Readers of Razzball, it is very likely, no it is certain, that all of you see sir Grey’s rankings as law. I know when I was a young Razzballer I looked at Grey the same way he looks at Giancarlo. Are his rankings undeniably the best out there? YES! I’m personally growing a mustache because of him and his writing is absolute. Now I’m sure you’re thinking, “Where is this random dude we’ve never seen on Razzball Baseball going with this?”. Let me introduce myself. A few of you may know me as I wrote weekly articles for Razzball Football this past season under the tutelage of Mr. Tehol Beddict himself. I am the Razzball squire and demand respect! I hail from Montreal, Canada and I love me some maple syrup covered bacon for breakfast while listening to Celine Dion and touching up my igloo. Now, back to where this post started. Why did I bring Grey and his rankings up? Well, I will be performing the unenviable task of nit picking at Grey’s preseason rankings, from top to bottom. I will highlight players I believe are overvalued, overrated, etc., (the opposite goal of our Under the Greydar series.) Bonkers, I know! As Grey’s word is law, many Razzballer’s will be cussing me out and I CANNOT WAIT FOR IT. You are welcome to berate me in the comments below; I accept all challengers. Grey is about to wrap up his rankings, so we’ll start from the top and make our way down. We have just under two months before the season begins and encourage you to give the Anti-Grey a chance. I will make sure to provide relevant data and research, not just gut feel, for all you concerned. Usually I will open up with a fun story that caught my attention that week, but today you were blessed to learn about the Razzball squire and all of his preseasonal offerings. When the season begins, I will shift the focus of my posts, as I will have spent more than enough time blasting and fawning over Mr. Albright. Note: Grey doesn’t know who I am yet but he knows that some new mystery writer is foaming at the mouth to get in on the action. Today I will dissect a couple of his top-20 players…
I HATE Starling Marte at 12. He is overvalued. My anger with Marte being taken this high is everlasting.This does not mean I wouldn’t draft Marte at all, I would MAYBE consider him in the 25-30 range. He had a 4.555 K/BB rate, which is vomit worthy and allows for a smaller margin of error. For someone known as a decent hitter, he had a surprisingly high amount of soft contact at 21.3% last season. He was a career high HR/FB rate at 18.6% last season and still only managed 19 Homers in 633 plate appearances. His babip is absurdly high; even though he is a career high babip hitter, one unlucky month, a bit of poor contact or a hitting slump and his average slumps to .250. He had a very high groundball rate last season which is consistent with his career norms of being a groundball hitter. In the first round of your draft, even in the 2nd round, you want someone you know will be consistently good and provide a solid base to build your team around. I wouldn’t consider Marte at the turn, and you shouldn’t either. Steals are easy to fill from the OF position later down the line and if you are not grabbing an SS or 2b early on, you’ll likely be able to grab your steals and runs after pick 150. I believe in his speed and ability to score runs hitting 2nd in the Pirates lineup, but I don’t believe in him as your 1st round pick pick in 12-15 team leagues as a cornerstone of a championship team. Give me any of the big bats you can get in the first 2 rounds ahead of him. 2016 Projections: 92/16/68/.264/32.
Grey’s ranking of Anthony Rizzo makes me giddy. This right here is young love. The past 2-3 years I have been preaching to my friends and fellow league members to go big power early and often. This indirectly has me lower on guys like Marte because I’ve been big on Jose Abreu, Edwin Encarnacion, Kris Bryant, Miggy and Jose Bautista. Rizzo has improved his consistency each year since being called up and has immense power to boot. Wrigley is a boon to his value as well as having a stacked lineup in front and behind him to rack up the counting stats. The dude added 10-15 steal value to his game. He rivals Goldy with his makeup but hits for a lower average yet continues to lower his K rate coming out of the minors. He also had a .289 babip last season, could easily rise 15-20 points and BAM! Goldschmidt 2.0. His HR/FB was only 14.6%, could have been easily upwards of 18% and BAM! you have a 40 HR monster that steals 10-12 bags a year. Who did that last season? Here’s a hint: Starts with TR and ends in out. Have you figured it out yet? Ok another hint: A type of fish. YOU GOT IT! Congratulations. Here’s a virtual high five. I lurve this guy. I’d take Trout and Goldy ahead of him and would mentally wrestle Rizzo and Harper all greased up in a pig pen for the 3rd overall selection. Oops. 2016 Projections: 106/37/118/.282/11.
To end I just want to let everyone know that I strongly disagree with Giancarlo Stanton at 6. I never want to take an injury prone player in the first round. GIVE ME THAT EARLY ROUND CONSISTENCY. I could never see myself taking him before pick 10 for this reason alone. When you are projecting players, injuries have to be considered; other wise people would have been picking Tulowitzki top 5 every year for the past 5 years. He’s had knee problems that bother me as well. Pitcher’s avoiding to throw strikes to him has to play a role as he has been hit a hella lot and they have resulted in serious injuries to him on multiple occasions. They aren’t fluke if they happen frequently. If he plays a full season, which I project around 120 games, I would take him 5th after Rizzo/Harper, otherwise I want him at the turn in a 12 man draft. This means me and Grey could never be best friends. 2016 120 Game Projections: 66/34/78/.270/4. 2016 Full season Projections: 88/46/104/.270/6.
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