The 2019 regular season is nearly upon us, and it's time for us -- on pain of termination -- to rank the top 100 players in baseball.
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For this first installment of the season, the rankings are based upon reasonable expectations, using things like age and recent performance history to arrive at those expectations. In essence, we're making educated guesses at which players would provide the most value in 2019. While a player's performance in 2018 is very relevant to these rankings, it's not the sole consideration. Again, these are in essence predictions of which players will be the very best in the season to come.
As for what matters, with position players it's a mix of batting, defense and baserunning. On offense, we're not concerned with things like RBI. Getting on base and hitting for power matter above all, as do playing time, context of the player's home ballpark, and production relative to positional peers (e.g., the offensive bar is lower for shortstops and catchers than it is for first basemen and DHs). For pitchers, run prevention and workload will be the drivers, but we'll also give some consideration to underlying fundamental indicators like strikeouts and walks. Also, we're ranking players based on actual baseball considerations as opposed to anything having anything to do with fantasy (although there's obviously some overlap).
Above all, remember that this is Internet Street, and only righteous grievances live here …
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Mike Meredith/CBS Sports
Outraged by that upon which you have just lain jaundiced eyes? As always, reach to the author at his personal email address -- hotmail@hotmail.jpg -- with all your complaints.
