Boy, those Seattle Mariners were out of their minds for promising Robinson Cano $24 million as a 40-year-old in 2023. What were they thinking?

It's that quick, gut-check reaction so many of us have upon news of a long-term free-agent agreement or contract extension: We leap to analyze the end of such a deal, often at the expense of appreciating its value in the earlier stages. But if Cano proves a player worth $24 million or more in the first five seasons of the deal -- be aware that FanGraphs valued each of his past two campaigns at $30-plus million -- doesn't that alleviate some of the potential investment lost during the latter five seasons?

Regardless of the answer -- and, for the record, I'm in agreement with those who question the back end of the deal -- many of us love that long-range approach to baseball analysis, and it's the reason many of us play in dynasty or keeper leagues. We are tasked with the fantasy equivalent of structuring a smarter Cano deal -- or stealing a page from the New York Yankees and letting him go -- deciding whether his value to us spans one year, 10 years or somewhere in between.

We're the ones who, seeing an opportunity to contend, invest (a theoretical) $267.8 million in free agents in an attempt to "go for it," a la the 2014 Mariners.

We're the ones who, despite deciding a Cano is cost-prohibitive, pour an even larger sum, $491 million, into retooling our rosters for one more shot at championship glory, a la the 2014 Yankees.

Or, on the flip side, we're the ones who focus our efforts entirely upon a future dynasty, a la the 2014 Houston Astros, who placed a whopping seven prospects in Keith Law's top 100 prospects this preseason. That Astros team might be the one in either the Mariners' or Yankees' shoes two or three years from now.

Every one of these strategies is a legitimate one in a keeper league, and, in any given year, you might find yourself in any of these positions. Oh, you might prefer to be in either of the first two situations, but this column leans more towards the Astros' tack, though it does effectively put all three into the proverbial blender.

These are my semiannual Keeper Top 250 rankings, a "price guide" of sorts for dynasty or keeper leagues, be they already existing or just starting from scratch today. They're an effective fantasy equivalent of an "Astros cheat sheet" but with a twist: They do account for player value even for those owners in the Mariners' or Yankees' boat. Hey, we can't ignore all the old players' contributions yet to come.

You know the drill: One cannot possibly craft a one-size-fits-all set of keeper rankings, just as one cannot expect everyone to be able to squeeze into the cheap, adjustable, one-size-fits-all hats given out on cap day. (On an aside, as I figure you're struggling after 17 years of collecting fitted-hat sizes, George Costanza, I wear size 7⅞.) The reason is that few keeper leagues are identical in structure. Let's consider the variables, beyond the obvious roster size and scoring system:

• Player pricing: Do you draft players or purchase them via auction? Do you keep them by round of selection, for the auction price paid or are prices irrelevant?

• Number of keepers: Can you keep one, five, 10 or perhaps your entire roster? Must all teams retain the same number of players?

• Contract length: Is there a limitation on number of seasons you can keep a player? Is there annual price inflation?

• Farm teams: Does your league use them? Do the players on those teams automatically carry over season to season, or are they kept for a price?

• Team competitiveness: Are you a contending team, a rebuilding team or are you somewhere in between?

Your task is to assess each of these valuation factors, then adjust, if necessary, these keeper rankings for your team's specific needs. For example, a $10 Manny Machado might be a no-brainer keeper over a $38 Evan Longoria in your AL-only keeper league despite the fact that Longoria ranks three spots higher in the list below (and more than 75 spots higher in my just-for-2014 rankings), especially if the league allows these players to be retained at $5 annual inflation; Machado could then be rostered for prices of $10 in 2014, $15 in 2015, $20 in 2016, $25 in 2017 and $30 in 2018, with reasonably good odds of turning a profit in all five of those seasons.

This is the player valuation formula used:

• 2014 performance: 20 percent

• 2015 performance: 20 percent

• 2016 performance: 20 percent

• 2017 performance: 20 percent

• 2018 performance and beyond: 20 percent

The rationale for weighting 2014 equally to 2018 and beyond is simple: We already provide rankings, projections and profiles for hundreds of players that were designed to aid your title quest this season. While 2014 might warrant a greater weight in a keeper league drafting fresh -- a sooner-than-later strategy is generally smarter when you have more access to proven players -- this page was designed to serve fantasy owners projecting players over the long haul. If your goal is to win this season, our redraft tools are excellent for your needs.

