Please see our player page for Jordan Lawlar to see projections for today, the next 7 days and rest of season as well as stats and gamelogs designed with the fantasy baseball player in mind.

The start of the 2023 baseball season is just weeks away, but here at Razzball it is always baseball season. To get you ready to go for the upcoming year, here is the first installment of the 2023 Dynasty Rankings.

When it comes to dynasty rankings, you have to look at a little of this, some of that, and can’t forget about the other. You want a team that can contend for years, so do you look only at age? If you do that, it may compromise your team’s performance?

When evaluating players for dynasty leagues, the formula for success thus consists of many factors. It’s a dash of gut instinct mixed in with past experience and a whole lot of what the eye sees. You know a good player when you see him. But you can’t just go with the best player on the board.

The Rules (or at least guidelines)

That said, there are some basic rules I try to follow as much as possible:

Young over old
I’m always thinking five years down the road. Justin Verlander is great to have on your team this year, but what about next year and certainly in 2024? You will need veteran players, but you don’t want a whole team of veteran players.
Hitter over Pitcher
Since the introduction of the Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, 113 hitters have been awarded the Rookie of the Year compared to 39 pitchers. In this century alone, 33 hitters have been named ROY to 13 pitchers. Young hitters perform better than young pitchers, and veteran hitters are more consistent than veteran pitchers.
Starting Pitcher over Reliever
This is pretty easy to understand why. For the most part, you know what you are going to get from starters. As a group, relievers are so up-and-down it is maddening. Need an example? Aroldis Chapman. Need another? Josh Hader.
But, what about…

Please, blog, may I have some more?

The snakes have a strong system with several waves of help on the way. They have a lot of pieces to sort through and just this week designated OF Stone Garrett for assignment, trading for Kyle Lewis in a separate move that feels connected. Third base could be a platoon between Josh Rojas and Emmanuel Rivera. Roster resource has Pavin Smith penciled in at Designated Hitter, but I imagine that spot’s earmarked for Kyle Lewis or Rivera. Smith slugged just .367 last year as a rag-ball casualty. Lewis would have to get healthy and stay that way to make the lineup, where he could be a key right-handed cog amid a lot of promising lefties. I still think they should find room for Garrett and suspect he’ll clear his own path unless someone else claims him. You just don’t see many weak-hitting teams releasing power hitters who post a 131 wRC+ in their first 27 games as a major leaguer. 

 

1. OF Corbin Carroll | 22 | MLB | 2022

A lightning-quick lefty, the 5’10” 165 lb Carroll calls Mookie Betts to mind for his surprising core strength and plus barrel control. It’s a lofty thought, but Carroll warrants the optimism, cruising through the minors despite losing a season to a major shoulder injury. His all-fields power and double-plus speed helped him to 15 extra base hits in 32 big league games. In 93 games across three levels, Carroll slashed .307/.425/.610 with 24 home runs, 31 stolen bases, 22 doubles and eight triples. I’m not sure how high is too high for redraft leagues, but I suspect his ADP will rise month-over-month from here through April.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Here’s where the introductory words would go, if I thought any of us really wanted to see some introductory words. 

1. OF Corbin Carroll | Diamondbacks | 21 | AAA | 2023 

2. SS Gunnar Henderson | Orioles | 21 | AAA | 2023

3. OF Jackson Chourio | Brewers | 18 | A+ | 2024

4. 3B Jordan Walker | Cardinals | 20 | AA | 2023 

Corbin Carroll lived alone in his own tier at the top early in the process, but the other three have such strong cases for the top spot I had to include them.

Gunnar Henderson quickly found his rhythm after a rough start at Triple–A and has been arguably the best player at the level since the break. 

If you want to rank Jackson Chourio first, don’t let me stop you. He’s slashing .333/.396/.476 with a home run and a stolen base in 10 games at High-A. He’s also posting a 10.4 percent walk rate and 16.7 percent strikeout rate, shushing the whispers around his 28 percent K-rate in Low A.

