January 21, 2014

Graphical Fantasy Rankings

First Basemen

by Mauricio Rubio

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For a primer on the graphical rankings, click here.

First base was an extremely fun position to break down this year. The top offensive producers will come from the cold corner. Miguel Cabrera will move there from third, Joe Mauer and perhaps Buster Posey will enter into transitional phases in their careers at first, and there’s still a host of highly talented incumbents that crowd the rankings quite a bit. Again, these are made to mirror Mike Gianella’s tiered system and aren’t necessarily in a hard order. With that in mind, let’s address some questions about the graphs.

You’ll notice that Jose Abreu is missing. There is no PECOTA data out on him as his data comes from competition in Cuba. I have my own thoughts on Abreu that you can read in our Fantasy 1B Target/Avoid column coming later this week. A few readers noted that performance relative to the league would be nice to see. I agree and I’m working on it for the wrap up section we’ll have when we run through all the positions.

A reader noted that since the SB bins are super small it makes no sense to include them in the graph. The bins are small but I feel that I don’t need to hold your hand with regards to what is and isn’t important in this graph. The data is provided here and really the SB column with catchers and first basemen is meant to highlight players who will provide an added stat bonus. Guys like Goldschmidt and Hosmer offer a nice speed bonus that might make the difference when it comes to roster construction.

Finally, playing time is an obviously huge factor when it comes to fantasy roster construction. In the bottom tier you have guys like Corey Hart who will put up good statistics when they play, but their value will likely be mitigated because of playing-time or health issues. Keep that in mind when you’re looking these over. These aren’t meant to be the end all, be all; rather they are a quick visual reference tool designed to aid visual learners.

Here are the player data bins

Mauricio Rubio is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @MRubio52
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