Tristan's Keeper Top 250

The full list of my rankings can be seen in the inset table to the right, but the entire list in its previous format -- including eligible positions and past rankings -- as well as rankings broken down by positions can be seen on their own pages:

Tristan's Keeper Top 250

Keeper Top 250, broken down by position

Now, let's examine some of the more intriguing stories within the ranks.

Tristan H. Cockcroft's Keeper Top 250

Rankings are based upon a standard, mixed Rotisserie league with 5x5 scoring. Players' listed ages are as of April 1, 2014.

Individual player examinations

Bryce Harper: With the exception of Mike Trout, who is one year, two months and nine days older, Harper makes a compelling case to be the No. 2 pick off any keeper-league draft board, if only because of what he might become and how soon he might become it. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 amateur draft, Keith Law's No. 2 prospect behind only Trout entering both 2011 and 2012, an 80-grade power prospect by most any scout's estimation and, at times, was hailed one of the greatest prospects in draft history. Harper has already shown us this potential at this level: He had .276/.351/.503 triple-slash rates and a .364 weighted on-base average (wOBA) in his first 174 big league games -- those played at the ages of 19 and 20 -- before injuring his knee crashing into a wall last May 13. Health is effectively the one obstacle standing in his path to a real-game MVP award or fantasy-game No. 1 spot on our Player Rater sometime during the next half decade. Here's a quick look at how his immediate future might play out, in terms of projections:

2014 (age 21): .288 AVG, 28 HR, 90 RBI, 16 SB

2015 (age 22): .297 AVG, 33 HR, 102 RBI, 15 SB

2016 (age 23): .302 AVG, 38 HR, 115 RBI, 11 SB

Clayton Kershaw: You read those rankings right: I have a pitcher not only in my top 10 but at No. 6 overall. He's the first pitcher to crack my top 10 since Felix Hernandez scored a No. 9 ranking in my 2012 preseason list and No. 8 in my 2011 midseason list, but as a 26-year-old who in 2013 became only the third player in history to lead the major leagues in ERA in three consecutive seasons, Kershaw makes a lot of sense as a keeper despite conventional wisdom dictating hitters are safer long-term investments. He has a four-year history of sheer dominance, has had his workloads painstakingly maintained and is in the prime of his career.

Giancarlo Stanton: The first "bold call" on the list, Stanton admittedly earned his high rank thanks to potential -- not results -- as well as the stage of his career. The risks warrant first mention: He has missed 101 of 590 Miami Marlins games in his career, 94 of those due to injury and seven due to rest, and wasn't in the starting lineup for 18 others; his is an injury history that is absolutely disconcerting considering his young age. Still, Stanton's power potential is as promising as anyone's in professional baseball, and as a man with his experience -- not to mention his per-162-games career average of 39 home runs -- he'd be one of the top candidates to lead the majors in homers these next five seasons (2014-18), with a probable 200-plus over that time. So here's the question: How quickly will the Marlins become competitive? If it's 2016 and Stanton hits 40-plus homers, the result might be MVP-caliber numbers.

Eric Hosmer: That "10" next to his name is not a typo. Hosmer is an at-or-near-70-grade player in terms of hitting for both power and average, and he's also a 24-year-old with enough smarts on the basepaths to chip in a handful of stolen bases annually, something typically unexpected from a first baseman. Critics of this generous rank have the memory of his disappointing 2012 too fresh in their minds; Hosmer's adjustments during the final four months of 2013, however, should assuage their doubts. He became particularly adept at using the entire field -- he was the ninth most-likely left-handed hitter to go the opposite way from July 1 forward -- and covering the outer third of the plate and he got slightly greater lift on the ball, all signs that he was growing as a hitter. I think his time has arrived, and if we project forward:

