2015 Yahoo’s Fantasy Baseball Ranklings

In past years, I’ve said the following analogy.  There’s years of looking up to your father, whether you agree all the time or not.  Then, one day, he takes a poop on your couch.  You take him to the hospital; he’s in need of some sort of psychology examination.  If the tests come back conclusive that he pooped the couch simply out of laziness, then that’s ESPN.  If tests come back that he’s gone crazy, then that’s Yahoo.  That’s inaccurate this year.  It still holds true for ESPN, but Yahoo seems like it’s taking steps to correct past mistakes.  They’ve lost The Noise from the composite rankings, and he’s always said baseball wasn’t his thing.  (What is his thing…well…)  Funston, Behrens, Del Don and Pianowski do a conscientious job with their rankings.  No, I don’t agree with all of them, I’ll get to that.  But they do take the time to actually rank, which I’m 99.9% sure can’t be said of ESPN.  Yahoo could easily phone-in their rankings like ESPN, but they don’t.  That is, indeed, a point for them.  Yahoo still seems to be in love the stolen base and guys that can be labeled as ‘hot, unproven bats.’  They don’t rank nearly deep enough and they have some of the funkiest position eligibility decisions, but these all seem to be coming from places of conscious decisions and not, “Tristan, could you rank for everyone today?  I just saw Stephen A. Smith in the elevator and he asked me to Au Bon Pain for lunch.  Thanks.”  That’s a voicemail message that Cockcroft gets every day.  Anyway, here’s where my 2015 fantasy baseball rankings differ from the 2015 Yahoo fantasy baseball rankings:

Psyche!  Before we get into the differences between Yahoo and me, I just wanted to point you towards our Fantasy Basketball side of things and the podcast that JB puts together once, twice, thrice times a week.  It’s a High-Alpha-Slamma good time!  Okay, I won’t even pretend to know basketball, but I was on yesterday’s podcast with a very big announcement.  Imagine reading ‘very big announcement’ in Howard Cosell’s voice.  To skip right to my section, fast forward to the 29th minute.  Not that I fast forwarded when I listened.  Anyway, here’s the differences between me and Yahoo:

No one seems bothered with Adam Wainwright or Yu Darvish, except for me and Pianowski.  He buries Wainwright almost as dramatically as I did in my top 400, but Yahoo’s composite rankings still have Wainwright ranked up in the 40s overall, and the same goes for Darvish.  I don’t trust either guy to stay healthy.  It’s one thing to say that, but I ranked them to back that up.  If I’m wrong on either or both, here’s what will happen.  Dot dot dot.  Nothing.  Someone else will own them.  It’s not like they’re going to get some great bargain by drafting them.  They’re still ranked high everywhere else.  Now, if I’m right, then you will have avoided disaster.  A plane has a busted wing and Denzel just downed a bottle of Popov and is ready to pilot you, do you still get on the flight or wait for the next puddle jumper?  I’m hanging back at the airport food court for a couple hours.   Who knows, maybe I’ll run into Stephen A. Smith and Karabell at Au Bon Pain.

We should all be thanking Yahoo.  Since they’re hosting more fantasy drafts than any other site, they’re also steering more people towards drafting speed in the most head-scratching ways.   I picture Funston grabbing a cup of java, when someone mistakes him for Tim Curry.  As he explains he was never in Clue, A.J. Mass, in a mascot costume, slips a greenie in his coffee.  That’s the only explanation I have for their love for steals.  Funston’s sniffing the devil’s dandruff like Ron LeFlore with his love for Ellsbury (16 overall), Rajai’s ranked like he’s a guaranteed starter, Ben Revere is ranked like he’s King Shizz from Shinola, and they have Blackmon way up there.  Perhaps that last one is overreacting to a memo from HR.

The only thing that matches their love of speed is their love of the young.  Devin Mesoraco is above Carlos Santana.  Um, okay.  Jorge Soler is above Heyward.  Springer is above just about everyone.  This reminds me of three years ago when Dee Gordon was ranked by them in the top 90 when he wasn’t even guaranteed a starting job (and never got one).  But that was, of course, their love of speed and the young coming together in the most unfortunate of ways like Jon Lovitz’s eyebrows.  No one will ever argue with them that they have a long memory either.  Disappoint Yahoo and you’re dead to them.  Last year, they couldn’t love Wil Myers anymore than his own Moms, and now Myers is ranked after Cuddyer and Rajai, to name two of 54 outfielders they have above him.  Avisail Garcia?  You’re dead to them.  Khris Davis?  Be gone!  Matter of fact, Chris Davis, you be gone too!  You know who will be gone next year?  All the guys they’re crazy about this year.  Hey, I love Springer, Soler, et al, but I’d sure like to see just a bit more before I go completely caca-cuckoo.  You, “But what about your love of Rizzo, Arenado, Dickerson, Wong, Betts, Wong, Wong, Wong and Wong and all the other guys you’re crazy about?”  Yeah, that’s true.  Oh, I know, those guys already showed major league skills in the major leagues.  Damn, I’m a real bummer.

(BTW, for those wondering if I’m going to look at CBS’s rankings, I’m not.  To throw it back to the intro analogy, CBS’s rankings are like a 3-month-old pooping on your couch.  If you use CBS’s rankings, you should’ve known better to leave non-diapered rankings where you didn’t want them to defecate.)

So, let’s cut out the jibber-jabbering, though I’m already failing on that front.  Sometimes I just can’t keep my big mouth shut.  Thankfully, since I type with my tongue.  Did you know, when I type “HA!” I’m really trying to type, “Help Angola!”  Bono would know that.  Any the hoo!  I’m going to list players in a handy chart like I did the other day with ESPN.  The Thank You’s have it.  It being good value from my rankings vs. Yahoo’s.  The No Thank You’s don’t have it.  They’re bad people.  Meh, they might be okay people, but they’re likely not ending up on any of my Yahoo drafted teams.  For this, I’ll be using my 2015 fantasy baseball rankings (go figure!) and Yahoo’s 2015 fantasy baseball rankings (crazy, right?).

THANK YOU

NO THANK YOU