Quick — what do Katniss Everdeen and Shawn Michaels have in common?
Besides not being their government names since they are both characters, they both survived their respected Hunger Games. Katniss, quite literally in the movie, and Michaels in WWE’s Royal Rumble.
You see where this is going, right?
The fantasy landscape has felt like a version of the Hunger Games, as it feels like it’s the survival of the fittest. Or in this case, the healthiest.
That preseason prep? I don’t want to say it was pointless, of course, as you were able to grab players like Shota Imanaga, Tyler O’Neill, and Kutter Crawford at insane values. But if you grabbed, say, Spencer Strider, Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito, or any of the other dozens of players (mainly pitchers) with substantial injuries, you almost feel like looking ahead to next year (play dynasty! It helps in these cases).
I’ve always broken up fantasy baseball into four equally-weighted sections: draft, waivers, skill, luck.
It feels a lot like fantasy football right now, where the luck aspect is playing a bigger part than it should. Now it’s all about adjusting, of course, but it will be a fun case study to look at the winning teams across leagues and see the average amount of injuries and games lost to injuries they suffered compared to their opponents.
It also made doing this rankings update a challenge. I tend to push pitchers down generally — even in points leagues — to account for the increased risk of injury, but when we had the two-week stretch of players seemingly going down every other day, it made it even more difficult to know who to slot where.
What’s more is the fact that several studs have been struggling in a big way. Ronald Acuña Jr., Julio Rodríguez, José Ramírez, and Corbin Carroll have all scuffled this year, not allowing you to capitalize on the expected advantage they were going to provide in the first and second rounds.
This was a good exercise, though, as it’s a good reminder that it’s just May (we see you, Timberlake), and that we have a long road ahead. That’s why you’ll see some of the slow starters still ranked high, because there is more than enough of the season left to turn it around.
These rankings, as always, are looking at the rest of the season, so I’ll take into account what has happened, but I am more projecting what’s going to happen now through September. I do have some injured players in the top 300, as I’m expecting them to return soon enough — and hopefully healthy enough — to provide a good ROI.
Just a reminder that these rankings are for points leagues, but if you have a question about a player for category-based and roto leagues, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments. I’m happy to explain how their value differs — if it does — in a different format.
Another reminder — the scoring I use for points leagues is based off of CBS Sports.
Their scoring is as follows:
HITTERS
1B = 1 | 2B = 2 | 3B = 3 | HR = 4 | R = 1 | RBI = 1 | BB/HBP = 1 | SB = 2 | CS = -1 | K = -0.5
PITCHERS
W = 7 | L = -5 | QS = 3 | SV = 7 | IP = 3 | BB/HBP = -1 | H = -1 | ER = -1 | K = 0.5
Fantasy Baseball 2024: PTS League Ranks
(Top photo of Ronald Acuña Jr.: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports)
