Rankings are all anyone cares about in the preseason. Do you draft a third baseman before you take a shortstop? Do you want a hitter or pitcher in the 5th round? Which bullpen arm is the one to target late? Those are the type of questions that consume people in the preseason. I understand the desire to look at the world as if everything was on one continuum—it's why we all like the idea of WAR which attempts to rank all players on an even playing field regardless of position or skill—but life, and fantasy sports, is rarely that simple. Consequently, our need for simplicity often blinds us to what is truly important as we try to get a handle on how to best attack a fantasy baseball draft. This simple, straightforward piece will attempt to rectify that concern by giving you the tools you need to become the mack daddy of drafting, and no, that was not a reference to the Kris Kross song from 1992, how dare you think that? 

In Why No Top-Whatever List? I explained why you will not find one overarching rankings list in this Draft Guide. Hopefully that line of thought made sense to you. You might be left thinking, “But Ray, how do you know how to draft then?” So glad you asked.

This Guide has positional rankings for mixed leagues, AL and NL-only setups. You'll clearly be able to discern which players we think are better than others. Those rankings also have the added bonus of tiering players as well. What is tiering, and why does it matter? That's the heart of the current article. Let’s take an example from last year’s rankings to explain what we're talking about. (To be clear, this rankings table is from 2014. Look to the end of this Guide for the rankings for 2015.)

Simply put, tiering is a model used to rank players by putting like performers on the same level. This is hard for some people to grasp, since they are so locked into taking this or that specific player, but the theory works like this.

On a tier are players who are likely to produce similar fantasy value. One guy might be more about batting average, maybe another power, maybe another more about his ability to steal a bag, but in the end the fantasy outlook for all is similar. That means, in theory, that taking any player on that tier will give you a player that is likely to perform in a similar manner to any other player on that tier. In theory.

The next point to grasp is that, honestly, it really doesn't matter which player on that tier you get. Sure, you would prefer the player who is ranked higher—we all would—but what we're trying to do with the tiering model isn't targeting a specific player but instead targeting a tier. Let's look at the 2014 preseason rankings for first base to explain.

Tier 1 - All the three men in blue (Paul Goldschmidt, Prince Fielder, & Joey Votto). While we obviously would have pushed you to take Goldschmidt last year if all three players were available, the point that we were trying to drive home was that there were three elite options at first base (too bad Fielder and Votto sucked harder than Caddyshack II). In theory, any one of the three would have given you an elite first baseman, whether you took Goldschmidt 4th overall or Votto 19th.

Tier 2 - Encarnacion and Davis were all about power. Freeman didn't have the power outlook of either, but he was listed on the same tier. Why? A few reasons. First, Freeman is always in the lineup, and durability matters (looking right at you, EE). Second, Freeman's batting average outlook dwarfed that of Davis and was ahead of Encarnacion as well. Remember, tiering is about the overall fantasy production of the player. It doesn't really matter how you get there. (This is not to say you eschew what players do, where they produce, because you do have to fill categories in fantasy baseball, at least if you're in a roto setup.)

Tier 3 - This tier is a nice example of the model. Hosmer was the up-and-coming star; AGone and Pujols, the steady veterans; Craig, an average/run producing dynamo; Trumbo, all power and not much else. Different skills, yet similar outlooks leading to them all being placed on the same tier in 2014.

Hopefully, you get the main point that we're trying to lay out. Players are tiered based upon their predicted fantasy outlook. 

How do you put this theory in practice? A few tips:

(1) You have to determine which tier you're comfortable having a player from. If you're in a 10-team mixed league and there are 11 first basemen in the first three tiers, there is no incentive at all to reach on a first baseman. However, if you want to have a first baseman in the top 3 tiers and you're in a 15-team mixed league, well obviously you can't just passively wait and end up with whichever guy is left, since the players will run out before each club can roster one. 

(2) Be open to the idea of getting a non-specific player from a tier, not just one guy that you have to have. We've all done the opposite of this. We badly wanted Hosmer to be our first baseman in 2014 so we “reached” on him at the draft. Meanwhile, if we had been patient, we could have rostered Trumbo four rounds later. Remember, the players were on the same tier in the rankings, so reaching four rounds to get Hosmer hurt no one but you. Patience would have led to a similar producer much later at the draft table, and that would give us significant advantage. We're looking at the numbers players are going to put up with little attention being paid to the name of the player on the back of the jersey. This is the main hurdle people have to get over with the tiering model. We've been taught forever that we have to have Player A or Player B. I'm not telling you to forgo that line of thought, but realize that while you might prefer Player A, Players C, D, E & F might produce very similar numbers.

(3) This last point is the biggest advantage that the tiering model offers—it can be huge. It helps you to draft your team, confidently.

Let's say there are eleven top-3 tier players at first base that you would be comfortable starting.

Let's say there are eight top-3 tier players at second base that you would be comfortable starting.

Let's further posit that 10 of the 11 first basemen are gone and four of the eight second baseman are also rostered. If we trust the tiering model, we would select the first baseman with our pick, even if all four of the remaining second baseman are ranked "higher" in an overall rankings list. Why? There is only one first baseman left that we want as a starter while there are four second sackers. We don't trust first baseman #12 and lower, so let's draft the last first baseman we trust to start for our club. With our next pick we'll grab the second baseman, something that should be possible as it's less likely all four second basemen will be taken than it is the one first baseman we trust will be tabbed for a roster. Others might look funny at you if you take player #111 before #89, but in the end your team will be better for it. Don't worry about what others think. I never did, or I wouldn't have waited until I was 13 years old to comb my hair or wear deodorant (true story, which might explain why I didn't have a date to any school dance until 8th grade).

Give the tiering model a try. It's simple and straightforward, and it should really help you to construct a winning roster once you get out of the first couple of rounds of a draft.