Yahoo’s 2016 Fantasy Baseball Rankings Ranklings

I have no idea if anyone at ESPN actually ranks people.  There’s talk of it.  Like, “Yo, Clara Bell, you do your rankings yet?”  Then Cockcroft makes farting noises with his armpit.  However, all I ever see is consensus rankings.  I have to figure out how to do this “consensus” thing.  Talk about a nice way to avoid taking any blame for anything.  “Hey, man, sorry about Andrew McCutchen being ranked so high this year, but these are ‘consensus’ rankings.”  Let’s turn to a conversation between two random fantasy baseballers.  “Cockcroft has said he doesn’t like Cano this year.”  “But ESPN has him 36th overall.”  “Yeah, doesn’t apply when talking about Cockcroft.”  “So, when does it apply?”  “No idea.” Then heads explode.  Consensus rankings are done by committee.  Only thing ever done better by committee is jerk seasoning.  Now, while you might think ESPN’s rankings have a ton of jerk seasoning, they are just an indecipherable mess.  But why bring up all of this when I’m about to take a blowtorch to Yahoo’s 2016 fantasy baseball rankings?  Thanks for asking, clunky expositional question!  Yahoo has consensus rankings, but they also show their work.  Each ‘pert is accounted for in their rankings.  This is already much better than ESPN.  You can at least see what Pianowski, Funston, Behrens and Triple D are thinking individually.  This, of course, doesn’t mean I agree with all of their rankings, but at least I can point to how they came to their consensus.  Anyway, here’s where my 2016 fantasy baseball rankings differ from the 2016 Yahoo fantasy baseball rankings:

No one seems hesitant on Schwarber, except me and Pianowski.  We’re like peas and carrots.  Or pees and poops.  Funston, Behrens and Triple D have him 43, 38 and 37 respectively.  Or, to put that disrespectfully, y’all crazy!  Then like two high school lovers that run into each other in traffic court in their thirties, Pianowski and I have nothing in common when it comes to our first baseman ranks.  He has Pujols ranked 102nd overall and behind Lucroy, Kendrys and Big Papi.  Sure, Lucroy’s concussion in September of 2015 should be fine.  I mean, have we ever had a catcher suffer from a concussion for longer than a few weeks?  *inserts squiggly-eyed emoji with birds flying over its head, puts Mauer jersey on said emoji*

Moving onto 2nd basemen throws a confusion cloak over this befuddlement.  Cano is the third ranked 2nd baseman for Funston and Triple-D while Behrens and Pianowski rank him 7th and 5th, respectively.  So, in the composite rankings, Cano is ranked third for 2nd basemen.  Oh.  Wait.  Huh?  Is Funston worth three Pianowskis and Triple-D is two Behrenses (Behrenii?)?  What’s the math here?  A guy ranked third for two people and 5th and 7th for two other people doesn’t seem like he’d come out with a composite ranking of third.  Matt Carpenter clears things up.  He has a composite ranking of fifth for 2nd basemen with Pianowski, Behrens and D3 ranking him 3rd, 3rd and 4th.  Only Funston has him as the 5th best 2nd baseman.  Not only does Funston have the juice, but he also has the little straw to puncture the juice box.  “Hey, Piano, would you like a Capri Sun?”  “Certainly.”  Then Funston sucks a little bit of juice into his straw and carefully places his finger over the end of the straw so it holds the juice in place.  Then he carefully holds the straw with juice over Pianowski’s mouth.  C’mon, Funston, your people are thirsty!

Yahoo’s love for Revere is only rivaled by Minutemen and people from Saugus that want to relocate.  Ben Revere is ranked 89th overall and 31st for outfielders.  Mean’s while, his twin, Denard Span is ranked 63rd for outfielders and 231st overall.  Which one is the guy platooning?  That would be Revere.  DeShields gets no love again from a Big Box fantasy site.  Revere’s homers last year?  Two.  His steals?  31.  In 592 ABs.  DeShields had two homers and 25 steals in only 425 ABs.  DeShields is also four years younger than Revere.  DeShields wasn’t even ranked by Funston and Triple D, and is 259th overall in their composite rankings.  That’s the DeShields who is the everyday leadoff hitter in Texas.  Anyone want to bet Revere is more valuable than DeShields this year?  Seriously, would anyone take that bet.  To throw apples at oranges, they have DeShields ranked after Eugenio Suarez, Anthony DeSclafani, Carlos Beltran and Marco Estrada.  Do me a favor, draft DeSclafani and offer to trade him for DeShields, because I’d love to hear how the other owner reacts to that.  He’s gonna say you are out of DeMind.

(For those wondering if I’m going to look at CBS’s rankings, I’m not.  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.)

I’m going to list players in a handy chart like I did the other day with ESPN’s rankings.  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 2016 fantasy baseball rankings (go figure!) and Yahoo’s 2016 fantasy baseball rankings (crazy, right?).

THANK YOU

NO THANK YOU