UPDATE: I have updated my list and rankings from my original post
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I personally think my best skill set for fantasy baseball purposes is ranking pitchers. It's why I was first in the GOI auction league last year in ERA and WHIP and my knowledge helped me stream pitchers in my head-to-head keeper league that allowed me not only to win the counting stats, but to do so without hurting my ratio stats.
So now that all of my leagues have completed their drafts, I feel safe to announce my rankings. I understand that with baseball four days away chances are these rankings are not going to help anyone out (because the vast majority of people have completed their drafts) but I like having my opinion on the record.
Before we begin, I'd just like to say that coming up with all these pitchers is hard freaking work. We all can rank top 30, but it was a struggle to come up with 100 names.
Now, let the hating begin!
Top 100 Mixed League Pitchers
1) Tim Lincecum
2) Roy Halladay
3) Jon Lester
4) Felix Hernandez
5) Josh Johnson
6) Cliff Lee
7) Clayton Kershaw
8) Javier Vazquez
9) C.C. Sabathia
10) Francisco Liriano
11) Dan Haren
12) Yovani Gallardo
13) Zach Grienke (I'm a little pissed that Grienke got injured because I believed that Gallardo would put up better fantasy numbers than Grienke before the injury. On the plus side, I got Grienke for cheap in the GOI auction league)
14) Justin Verlander
15) Max Scherzer
16) Cole Hamels
17) Ubaldo Jiminez
18) Tommy Hanson
19) Chris Carpenter
20) Mat Latos
21) Shaun Marcum
22) Gavin Floyd
23) Jered Weaver
24) Wandy Rodriguez
25) Hiroki Kuroda
26) Roy Oswalt
27) Colby Lewis
28) Ryan Dempster
29) Daniel Hudson
30) Josh Beckett
31) Wade Davis
32) Brett Anderson
33) Matt Cain
34) David Price
35) Jorge De La Rosa
36) Clay Buchholz
37) Madison Bumgarner
38) Jhoulys Chacin
39) Chad Billingsley
40) Aaron Harang
41) Jeremy Hellickson
42) Jason Hammel
43) Travis Wood
44) Tim Hudson
45) James Shields
46) Trevor Cahill
47) Jonathan Sanchez
48) Brandon Webb
49) Edison Volquez
50) Jake Peavy
51) Ted Lilly
52) Jaime Garcia
53) Phil Hughes
54) John Danks
55) Gio Gonzalez
56) Ricky Nolasco
57) Ricky Romero
58) C.J. Wilson
59) Edwin Jackson
60) Clayton Richard
61) Matt Garza
62) Ian Kennedy
63) Scott Baker
64) Phil Coke
65) A.J. Burnett
66) Joel Piniero
67) Jordan Zimmerman
68) Johnny Cueto
69) Kyle Drabek
70) Brian Matusz
71) Rich Harden
72) John Lackey
73) Anibal Sanchez
74) Carl Pavano
75) Brett Myers
76) Kyle McClellan
77) J.A. Happ
78) Brian Duensing
79) Bronson Arroyo
80) Tim Stauffer
81) Chris Young
82) Ervin Santana
83) Carlos Zambrano
84) Jair Jurrgens
85) Dallas Braden
86) Brandon Morrow
87) Brad Penny
88) Mike Leake
89) Derek Lowe
90) R.A. Dickey
91) Ivan Nova
92) Carlos Carasco
93) Marc Rzepczynski
94) Mike Pelfrey
95) Derek Holland
96) Dice-K
97) Jeremy Guthrie
98) Jon Garland
99) Jake Westbrook
100) Fausto Carmona
I'd be more than happy to put some board bet wagers based upon my list
If you think thats hard, try ranking the top 50 RP, top 60 OF, and top 20 by other position too. And then re-ranking them
ReplyDeleteI feel your pain buddy. Ranking this deep sucks
ReplyDeleteAlsp, players you are WAY off base on:
ReplyDeleteLester -- too high an expected ERA (mid 3's) to be top 3.
Javier Vazquez -- he's done for his career. His FB velocity is still way way down from career and 2009 rates and sitting in the 80s.
