MLB.com Fantasy Rankings: Top 50

There are many different ways to evaluate baseball players, and they all have their merits depending on the situation. Players and coaches will likely turn to scouting reports to impact their in-game strategic decisions. When creating simulated lineups in a video game setting, it’s important to pay attention to the game’s numerical rating of each player’s various skill levels. When retroactively assessing a full season performance, I prefer to use fantasy points. And for building fantasy lineups before a season starts, it’s best to consult fantasy rankings.

I know rankings can be quite volatile, depending on the formats of different leagues – scoring, roster sizes, player pool, etc. It’s been years since I looked at multiple ranking systems for the purpose of comparison, but these days, I tend to gravitate towards MLB.com’s list. Not only because it’s the official league site, but also because their rankings run deep: 800 players deep, to be precise! And they tend to be pretty quick to alter their rankings depending on current events and breaking news (i.e. dropping Fernando Tatis Jr. from #1 to #83 moments after his wrist fracture was announced).

In the above-linked post, I created a chart showing how the top 20 ranked players were distributed among the 12 Fantasy Astrology Signs as of March 15. But since those rankings are a couple weeks old, I’m updating the list, and also expanding it to the top 50.

Three signs tied for the lead with seven players in the top 50, and I’m happy to announce that my “home sign” of Cancer is one of them. Unfortunately, the Crabs are in the middle of those three with an average rank of 23.1 across their top seven: Libra comes in first with 22.6, while Virgo is a fairly distant third with 26.3. (I find that average rank is a better way to conceptualize skill level than simply adding up the totals and adding a disclaimer/reminder that “lower is better.”)

It’s of course not fair to compare averages with any other signs at this stage, since they have an unequal amount of players represented. Leo is next, with five, including three pitchers. Pisces, Scorpio, and Gemini have four apiece, but while the top four of the Fish and the Scorpions are all batters, the Twins so far have only pitchers. Sagittarius has three players in the top 50, while Aries, Taurus, Capricorn, and Aquarius bring up the rear with two each.

You might notice that I’ve played a little fast and loose with positional eligibility for Scorpio and Pisces in the middle infield. Before the previous season, I changed the rules in my Fantasy Astrology Baseball League allowing shortstops to qualify at second base (and for any infielder to slot in at first), but in these two circumstances, only one sign makes logical real-life sense.

Trevor Story has played exclusively shortstop in his major league career, but his new team, the Red Sox, are moving the Scorpio slugger to second base to accommodate Libra incumbent Xander Bogaerts. Wander Franco has just one MLB game at second base (plus three more in the minors), and he plans to stick at shortstop… but the MLB site also lists the Pisces phenom as a third baseman, based on the eight games he spent there in his debut season. Either way, it just feels wrong to gum up the DH spot with such a capable fielder, while leaving other strong bats on the bench.

While I’m tempted to go beyond the top 50, there’s still a lot of Spring Training to go before the season starts, and I don’t want to do too much analysis that will eventually change, due to injuries, trades, or other unforeseen circumstances. In order to pace myself even further, next time, I’m returning to my All-Time Since 1980 project, with the Earth Division signs!