Fantasy Baseball Player Rankings by Josh Davis

Another spring, another season of baseball. But that isn´t it. Fantasy baseball is back again for the 2016 season, and so are the rankings. Here are the top ten in USA Today:

  1. Mike Trout

  2. Bryce Harper

  3. Paul Goldschmidt

  4. Clayton Kershaw

  5. Anthony Rizzo

  6. Andrew McCutchen

  7. Carlos Correa

  8. Josh Donaldson

  9. Jose Altuve

  10. Nolan Arenado

Not too surprising, but I think that there are some problems in these rankings. USA Today has Nelson Cruz at 48, even though he was the only player in baseball to hit over 40 home runs in 2014 and 2015. These players like Nelson Cruz that are ranked lower than they should can be huge sleepers if people in the draft research sleepers very closely. Another big sleeper is Yu Darvish. Don´t forget that he´s healthy again. He´s put at 133, but almost won the Cy Young just a couple years ago. Here is a list of sleepers and their rankings;

  1. Nelson Cruz 48

  2. Yu Darvish 133

  3. Lucas Duda 153

  4. Kendrys Morales 134

  5. Scott Kazmir 170

  6. Stephen Matz 195

  7. Stephen Vogt 199

  8. Sonny Gray 77

  9. Ben Revere 99

  10. Michael Wacha 103

  11. Noah Syndergaard 72

Now, a lot of people think sleepers are super good and that they should pick them in the first round, but a sleeper is someone who is picked in the later rounds but turns out to be really good.

Another big dilemma for people in fantasy baseball is the first round of the draft. Who should you pick? Well, here is a first round prediction that I made for a 14 team draft.

 

  1. Mike Trout

  2. Paul Goldschmidt

  3. Clayton Kershaw

  4. Giancarlo Stanton

  5. Andrew McCutchen

  6. Josh Donaldson

  7. Carlos Correa

  8. Jose Altuve

  9. Anthony Rizzo

  10. Jose Abreu

  11. Jake Arrieta

  12. Edwin Encarnacion

  13. Jose Bautista

  14. Zach Greinke

I hope that helped. There are a lot of players to keep on your radar, but didn´t make the top 14 in the draft predictions. So, here are some other players to remember: Jose Fernandez, Chris Sale, Max Sherzer, Kris Bryant, Miguel Cabrera, Dee Gordon, AJ Pollack, Manny Machado, Nolan Arenado, Kris Brannt, Kyle Shwarber, David Price, and Joey Votto.

If you want more info, here are the rankings from USA Today: http://fantasy.usatoday.com/2016/02/top-200-baseball-rankings-sports-weekly-special-issue