T - 6 days for the opening Yahoo fantasy baseball!

and things are lookin pretty good so far:

good news on the prospect front, going to mention this to the start up dynasty league

Best site for quick ranking for a keeper league? In a hardcore league but mostly in it just to stay in touch, just don't want to be blindly donating this year.
Thanks!

updated yahoo o-ranks are spectacularly terrible. braun harper and davis all being in the top 10 are laughably bad, hanley and tulo being 16 and 17 somehow worse

Some of the ranks are obviously lol, but how are Davis and Braun being in the top 10 bad?
Theyre both first rounders for me. Braun Id take as soon as #5.
Harper does seem pretty high though.

Are you saying you think Hanley/Tulo should be top 10?

YAY MORE PRO LEAGUES!
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo....oinleague/pro#
Yahoo now offers buy ins of $20/50/100/250

too bad I cant see any links that lead to the settings. How many teams? what stats are used? payout structure? etc

What are the league settings?

Pro Leagues are played in Head-to-Head or Rotisserie format and are available in standard (snake) and auction drafts. All Pro Leagues will be composed of 12 teams and will use default scoring settings, with the exception that all protested trades will be reviewed by Yahoo Sports staff instead of league votes.

Payouts are 50/30/~12 with the remainder as vig. Unlimited teams which is kinda scary. Going to be very tempting to do a ridiculous amount of teams.

in davis's last 65 games he hit 16 homers, 45 rbi, scored 33 runs and hit .245. it's not like anyone actually expected his first half to be the rule and not the exception but the disparity between his first half and second half is pretty staggering. is he still good? yes. is he still worth a high round pick? yes. would i take him in the first round? **** no. as for braun, i have no interest in overpaying for someone who just finished a 50 game roids suspension unless it's a low risk pick. same reason whoever drafts nelson cruz will almost certainly be overpaying for him

if you can get hanley ramirez at 10 that is just a flat out steal. not only do i think he's a top 10 player i think he's probably #5 with an argument to be made for #3 because of positional scarcity

My only issue with the Yahoo pro leagues is how damn shallow they are. Just 10 hitters - C 1B 2B SS 3B OF OF OF UT UT, versus the "standard" 13-14.

Is getting paid from these Yahoo Pro Leagues a hassle?

He was terrible in July and September but slashed .287/.395/.660 (19,9,23) in August and obviously destroyed the first 3 months.

With his approach he's going to go through Bondsonian streaks and streaks of 0 for 20 with 15 Ks. At the end of the day he will produce a minimum of 90/45/110 with probably a .270/.350/.600 slash. That's first round material for me imo. Especially with power becoming a premium now a days. Also there's a small chance he could actually improve as well, he's only 27.

No, at least not for football. If you pay with with Paypal initially, then they send your winnings directly to your Paypal account a couple weeks after the season ends. Pretty simple and hassle free.

and this is a reason to NOT draft him?
wat
you realize that pace is good for 40 HR, 112 RBI, 82 runs, right? yet you're basically saying thats him at his worst!
there are maybe 3 players in all MLB you can pencil in for 40 HR/100+RBI.
Im not saying hes a like a top 5 lock, but putting him in the 1st round is 100% defensible.

Are you seriously comparing Braun to Nelson ****ing Cruz. LOL.
there goes any credibility the rest of your argument mightve had, but ill point out the obvious flaw in reasoning anyway.
Braun was a consensus top 3 for the past few seasons. His skills are elite. Have you looked at the 6 consecutive seasons he put up from 2007-2012?
He has averaged 30/20 100/100 with an OBP over .370

The only issue is how much the juice affected his ability to stay on the field. Ill take that gamble any day for a player who legitimately has #1 overall upside.

I guess you must be one of the guys who jumped off the David Ortiz bandwagon as well, only to see him post monster season upon monster season AFTER his positive test.

Wait. Youre worried about Braun, but you thin Hanley at 10 is a "steal"?
I dont understand this at all.
His numbers have been worse than Brauns across the board, even his SB totals. and hes is a much higher injury risk.