2014 (age 24): .294 AVG, 21 HR, 87 RBI, 13 SB

2015 (age 25): .301 AVG, 23 HR, 95 RBI, 12 SB

2016 (age 26): .307 AVG, 25 HR, 99 RBI, 11 SB

2017 (age 27): .312 AVG, 30 HR, 108 RBI, 11 SB

2018 (age 28): .315 AVG, 32 HR, 115 RBI, 9 SB

Adrian Beltre: The oldest member of my top 40 keepers, Beltre is also one of the most consistent of that bunch, even if his reputation doesn't seamlessly match. Let's face facts: He is not only the lone third baseman to have managed at least a .290 batting average, 25 home runs, 90 RBIs and 80 runs scored in each of the past four seasons, but he's one of only three players at any position to have reached those plateaus (Miguel Cabrera and Cano are the others). Beltre also combines with Cabrera as the only two players to have averaged at least .300/30/100 annual numbers the past four seasons. Though baseball's history is littered with players with comparable career numbers to Beltre's through their age-34 season -- Ron Santo and Al Kaline are the top two on Baseball-Reference.com -- most of them had already shown hints of career decline by then, whereas Beltre has not, instead seemingly getting better since turning 30. These next 2-3 seasons alone are well worth your patience.

Pedro Alvarez: What's most curious about Alvarez's ranking is that he places ahead of Longoria and Josh Donaldson despite both clearly earning a loftier rank for 2014 alone. It's a play for power; Alvarez hit a career-high 36 home runs in 2013, has markedly improved his approach against breaking balls and is one of the few players in baseball with legitimate 50-homer potential in these next four seasons. In fact, his odds of leading the majors in homers these next four seasons combined are probably better than Stanton's, the reason for Alvarez's lower rank being his considerable batting-average risk. Still, there's an outstanding chance that Alvarez will hit at least 40 homers in two of the next four seasons, and that alone drives up his keeper rank.

Yasiel Puig: His rank will surely generate the most chatter of anyone's because Puig's supporters can and will argue that he's a legitimate top-10 pick in keeper leagues drafting fresh in 2014. His raw tools support his candidacy; it's the volatility of his skill set that troubles me, resulting in the more conservative rank. For one, I'm not so sure that Puig is the 24-steal performer he was between the majors and minors last season, not when he was successful on only 65 percent of his attempts. For another, he proved so much more of a free swinger than his final 2013 big league numbers credited him, and he missed quite often when he did swing, traits that could make him annually unpredictable going forward in the batting-average category. Puig is the type of player I could see earning the No. 1 place on our Player Rater in one of the next four seasons, but, unlike many of the players around him, he's also a player I could see finishing as low as 250th on our Player Rater (and not necessarily the result of injury, at that) during that same time span. A 2014-17 like this wouldn't shock me:

2014 (age 23): .282 AVG, 23 HR, 73 RBI, 16 SB

2015 (age 24): .269 AVG, 14 HR, 58 RBI, 10 SB

2016 (age 25): .295 AVG, 32 HR, 96 RBI, 14 SB

2017 (age 26): .288 AVG, 26 HR, 90 RBI, 9 SB

Feel free to invest in the 2016 stat line times four if you believe; I'm willing to accept the possibility that that's Puig's true value, but I'd be amiss if I didn't advise caution.

Manny Machado: I've said it several times this preseason already, and I'll reiterate it here: A keeper league this spring probably represents your final time to acquire him cheap. By cheap, I mean a price tag outside the top 50 players in fantasy baseball. Before succumbing to knee surgery -- one with a rehabilitation that has generated nothing but glowing reports so far -- Machado had proved one of the most durable players in baseball and a doubles machine at a young age. There's no reason to think he won't turn some of those doubles into homers, and soon.

Matt Harvey: Well, there you go. Your answer to the question, "When should I draft Harvey in a keeper league?" is, "Approximately the eighth round is when you need to begin considering it." Know going in that you're punting the entire 2014 campaign -- at best, Harvey might make a token start or two in the minors -- but it'd be in exchange for a 2015-18 run that might see his innings swell from about 160 to 185 to 200 to 210, with comparable ratios to his pre-surgery standards. Remember that in 2012-13, he managed the majors' second-best ERA and WHIP (2.39 and 0.98, respectively) among pitchers with at least 30 starts, and his 72.2 quality-start percentage ranked seventh. Bearing in mind the high historical success rate of pitchers recovering from Tommy John surgery, Harvey is well worth treating as a building block in keeper leagues.

