2015 Fantasy Baseball Rankings ArchivesClick below for our Archived Fantasy Baseball Rankings by position from 2015. Some positions go a lot deeper than others (for instance, there are way more outfielders than there are catchers, and way more starting pitchers than shortstops due to standard fantasy rosters). Click on the position and get our thoughts, analysis - and even some objective reporting (Objectivity? Shocking!) on how we predicted the 2015 baseball season would go. Turns out, we got a lot of our predictions right.
2015 Archived Fantasy Rankings By Position
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Determining Our 2015 Fantasy Baseball RankingsHow We "Geniused Up" Our Fantasy
Baseball Rankings... As you've undoubtedly noticed by now, our Fantasy Baseball Rankings are a product of opinion based on statistical, factual information. Just to give you some insight into why we think the way we do, all of us - all the Brass - grew up as the kids who were smart enough to be nerds, but not nerdy enough to tolerate hanging out with nerds. Likewise, we were all athletic enough to be jocks, but not "jocky" enough to hang out with the jocks. Therefore, like a lot of you, we have found that niche in Fantasy Baseball where being a nerd meets being a jock. We have involved sports with math and analysis. We're kind of like a poor-man's Tommy Lasorda, collectively. Tommy Lasorda pitched in the major leagues, but he was terrible at it. All those years riding the pine in the bullpen and watching the game allowed him a tremendous insight into the strategy of the game, and that's what made him such a good manager. Likewise, we're able to look at all these stats and derive our fantasy baseball rankings every year in an objective and insightful way. We don't just follow the standard 5x5 fantasy stats - we look at everything. We look at statistical indicators that have historically led to improved fantasy seasons as well as those terrible fantasy seasons that seemed to come out of the blue. Do we get all of them right? Of course not. Are we right most of the time? Abso-freakin'-lutely. Hell, we even warned the world about Josh Hamilton 2 years ago when he signed with the Angels. A former drug addict with millions of dollars, three months of free time every year living in Orange County, California? Yeah... we predicted he may fall prey to some enablers out there. Don't get us wrong: we wished him all the best then (and still do) and we still think it's a terrible thing that happened to him, but objectivity and truth are inevitable... but, there weren't any fantasy stats to particularly predict someone's drug abuse. |
Other stats help us with fantasy rankings from season to season even if they aren't among the standard 5x5 fantasy categories. Things like walks-to-strikeout ratios for batters. The better the walk-to-strikeout ratio, the better his stats tend to improve across the board, and the younger a player is with a better walks-to-strikeout ratio, the sooner he'll be ready to break out.
When determining starting pitcher rankings each season, we even tend to ignore some stats more than other analysts out there. For instance, believe it or not, a pitcher's Wins is not a significant stat to help determine how much a starting pitcher is going to help your fantasy team. Think about how rare a win is: there were only 3 pitchers who won 20 or more games in 2014. Clayton Kershaw had 21, and Johnny Cueto and Adam Wainwright each won 20 exactly. In terms of fantasy stats, that's less than 1 win per week from the best in the category.
For example, let's take 2 pitchers with the same number of wins: Bartolo Colon and Felix Hernandez (I think you see where this is going). Here are their stats:
When determining starting pitcher rankings each season, we even tend to ignore some stats more than other analysts out there. For instance, believe it or not, a pitcher's Wins is not a significant stat to help determine how much a starting pitcher is going to help your fantasy team. Think about how rare a win is: there were only 3 pitchers who won 20 or more games in 2014. Clayton Kershaw had 21, and Johnny Cueto and Adam Wainwright each won 20 exactly. In terms of fantasy stats, that's less than 1 win per week from the best in the category.
For example, let's take 2 pitchers with the same number of wins: Bartolo Colon and Felix Hernandez (I think you see where this is going). Here are their stats:
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As you can see, the numbers don't lie, all except for the Wins category. Which pitcher do you think helped his fantasy teams significantly more than the other despite the same amount of wins? Felix Hernandez, obviously. Meanwhile, the doofus in your league who drafted Bartolo Colon probably kept starting him every week, saying, "He just keeps winning! Huh huh huh!" Meanwhile, Colon was busy raping the rest of his stats with every accidental win he attained on the mound.
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Anyway, you get the drift. We don't want to spoil all of our fantasy rankings analysis here. Click on the links above to find the fantasy rankings by position. You'll find extra analysis, sleeper picks at each position, and a whole bunch of stats and insight that you may not have otherwise thought of or found on your own... until now, that is.
Fantasy Baseball Analysis is What We're Good At
We've been doing this since 1992 and we've seen it all. We've analyzed Fantasy Baseball players, rosters, drafts, free agent pickups and overall mathematical strategies for 20+ years now, and it all results in the goal of trying to find the best way to win in Fantasy Baseball. So when we put forth our rankings for the whole world to see, we do it with confidence. Confidence in our years of geeky fantasy analysis... and confidence in the fact that, no matter what we do, analyze, perfect, predict or pull out of our collective ass, we can't predict the injury bug and that can severely f*ck up your whole season no matter what we say or do.
Then there are the famous Rick Ankiel (as a Pitcher), Josh Hamilton and Mark Wohlers WTF-type seasons that no one on Earth can possibly predict. So, while our Fantasy Predictions and Rankings are as money as they can get, don't come crying to us if your guy ends up on the DL or on some therapist's couch. That's when we'll divert you to our Free Agent Pickup Tips later on in the season. Until then, read our Fantasy Rankings for the crystal balls that they are and go kick some ass on draft day, amigos. |
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