Gallardo -- his control is too poor and his park is too unforgiving to be top 1, especially ahead of Ubaldo, who is a better version of him.
Daniel Hudson -- he's not going to get enough innings to be top 20, let alone top 15, this year. Maybe 2012, maybe.
Ryan Dempster -- No pitcher with an expected WHIP of 1.3 or higher belongs in the top 20 or top 25 and probably not top 30
Gavin Floyd -- He's Ryan Dempster in the AL, so he needs a lower ranking accordingly
Wade Davis -- He's just not good. Maybe you'll learn that after 2012. No K stuff, bleh control, not Ubaldo, plays in AL East.
Clay Buchholz -- I can name at least 40 pitchers I'd rather have.
Matt Cain -- maybe he has the skill to out produce his peripherals, but that's not a risk I want to bank on until its proven to exist.
DLR -- He's Jonathan Sanchez, in that park effects are cancelled out by his GB%, yet 12 spots higher? No way.
Colby Lewis -- I know you only rank him like 8 spots lower than me, but give the man his props. Lewis could be a top 20 pitcher this year and is easily top 30 given his strong ERA/K/WHIP showing with W upside
Aaron Harang -- Wow. Talk about an irrational bounce back belief. He's not even as good as 2009 Jarrod Washburn at this point in his career.
Ted Lilly -- Why are you hating on a guy with a high 3's ERA, a top 20 WHIP, and a strong K rate? He's top 35, easy
Phil Hughes -- He grossly underperformed last year and still produced strong fantasy numbers.
Ricky Nolasco -- I'll be the one laughing when Nolasco is a top 20 pitcher this year
Ian Kennedy -- he's almost exactly the same pitcher as Daniel Hudson and will get more innings. Irrationally low
AJ Burnett -- Might get cut by the Yankees this year. He's just that bad.
Jordan Zimmerman -- what's wrong with post-TJ pitchers with strong control/velocity in limited showing? He'll be so much better.
Joel Pinero and other low K pitchers -- these guys HURT your K/9, so decent ERA/WHIP showings arent enough to warrant top 70 placement.
Carlos Zambrano -- He's never had an ERA of even 4 and rekindled his K stuff in past 2 seasons. Best pitcher in baseball in August/Septemer.
Repo Man -- Pet project of mine.
Also, once you get past pitcher like...60...it's all a dart throw.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I like Lackey for a bounceback year
Figure out some board bets. I'd be more than happy to stick to my rankings. Although obviously if the 2 players in the bet are ranked close I probably won't do it
ReplyDeleteYou know where to find my rankings. Almost all of them are fair game for bettering via comparison for me.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I want to bet Colby is top 30
ReplyDeleteWe need some board bets Sexy Rexy because with all the baseball we have talked lately we still have none on the board!
ReplyDeleteI am not high on Josh Johnson and say he doesn't finish as a top 20 pitcher. I also like Daniel Hudson, Dempster, Marcum
and Latos, but feel like you have them too high. We could do board bets around any one of them. I say Tommy Hanson finishes better than any of them, you have him way too low.
I am also down on Clay Buchholtz
this year. His xfip was terrible last year so look for him to regress. Where is the love for Oswalt who is way to low?
You and I need to talk one of these night about these rankings and we will come up with many board wagers for sure..........
yeah, your zambrano ranking is laughable
ReplyDeletei will put in on the board he has higher yahoo ranking than ANY white sox starter.
done
ReplyDeletefor the bet, do you mean white sox pitchers on their opening day roster or any starter who dons a South Side uniform because it's foreseeable the Sox trade for a guy mid-season. I'm fine either way
ReplyDeleteOK Irwin board bet: Will Josh Johnson be a top 20 pitcher?
ReplyDeletelets say the pitcher must accumulate min 24 starts with white sox(and Z has to get 24 starts). and since this is a 5 on 1 bet, i get 5 brownie points if i win
ReplyDeletedone and done dmitry
ReplyDeleteI agree with many of the other problems, but by far the biggest problem is that Clayton Kershaw isn't on it...NOT IN YOUR TOP 100 - he will be top 20.
ReplyDeleteWHOOPS! Clerical error on my part, obviously did not mean to leave him off the list. Kershaw now ranked
ReplyDelete