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Hitter List 4/25: Ranking the Top 150 Hitters To Own ROS

Kyle Bishop's update ranking the Top 150 Hitters every Wednesday through 2018.

[hitter_list list_id=”18341″ include_stats=”1″ season=”2018″]

Welcome back to Hitter List. Every Wednesday during the regular season, I’ll rank the current value of the top 150 hitters for the remainder of the year. Use these rankings to help get a sense of both a player’s expected performance and his trade value in your fantasy leagues moving forward.  They’re constructed with 12-teamer, H2H, 5×5 leagues in mind; adjust as needed for your specific setup.

As a reminder: It’s only April. There’s a ton of baseball left to be played, and these are rest of season rankings. We’re interested in the long view ’round these parts. As we progress further into the season, movements in either direction will get more aggressive. That said, if you believe I’m under-reacting on any particular player, feel free to make your case in the comments.

On to the highlights!

  • Injury roundup: Carlos Gonzalez had actually been fairly healthy over the last few seasons after years of chronic injuries, but he’s now on the DL with a hamstring strain. Byron Buxton was sidelined due to migraines and then fouled a ball off his foot on the first game of his rehab assignment. A lingering toe injury finally forced the Nationals to shelve Anthony Rendon this weekend. All three move down the List as a result. Also hitting the disabled list this week was Avisail Garcia, who isn’t and hasn’t been on the List because he’s trash and 2017 was a stone cold fluke.
  • New to the List this week: Tyler Austin, Michael Taylor, Brandon Belt, Miguel Andujar, and Teoscar Hernandez. Belt homered in four consecutive games last week and then set an MLB record with a 21-pitch at-bat. Taylor hasn’t hit well, but he’s already swiped nine bases in nine attempts. Andujar, Austin, and Hernandez have all gotten off to terrific starts in their rookie seasons, but questions remain about their playing time moving forward.
  • Happy trails to Maikel Franco, Chris Owings, Matt Davidson, Zack Cozart, and Eduardo Escobar. Franco and Davidson have faded after fast starts. Cozart has scuffled all month long, while Owings and Escobar’s positional versatility hasn’t been enough to prop up their lackluster production.
  • Apologies to Stephen Piscotty, Franchy Cordero, Jeimer Candelario, Mallex Smith, and Kurt Suzuki. They’re all on the cusp, just not quite there yet.
  • The major risers this week: Javier Baez, Kyle Schwarber, Trevor Story, and Mitch Haniger. Story and Schwarber have thus far rebounded from their respective sophomore slumps.  Baez may have rediscovered the prodigious pop he showed as a prospect. As for Haniger, his movement up the List is a testament to how susceptible I am to being badgered in the comments. No, seriously, he’s killing it right now and even with injuries and slumps last year, he did slash .282/.352/.491 as a rookie.

Kyle Bishop

Kyle also writes for RotoBaller and Metro.us. He lives in Denver.

18 responses to “Hitter List 4/25: Ranking the Top 150 Hitters To Own ROS”

  1. Mike says:

    Kyle, Thanks for doing this every week. I don’t have a question, just noticed a correction that is needed. Schwarber is listed as a catcher but only has OF eligilbility in most leagues. Sorry to nitpick but I was doing a scan of ranked catchers to see if there were decent options that I had overlooked.

  2. Justin says:

    Just curious why Kingery is moving up 18 spots after going 2 for his last 24…

    • JF says:

      Looks like the “Previous” column numbers were taken from the April 11 rankings. Matt Chapman is another example that looks like a big mover but he only really move a few spots up.

    • Kyle Bishop says:

      JF is correct – working on resolving that issue now. Kingery actually moved down eight spots this week.

  3. Eric says:

    Fair to say you don’t believe in Asdrubal Cabrera’s hot start?

  4. Bob says:

    Sano moves up 13?

  5. Kenneth says:

    What should I expect out of Castellanos and Jose Martinez? I want to trade one of them, but opinions about them are pretty much all over the place. Should I just keep Jose Martinez since my league is a 2 year keeper and I got him off FA?

  6. Matt says:

    why hasnt JoMart moved up the rankings more?

  7. Kyle says:

    I’m curious why Realmuto gets so little respect. Of the 24 catchers with at least 700 PA since 2016, Realmuto ranks 2nd in AVG, 6th in OBP, 2nd in Runs, 12th in HR, 12th in RBI, 1st in SB (by a ridiculous margin – he has 20, next highest is 14). He’s definitely deficient in power and RBI, but don’t you have to factor in that both of those are related to being on the Marlins (bad park and bad surrounding talent) and it’s very likely he’ll be traded to a better situation at some point this season? In particular, I feel like he should be ahead of guys like Grandal, Gattis, Ramos, and Castillo. Maybe behind Grandal in an OBP league, but I’d take him over the other three in just about any setup.

  8. MICHAEL says:

    What’s up with Braun’s ranking? He’s got a .282 OBP, and only started 6 of the last 10 games for the Brewers. He’s not playing enough to merit the high enough ranking especially over guys like Polanco and the notoriously slow starter McCutchen.

  9. Nate says:

    Yuli Gurriel? Guy is a extra-base-hit machine hitting in the middle of a fantastic line-up…

  10. Josh says:

    I think you’re too high on Matt Olson, too low on Whit Merrifield. Olson’s K rate is up to 35% this year, and his BABIP is .415. His roto stats to this point are hiding some negative trends for him. Whit is hitting the ball fine, and looks like the same guy as last year, except he’s also walking more. Dropping him 7 spots after the week he just had is weird.

  11. theKraken says:

    Bellinger moving up? I Have said it many times before, but 2017 will likely never happen again and it is only getting further in the rear-view mirror. The attractive idea about any young player is the idea of growth. When your debut is the peak, then you have yourself a recipe for an overvalued player. I think he is a 30 HR, .275 AVG, 10 SB 1B and I think there is a lot of data to support that – I think that is a pretty optimistic projection. Maybe you agree with me on that, but there are a lot veterans that have an optimistic projection that exceeds that for me at least. I appreciate the work and I also do realize that there is a pretty big chunk of players around that range – no sense nitpicking over a few spots, but surprised to see him up… and not at a new low.

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