By Ryan Main
Congratulations Larry on your 2nd Shooter Cup win! It was a great race last year with the winner in doubt all the way to the end and Larry coming from nowhere to steal it from everyone who’d been racing throughout the year. Carey/Paul/Cheese also had great seasons and came close to the cup win…maybe a couple more moves would have sealed the deal, but for now, you’re left with the rest of us, looking to next season. With that in mind, here we go…
How were these rankings created? You don’t care, so fine…I won’t waste your time with all the detail. If you need the background, refer to last year’s story (https://obfbl.com/2012/01/11/keeper-rankings-part-1/). I will give you one piece of information, and that is the origin of the rankings used…given that it’s still early, only 3 decent sites have rankings for 2013 updated so far. Each site was given a weight in the composite ranking based on their reputation (ESPN = 45%, HardBall Times = 30%, RotoChamp = 25%)
– ESPN (http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?page=2013_ranks_250)
– HardBall Times (http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/early-2013-fantasy-baseball-top-300/)
– RotoChamp (http://www.rotochamp.com/baseball/PlayerRankings.aspx)
From here, I entered the nerdery and crunched some numbers, resulting in your keeper rankings…hope you enjoy!
The first thing I noticed was…where is Billy Hamilton? It seems incredible (not really), but not one of the sites has this guy ranked in their top 300, and so I can’t justify him as either a keeper option or alternate. I’m assuming a trade is in the future for an upgraded RK pick, so Baller might actually lower his last place keeper ranking before the season starts. Given the average age of this team it would be recommended to part with some of the aging members (Granderson) when making future moves. This team is destined for a major rebuild.
Welcome to the league Chris! The good news is that your keepers are not the last ranked set. Unfortunately, your team is old…really old…the oldest team in the league on average by over a year, and with no RK pick, there’s not much hope for the short term. You’ve got your work cut out for you, but there is a decent core of tradable assets. I don’t see any of the players above being on this team next year, so there should be some action on the trade market and teams in this league love raping helping new owners via trade. Good luck!
Is this the season to trade Ryan Braun? About the hit 30 with two monster years and having removed any doubt that he needed Prince to protect him in the lineup, Poo Dogs could bring in a fresh crew of keepers in one deal. Assuming that won’t happen, another option would be to track down Beltre and Cruz in the old folks home and deal them for some fresh legs and some beer for the home bar. Whichever way the Poo Dogs choose to go, it’s unlikely they’ll compete anytime soon without a major facelift.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM! Not only did Kim rank higher than the expansion team, but he beat two others! The top 4 of Kim’s keepers are very nice. He has a young team and some great upside to his RK’s. With a good draft and a few more moves this season, Kim could jump to the top half of these ranks next year, but for now, there’s a little work left to do. Will Kim be patient and hope that his prospects hit their stride in their 3rd year, or will he package them to someone else who might provide Kim with another top tier keeper? Maybe he’ll trade McCutchen for 5 catchers…who the heck knows…we’ll have to watch and see.
If there’s anything worse than missing out on the shooter cup, it’s dealing with the decimated keepers resulting from a failed attempt. The Tribe is likely back in rebuild mode, with goals to get younger and obtain some high tier players. Cheese proved he knows how to get there, so I’m sure he’s already started the work…hopefully his next run will result in a title.
Dick Dogs has an interesting team…not ranked particularly high, but I see this team as better than the rankings indicate. There’s some things to address, like whether it’s time to trade an aging and less consistent CC Sabathia, but I could see them going into hold mode based on their draft to see how they start out with some potential for a long-shot run. If that’s not the course, then a committed build year could set them up for a big run next season. Either way, this team isn’t far off.
Halfway! While we’re here, I thought I’d give you the breakdown of the bottom 6 teams and keepers by tier, along with a capture of how your score/ranking has changed over the past few years. It’s interesting to see who is improving, or…not improving. Hopefully it helps to provide a confidence boost or a wakeup call…
Ok, back to the rankings…
I heard that Trout guy is pretty good. It’s not often you see an RK pick in the 1st tier of the rankings, but there’s no doubt about this one. Not only do the Super Sods have some decent keepers, but they’re young as well with high upside RK’s coming to fill future gaps. After a nail-biting finish to last season, Carey may well be in position to challenge again, but would probably be better off waiting another season to be in even better position next year.
Stud. Stud. Stud. Damn this team is loaded. Ok, fine…there’s some issues…and no thanks to the Jays for leaving Gose without a job…luckily the Jays outfielders in front of him have a combination of major injury, steroid and mental issues, so it shouldn’t be long for a spot to open up again. With the young age of this team, there’s still likely to be some inconsistency, but this is the 3rd consecutive year of double-digit keeper point improvement, so the future looks bright.
Conley led the league in this ranking last season and with more points this year, only hit 4th….says a lot for the level of competition going into this season. The Fury is the first of the top teams with a legitimate shot at a shooter cup run…in fact, with an aging set of keepers, it simply wouldn’t make sense to wait any longer. Should be interesting to see what Conley does with his team to get his run kicked into high gear. Unlike the teams ahead of him, there aren’t as many RK’s to either play to trade for extra depth, so there might be a bigger luck factor if this team hopes to win it all.
The Asshats have the best remaining keepers of all the 3 teams that were runner-up’s last season…no doubt because he never made any push to attempt to win. It’s obvious that in the back of their minds, the Asshats never really believed they were going to win it last year, but probably could have done so if they’d made the same push Larry’s team did to take the win from them. The Asshats have tons of upside, with outstanding RK’s, the best pitcher in the league and and excellent all-round set of keepers. If they want to be around the money for years to come, last years strategy should work quite well, but we have to assume Paul will want that cup at some point…and this may finally be that year.
It says a lot when someone can win the league, upgrade their keepers and go into the next season with a higher keeper score than the previous season. Larry used his Jedi mind trick and rode the results all the way to his 2nd league championship without having to sacrifice many of the types of players his competition had already dealt away. With a seriously young set of high-upside studs, Larry may ride this squad for years to come. As Larry would say at the start of negotiations – these are not the keepers you’re looking for. Move on.
This year’s top ranked team – the Crackheads! Congratulations! Deciding early in the season last year that he would go for a final year of his rebuild, Sean upgraded to several top tier keepers with more trades and transactions that the league has ever seen. Like a kid with a straw of sugar powder, Sean couldn’t be stopped all year…if he set his mind on a player, he was going to make it happen and enters the year with the highest keeper score I’ve seen in my 3 years in the league. In addition to his top tier keepers, Sean also managed to “throw-in” 4 high ranked RK picks, giving him a huge amount of flexibility going into the pre-season trade frenzy. Watch out…Sean is definitely the favourite for this year’s Shooter Cup. – These ARE the keepers you’re looking for.
Can’t wait to start the season with the actual keeper announcements next week – should be some surprises and lots to talk about. Here’s the full league chart for the keepers by tier and history of rankings. Good luck to everyone!
OBSESSED BALLERS FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE 
In June of 1976. the Red Sox were playing the A’s in Oakland when Charley Finley sold Rollie Fingers, Joe Rudi and two other pearlysto them.Fingers and Rudi packed up and went over to the visitor’s clubhouse.They actually spent three days in uniform, but were never used in a game despite their eligibility.At that point, the commissioner vetoed the transaction in the best interests of baseball and returned the duo to the A’s before theirflight out of town.