I had Jordan Walker in the tier below at one point, but you can only watch so many multi-homer games from a 20-year-old in Double-A without moving a dude up the list, even if he’s already at the summit. Is this ETA light on Jordan Walker? The Cardinals added pitching at the deadline and moved an outfielder. Lars Nootbar is playing well, but Walker would be following a long tradition of elite players joining their clubs late in the season to push for the playoffs. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

This first published restructuring is always fussy to navigate. Even waiting longer than I wanted to didn’t even clear much space via prospect graduations. 

I’ll try to stay concise in between the tiers here, but you can access a more in-depth consideration of each individual player by clicking on their names or skimming around in the 2022 Minor League Preview Index

Oh and here’s a link to Wednesday’s article, Prospect News: Dahian Santos is Coming to Town or Commencement Day, in which I discussed the graduates. 

We’ve got a new name atop the list and some fresh powder further on down the mountain.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

When mapping out this year’s Top 100, I kept getting lost in the layout. I’ve tried a few different ways to skin this cat, and I think my favorite so far was my first: Top 25 Prospects for 2020 Fantasy Baseball.

It was simple, sleek, easy to see, easy to scroll, and it was built in tiers, which feels like a realistic lens through which to view these players. You can argue that Nolan Gorman is definitively a better prospect than George Valera if you want to, or vice versa, but if you get offered one for the other in a trade, you might freeze up like me pondering the layout of this article. The differences are real, certainly, but they’re more aesthetic and subjective than anything like objective truth. It’s a difference in type or style more than a difference of quality. 

I’ll try to stay concise in between the tiers here, but you can access a more in-depth consideration of each individual player by clicking on their names or skimming around in the 2022 Minor League Preview Index

Here’s a link to the Top 25

And here’s a link to the Top 50

Drumroll please and away we go!

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Some of these guys will have to move off the position, either because they’re blocked by a star-level regular or because they lack the hyper-elite twitch, reflexes, hands and arm required to make it as a big league shortstop, but for the most part, these guys will man their middle infields for the next decade or so. Some dynasty league veterans build minor league rosters populated almost exclusively by shortstops and outfielders. Solid plan, really. Shortstop might be the game’s deepest position at the moment, and it’s only getting deeper. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Dynasty drafts come in several shapes and sizes. Some leagues break the player groups into veterans and prospects. Some leagues let you draft 34-year-old relievers right alongside 16-year-old little brothers. I don’t really have a favorite way to cut it up. I just love the game. Though I will say the Razz 30 has something special going on with a prospects-only draft and a vets-only auction that becomes, at its core, a bums-only auction. It’s about two weeks of slow-bidding Steven Brault up to $21, and it’s a treat like few others in the fantasy realm. Jose Martinez once sold for $96. Michael Pineda went for $62. Zach Davies for $36. Two of those are purchases of mine! The fun never ends! Well, except when you ask MLB owners if they’d rather make money or take all the different balls and go home.

Anywho, I’ve broken this year’s First-Year-Player Draft rankings down into tiers and included some snippets about where my head would be during those spots on the draft board.

You can find most of these guys in the 2022 Fantasy Baseball Prospects, Minor League Preview Index

If not, feel free to drop a question in the comments so we can talk some baseball, pass the time.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Like some early critics who didn’t realize Dune was Dune Part One until they’d been sitting there for a while, Arizona’s front office did not realize they were in a rebuild until they’d been molting for much of 2021. The pandemic hit this team hard. Talented international teeny boppers spent prime development days stuck in the bubble, which didn’t mean they couldn’t cause any trouble. Kristian Robinson struggled–and who didn’t my heart goes out to him–and found himself living life on the highway and wanting to ride it all night long. Baseball futures in search of desert power suffered another spice drought early in 2021 when wunderkind Corbin Carroll got his shoulder sliced in half by a Saudaukar, or separated on a swing. I can’t remember which. Spice is strong in these parts. Let’s breathe it in a little and imagine the possibilities. This is actually a very good system. Don’t mind the monster worm barreling down on us. Let’s just breathe and dream with the sand and wind for a minute. 

Please, blog, may I have some more?