales being in a lower tier. He's projected for 24 homers which, I am coming to learn, is nothing to sneeze at anymore. Finding 25 homers in fantasy is harder to come by. Anyone else see 24 homers for $16 as great value? Mar 21, 2013 08:36 AM link rating: 0   Josh Shepardson BP staff (55364) I think he's certainly a decent option at CI or UTIL. Not only does he offer solid power, but his average is palatable as well. Mar 21, 2013 14:19 PM link   ubersamoyed (72574) While I was generating a comprehensive draft board, I noticed something that gave me some pause. In the OF ranks, Swisher is ranked #49 while Davis is ranked #50. But, in these ranks, Davis is ranked a 3-star (#16) while Swisher is ranked a 2-star (#25). How do I reconcile this on a comprehensive draft board? Are the ranks specifically individual to the author and unrelated? Or, are the tier ranks considered a new update? I'm not complaining here...just want to finalize my "Big Board." Mar 22, 2013 11:52 AM link rating: 0   swarmee (40459) Some articles are "groupthink" by the staff and some are put together by individuals. They are not intended to always agree, but instead give various opinions on players to be fused by the reader. Mar 22, 2013 14:17 PM link rating: 0   Josh Shepardson BP staff (55364) Swarmee pretty much hit the nail on the head. I stayed true the the group rankings for the top 15 (with the exception of dropping Teixeira/Ortiz due to injury), but I didn't cross reference the first basemen that were eligible at other positions against those lists. Mar 22, 2013 20:15 PM link   ubersamoyed (72574) Gothcha....and tthat's fine by me. I just wanted to verify that so I could move forward. Thanks! Mar 22, 2013 21:44 PM link rating: 0   You must be a Premium subscriber or have a Fantasy subscription to post a comment. Not a subscriber? Sign up today! << Previous Article Fantasy Tier Rankings:... (03/20) << Previous Column Fantasy Tier Rankings:... (03/20) Next Column >> Fantasy Tier Rankings:... (03/21) Next Article >> Rumor Roundup: Not Bre... (03/20) RECENTLY AT BASEBALL PROSPECTUS What You Need to Know: Yu Better Watch Out Baseball ProGUESTus: The Yankees' Post-River... Pebble Hunting: Blind BABIP Test, Part 2 Baseball Therapy: Is There a Pinch-Fielding ... The Call-Up: Wil Myers The Call-Up: Zack Wheeler Overthinking It: The Most Surprising Team Pe... MORE FROM MARCH 20, 2013 Overthinking It: The Undefeated Dominicans Pebble Hunting: Watching Jered Weaver The Lineup Card: 11 Horribly Wrong Predictio... Transaction Analysis: Angels Take a Backup S... Rumor Roundup: Not Breathing a Sigh of Relie... 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