Your draft date is rapidly approaching, and everybody needs a second (and third, and fourth) opinions on who they should pursue on their fantasy baseball team this season.
About.com fantasy baseball guru Kevin Kleps is back with his rankings for 2009, by position.
Kevin's credentials: He's done this for a long time as an award-winning fantasy baseball and football columnist. This is his 12th year of doing these rankings for the Lake County News-Herald, a 40,000-circulation daily newspaper in suburban Cleveland, where he's the assistant sports editor. And he's been in fantasy leagues even longer, consistently in the money in just about all of them.
First consideration: How do you rank Alex Rodriguez? He's been among the best players to have on your fantasy team for more than a decade. But his hip injury can throw off your strategy. How far should he slip?
Next up, The top 100 players of 2009, and why you should (or shouldn't) draft them.
On to the position rankings:
- Top 20 catchers: McCann can be the best backstop.
- Top 20 first basemen: You can't go wrong with Pujols.
- Top 20 second basemen: From rookie of the year to MVP to top fantasy pick - it's Pedroia, of course.
- Top 20 shortstops: Hanley Ramirez might be worth No. 1 overall.
- Top 20 third basemen: A-Rod falls - who takes his place?
- Top 60 outfielders: Brain says you take Braun here.
- Top 10 designated hitters: Ortiz is aging gracefully.
- Top 80 starting pitchers: There's a diminutive new king of the hill.
- Top 30 relief pitchers: K-Rod had 62 saves last year, but he's not No. 1.
Need some early draft help? Use the process of elimination. These are the 10 most overrated players for 2009.
In the later rounds, it's time to take on some risk. These are the 10 most underrated players, the sleepers for 2009.
So you're wanting to take this an extra mile? How about these sabermetrics statistics. If they're good enough for Theo Epstein, then they're good enough for my team, correct?
Yes and no. Read more about using sabermetrics for fantasy baseball.
Interested? Here are top hitters from 2008 based on VORP (value over replacement player), the top pitchers based on VORP, and the top pitchers based on BABIP (batting average on balls in play).
