Week 2 Real Rankings

NOTES

NOTES

This week provides a perfect example of why Real Rankings are helpful – EVERY team ended the week with 4-6 wins. I have never seen that before! Too bad for teams like Cowhide and Tomahawk, who both ended in the top 4 but played eachother to a 5-5 tie.  

So far, there are no dominate teams emerging. As you can see by the H and P columns, most teams are either good one one side and bad on the other, or their in the middle on both. The most even at the moment are my Revenge (4^th hitting, 2^nd pitching).

It always strikes me this time of year how much time gets invested in the offseason trades, keeper considerations, but it means nothing once the games start. So much is dependent on playing time and more and more teams are willing to straight platoon players, making them difficult to keep on a roster. With that playing time, we also start to see players emerge who we never really considered like playing time beneficiaries (Kolten Wong, Dan Volgelbach), the suddenly healthy players (Dansby Swanson,  MadBum,), reclamation projects (Domingo Santana, Jayson Heyward, Michael Shoemaker), guys taking the next step (Cody Bellinger, Jose Berrios, Rhys Hoskins, Ronald Acuna, Blake Snell, Luis Castillo, Tyler Glasnow), and the last round flyers (Trey Mancini, Maikel Franco, Joc Pederson, Christian Walker, Brad Keller).

But perhaps none are more exciting than seeing rookies emerge and become the next generation of keepers.  It’s early, but this year MLB teams have allowed us to see several from the start. No one is doing it better than Austin Meadows and Peter Alonso, selected in the 13^th and 14^th round, and each appear in the top 25 below.  But we’re also seeing significant contributions from Chris Paddack, Victor Robles, Brandon Lowe, and Fernando Tatis Jr. Guys like Eloy Jimenez, Alex Verdugo, Clint Frazier, Garret Hampson, Kyle Wright has been a little slow to start while Vlad Jr, Nick Senzel, Jesus Lazardo, and Kyle Tucker bide their time.

The top 25 list is a regular addition to these notes. It’s always interesting to see early season results as only half of the list is keepers. The rest are midround guys and a few former high pedigree guys-turned-scrubs-turned-awesome again who were free agents (Alex Gordon, Wong, Heyward, Swanson). Will any of these guys actually re-emerge?

  

The pickups made in the first few weeks of the season are typically the most important.  Last year, guys like Zach Wheeler, Miguel Adjuhar, Blake Treinen, Nick Pivetta, Jed Lowrie, Stephen Piscotty, Reynaldo Lopez, Tim Anderson, Tyler Skaggs, and Kyle Gibson were all picked up as FAs before April 15 and contributed significantly over the course of the season.

Many will fall off, but the key is determining who is suffering and benefiting from luck. Determining that may determine your fate…

Also, keep in mind, we have 60 transactions for the season. Some people have blown through 25% in the first two weeks. It does slow down eventually, but something to keep in mind.