David Ortiz: He's one of the most difficult reads for obvious reasons, those being his age (38 years old) and his contract reaching its expiration at season's end, which put his future somewhat in question. In any given year, Ortiz could opt for retirement, merely handing his keeper-league owners a productive 2014 that wouldn't earn him a place in this top 250. At the same time, he has shown no signs of slowing down, has improved his plate discipline in these "latter stages" of his career and therefore provides every skills indication that he could play, productively, into his 40s (his age-40 season would be 2016). It's for that reason Ortiz's ranking in this space has varied wildly the past four seasons and was far too low in some past lists, as there's reason to think he might maintain stats like this going forward:

2014 (age 38): .298 AVG, 28 HR, 92 RBI, 1 SB

2015 (age 39): .295 AVG, 26 HR, 88 RBI, 0 SB

2016 (age 40): .287 AVG, 23 HR, 81 RBI, 0 SB

And let's not ignore the value of Ortiz's known production -- or, the high likelihood of meeting his 2014 projection -- even in a keeper league. Would anyone reasonably bet against his hitting another 100 homers in his career? Perhaps, but I think that's a fair over/under to set.

Billy Hamilton: If only one man in professional baseball possesses 80-grade speed, it's Hamilton, and if the scouting scale extended above 80, he'd surely warrant a higher number. The problem, however, is that almost everything else in his game is not only lacking, it projects to be league average at best. Hamilton's skills look a lot like Vince Coleman's -- 100-steal potential despite a so-so on-base percentage -- except that, unlike Coleman, Hamilton might never manage as high as a .340 OBP, which Coleman did three times in his career (among 500-plate appearance seasons). Frankly, I'd pencil Hamilton in for an annual number between .300 and .320, making him a one-category Rotisserie player, albeit an outstanding one in that lone department. Still, if that's what he is, the facts need be stated: There have been only 16 instances in history of a 60-plus-steal season of a .320 on-base percentage or worse, and Coleman himself is the only one to have done it in multiple seasons (1985-86, '88-89). I've long advised against keeping one-category speedsters, and, while Hamilton's contribution in that category warrants the exception, he's still at risk for much annual statistical fluctuation.

Kris Bryant: While everyone fawns over Byron Buxton this preseason, Bryant is the player whom I think might do the most to boost his keeper-league stock during the 2014 calendar year. In his pro debut year of 2013, he hit nine homers and slugged .688 in 36 games in the low minors, then hit six homers with a .727 slugging percentage in 20 games in the Arizona Fall League en route to MVP honors, and he did each while chipping in .336 and .364 batting averages, respectively. Bryant is one of the best power-hitting prospects in the minors, and he's on the fast track to the majors, with a 2014 debut not entirely out of the question. By 2015, he should be a mainstay in Chicago, and, by all rights, that might give him enough time to hit 100 home runs in the next five seasons combined (2014-18).

Closers in general: Though the fantasy baseball world has been gradually shifting away from closer-heavy strategies in keeper leagues, this is actually one of the better times, relatively speaking, to invest in a member of the position's elite. Entering 2014, there is a clear-cut top tier of four: Craig Kimbrel, Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen and Greg Holland, with the order worthy of debate. That said, in a keeper league, there are compelling reasons to include both Trevor Rosenthal and David Robertson in that group, and, in the instances of Chapman and Rosenthal, don't discount the possibility -- however remote -- that either could enjoy a future as a top-flight starting pitcher.

To be clear: Always go for the high-strikeout closers, if you're going to keep any of them long term, or the ones with potential futures as starters. Beyond that, consider a strictly year-to-year strategy to fill your saves column, which is why after the top five closers, all of whom placed within my top 100, there's a steep drop-off to the more "veteran finishers." Robertson is the "tweener": If we had the promise that the Yankees' long-term gig was officially his -- not just 2014, but beyond -- he'd have made the top 100.