Welcome to the 2013 debut of the Weekly Pitching Planner. Each week, I will cover the pitchers who are slated to make two starts and help you decide who you should start and who you should sit. Sometimes, such as when a pitcher has have one good matchup and one difficult assignment, pitchers will be in the “consider” category; your league settings might then determine whether or not that pitcher should find a spot in your lineup. The pitchers will be split by league, and then by categories:

Auto-Starts – These are your surefire fantasy aces. You paid a handsome sum for them either with an early draft pick or a high-dollar auction bid, so you’re starting them anywhere, anytime. Guys can emerge onto or fall off of this list as the season evolves. There won’t be many—if any—notes associated with these groupings each week. They are, as the name says, automatic starts.

This is a trying time for us fantasy folks: Our patience is tested repeatedly in the internet age.

We struggle throughout the winter to get our beloved baseball back, and once it is here, we are over-the-moon excited. Those of us who participate in fantasy baseball spend large portions of our free time analyzing our squads in pursuit of a title. Whether via trade or by finding a diamond in the waiver-wire rough, we look to adjust our puzzle pieces in just the right fashion to improve our teams.

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Welcome to the 2013 debut of the Weekly Pitching Planner. Each week, I will cover the pitchers who are slated to make two starts and help you decide who you should start and who you should sit. Sometimes, such as when a pitcher has have one good matchup and one difficult assignment, pitchers will be in the “consider” category; your league settings might then determine whether or not that pitcher should find a spot in your lineup. The pitchers will be split by league, and then by categories:

Auto-Starts – These are your surefire fantasy aces. You paid a handsome sum for them either with an early draft pick or a high-dollar auction bid, so you’re starting them anywhere, anytime. Guys can emerge onto or fall off of this list as the season evolves. There won’t be many—if any—notes associated with these groupings each week. They are, as the name says, automatic starts.

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Today we wrap up our positional tier rankings. Last offseason, Derek Carty tackled the tiers by himself; this spring, we've decided to attack them as a team. Players at each position will be divided into five tiers, represented by the number of stars.

Five-star players are the studs at their respective position. In general, they are the players that 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 at the position. 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 in auctions. 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.

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In the week leading up to Opening Day, we're asking and answering three questions about each team in a five-part series ordered by descending Playoff Pct from the Playoff Odds Report. Today, we continue with a look at the group of six teams with the third-highest odds of winning at least a Wild Card. As a reminder, you can find links to our preview podcasts for each team here.

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Today we continue our positional tier rankings. Last offseason, Derek Carty tackled the tiers by himself; this spring, we've decided to attack them as a team. Players at each position will be divided into five tiers, represented by the number of stars.

Five-star players are the studs at their respective position. In general, they are the players that 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 at the position. 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 in auctions. 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.

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Back in January, we made you aware of the Starting Pitcher Guide being put together by myself and Doug Thorburn. We could not be more proud of the resultant book that checked in at over 108,000 words of starting pitcher goodness. In the end, there were 436 pitchers analyzed across the 30 organizations along with a supplemental Excel file of colored tiers covering starters and bullpens, including potential closers in waiting and high-strikeout studs who could offer value in holds leagues or even as a dollar guy at the backend of your AL/NL only pitching staff.

Last time out, we whet your appetite with a one player sample that showed the analysis from both myself and Doug on A’s phenom Jarrod Parker. Today, we are offering a full team sample covering the Washington Nationals for you to peruse in order to get an idea of what you will be getting with the SP Guide. It is now available for just $12 via PayPal.  This weekend and next will be the two biggest fantasy draft weekends of the season so get yours now.

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We are trying something different with the audio file to see if smaller size may help some of you that have struggled with playing it. For whatever reason, the recording session had a Beastie Boys "So Whatcha Want" sound to it and Jason did his best to filter out the background noise. The file is 50.7 MB this week.  Please give us feedback on the listening experience.

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The nature of the “sleeper” in fantasy baseball has changed vastly in recent years. The internet era has ushered in a new level of preparedness for all fantasy managers, forcing those that hope to identify players their league-mates might be sleeping on to dig a level or two deeper—and even then, their sleeper status is far from guaranteed. In 10-team mixed leagues, there are no real sleepers; everyone is aware of the players that could provide value, and all that matters is the order in which they will ultimately be selected. Heck, there aren’t really sleepers in your 12-team NL-only leagues, either. If you are playing in a league that deep, then virtually everyone involved is knowledgeable about the pool.

Today, I am bringing you my list of “sleepers.” Call them undervalued, off-the-radar, or even simply “sleepers,” but just know that we’re diving deeper. Basically, if they appeared on the 41-80 portion of last week’s Starting Pitcher lists, then they won’t be on this list. Some of those ranked in the 65-80 range are going to fly under the radar a bit, especially in 10- and 12-team mixed leagues, but let’s jump down a level or three with this trio of arms.

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We are trying something different with the audio file to see if smaller size may help some of you that have struggled with playing it. This week's episode is once again 2:39 in length but the file size is just 38.3MB. Please give us feedback on the listening experience.

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The Baseball Prospectus fantasy team has been rolling out its positional rankings over the past couple of weeks, and this edition concludes the process. Each team member assigned to cover a position will create an initial top 15 (more for outfielders and starting pitchers) on his own. He will then send that list to the rest of the team for discussion, at which point we will debate the rankings, both in terms of each player’s specific placement and the merits on which he was included in the top 15. This back-and-forth debate will yield the final list, which will be presented by the original author with notes on the pertinent players. We encourage you to bring your opinions into the fray using the comment section below.

Here are the previous rankings lists:

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