Earlier this off season we began our early ranking series project. In these posts Ray would provide the site with his Top-20 Rankings at each position. Following this post, I'd run a set of Jr Circuit Projections for the 20 players that Ray ranked earlier. Obviously this led to some players being ranked one spot, while their projections at least seemed to indicate they should be ranked another.

In my opinion this was fine. You will always receive a "rock-hard" ranking when you convert a set of projections into dollar values. The problem being is that a set of projections is only a snap-shot in time of what we expect a particular player to produce on the field. Things like playing time and team context changes can drastically alter a projection and in turn a ranking. When Ray issues a ranking list for a particular position, these things are also taken into consideration and the players are ranked accordingly. Perhaps it's only a fifteen percent chance Ray's 6th ranked second baseman falls into a platoon this year. On the projection side of things, nailing down his expected plate appearances will be crucial, but still difficult. On the pure ranking side, the ranker needs to figure out if the other players around said 6th ranked second baseman have a fairly good chance of producing a similar stat line, but without the threat of a loss in playing time. If so, perhaps the other second baseman gets ranked higher, even though the projections say otherwise. Again, that particular 6th ranked second baseman's projection could change substantially if a platoon is formed.

Anyway, all of this is to say that while some criticism was received regarding players being ranked one way and projected another, in my opinion, this is perfectly acceptable for this process, especially in November. And with that being said... I still create a set of projections yearly. Of course some of these will look strange as team rosters change through free agency and trade, but rest assured, the projections and rankings will be updated as draft season approaches.

Enough words. Below you will find my early 2017 Jr Circuit Projections for the First Base Position. These projections are then converted into a ranking list.