And imo, using positional scarcity to justify a 1st round pick is doing it completely wrong. Positional scarcity is mostly a myth anyway, and is really only useful for super deep leagues where replacement level is godawful.
In 12 teamers, I dont buy into it at all, other than as a tie breaker in cases where I have 2 players projected for equal production and both are on the board at my pick.

SRM - I totally get the arguments against Davis and Braun in the first round. Just curious of the 12 you'd take over them (if we're talking 15-team league I'm even more skeptical).

There are pretty obvious risks with a lot of these guys like Cano, Tulo and Cargo and others. I wouldn't be thrilled about it but I can defend Davis anywhere from about 10 down.

Just to be clear, im not even necessarily saying Hanley shouldnt be a first rounder... Im saying that IF he is, then so are both Braun and Davis.

If I was at 10 I'd consider an elite pitcher over Hanley...maybe I'm a fish but I don't trust him as he's burned me in the past as a first round pick.

Braun's a tough call, I hate the guy but if he gets to the mid-late 2nd round it would be very tempting as he's one that often gets the haters riled up and would really do so by playing well.

Also, yahoo's android apps are great. Hope they keep improving!

chris davis at his worst would be 2009-2011. but that's neither here nor there, he's a player who had an amazing first half of the season at a loaded position. his power is a plus, and yes, power is at a relative premium but if you're going to draft him where he is projected at expecting him to finish the season as the (at worst) 2nd best 1b in baseball, i think that's flat out wrong and more or less a waste compared to what you can get later in the draft. i mean i'd take fielder over him without a moment's hesitation. last year 8 qualified 1b got 100 rbi. craig woulda been 9 if not for injury and napoli would have been 10 if not for random platoonery. of those 10 players, barring injury napoli is the only one i would say is a dog to get to 100. then there's votto who can get there, rizzo, even hosmer in theory

ryan braun has been busted for steroids twice, this will be (in all probability) his first clean season of his career

ryan braun has been busted for steroids twice, this will be (in all probability) his first clean season of his career

citing a flawed doping list from 2003 that included players who took legal suppliments =/= "positive test"

hanley is hitting in the middle of arguably the best lineup in the nl and his numbers through 150 games as a dodger would suggest that he is a safer pick than ryan braun who has been busted for steroids twice, this will be (in all probability) his first clean season of his career

i don't necessarily disagree with your premise. after all segura was good last year, desmond had solid output and guys like lowrie and peralta were capable of holding it down (in the latter's case until his season ended)

that said, the highest ranked qualified SS in standard 5x5 formats in yahoo? segura at 50. the number of qualified SS who drove in 100 runs? 0. the number of qualified ss who hit > 25 homers? 0. the number of qualified SS who scored 90 runs? 1

hanley's 162 game pace last year would not only make him justifiably ahead of braun, it would make him justifiably the #1 player in fantasy period. this isn't a flash in the pan player, this is a guy who up until he basically phoned it in with the marlins was year in and year out among the most valuable players in fantasy. is there injury risk with him? absolutely. same as there is with braun who spent plenty of the season on the DL before he was suspended for the season for testing positive for roids for the 2nd time

gun to my head this is my top 12:

1. trout
2. cabrera
3. kershaw
4. hanley
5. goldschmidt
6. cargo
7. darvish
8. mccutchen (FMP for omission)
9. jones
10. fielder
11. cano
12. harper

of those 12 harper's the one i'm least confident about. ldo has more than enough upside to finish there or much better but i never like taking players with no track record of dominance on upside alone that early if i can avoid it

I would take Fielder > Davis, but I see Fielder hovering around 25-30 as opposed to 6-10. Davis could be Jose Bautista 2.0 and if that means he continues to crush he'll be top 10 again.

And your list is missing mccutchen

whoops. knew i was forgetting something

edit: i realize that my argument that shortstops for the most part sucked kinda contradicts itself when hanley and tulo both played as many games as they did and still the overall numbers for the SS position were what they were, but my point is the position is deep in average to good players, but there's only 2 people with the ability to be truly great producers, unlike basically every other position

edit2: and my overall point is drafting always comes down to you picking players for what you reasonably expect they will be, not what they've done. after all that's the only reason a guy like harper can actually be expected to go in the 1st round. if all things remained constant and braun were simply injured for the year instead of getting popped for roids i woulda taken him 3rd overall without a moment's hesitation. but it played out as it played out and there are enough cautionary tales to be very concerned trusting braun. melky went from a .390 OBP with the giants to a .322 OBP with the jays. and the giants were a ****ty offense at the time of his suspension compared to what the jays had last year. and before you say "how can u compare melky to braun" well, how can you compared braun to braun? how do you automatically assume any of the numbers he got came without PEDs and how do you automatically assume he can replicate, or come close to them without them?

It's such a damn shame that Tulo can't stay healthy, when he plays he's easily top 10 and borderline top 5

This would be a great year to finally get a 1st overall pick, makes it a no brainer and I might be able to pick up Jose Fernandez at 24

I was just about to point out a flaw your list when I saw your edit.
If you're dropping Tulo out of the 1st due to injury concerns, no way you can take Hanley top 5.
Tulo has been consistently better almost across the board. and at this point I dont think Hanley's sb attempts will be enough to push him past Tulo.

I understand the skepticsm with Davis, but people had the same exact doubts about Cargo after his breakout year, Bautista after his 54 HR run 'fluke', Trout after his incredible rookie season, Carlos Gomez + Paul Goldschmidt going into last season - the list of breakouts who remained at that level is pretty long and thats just off the top of my head.

tulo's injury concerns are a lot more legitimate than hanley's seeing as how he's managed to play 150 games once since 2008. tulo's always pulling/tearing muscles whereas hanley got hurt on a stupid dive in the WBC but otherwise has consistently played a majority of the season every year of his career. now granted, when healthy there aren't a whole lot of people i'd rather have than tulo and it's possible i'm too low on him and his true value is right behind darvish or something, but even if i know both players will play all 162 games i'm taking hanley no contest. tulo's value over hanley in a real world setting comes entirely from his defense and for the most part even that isn't good enough to make up for the offensive difference between the 2. besides 2011, tulo has never had a season where he was a superior offensive player in a fantasy or sabermetric format nor would he have been a superior player if he had played the full season and achieved the numbers he was on pace to achieve. and on top of that, hanley is better now than he's been at any point in his career. dude managed a 5.1 WAR in 86 games playing mediocre defense and based on his body of work in miami facing stiffer competition in division with a ****ty lineup there's nothing aberrational about what he did playing in the middle of an utterly stacked lineup

AND on top of all that this is his contract year. in fact, the more i write all this the more i think hanley is #3 ahead of kershaw and legitimately closer to #1 than he is to #4

as far as davis goes, don't get me wrong, i think he will be a very good player and a good statistical option at 1b. i just think the expectations of what he will do are badly influenced by a hyperelite home run binge that very few in history have managed to accomplish and for him to be worth where he's picked given how loaded 1b is he would basically have to replicate what he did last year which i'd say there's just about no shot of. especially considering he would also need to maintain that .330 avg or whatever it was during that pace which is far more improbable than the homers. say for instance davis got to 160 games in 2012 and his numbers were exactly what they were on pace for after 139 games: 86 runs, 38 homers, 98 rbi, .270 avg. are those good numbers? absolutely. are those numbers worth drafting a guy 7th that year? no way

This list is insane for a standard league. Kersh & Darvish would have to return Pedro-esque numbers to get fair value from the slot you have them in. Pitching is as deep as its ever been, you can't justify those two going in those slots when you could get similar (maybe even better) numbers from others say, Max or Jose.

Hanley at 4 is a high risk high reward play. Typically with a high first round pick you want a safe player who you can count on for certain numbers. Goldy & McCutchen are the obvious choices if you are going that route. Can Hanley beat them out this year? Sure, but I'm not betting the 4th overall pick on it.

not sure i know what the risk is with hanley much less calling him a high risk

I generally agree taking pitching early is insane given what there is in terms of pitchers. that said, darvish is the only pitcher in baseball capable of getting 300 ks (at least til chapman finally starts) and kershaw is basically Pedro-esque with fewer k's