Next Years Top Ten?

[Simulacrum]

Personally today I would probably take

1 Pujols
2 Santana
3 Wright
4 A-Rod
5 Cabrera
6 Crawford
7 Ortiz
8 Soriano (if 2b)
9 Vlad
10 Manny

missing jason bay in there and a pitcher at number 2? thats just a joke.. no smart manager would take a pitcher before the top 5 hitters.. the best santana should be is at 6.. and i would take bay before santana any day of the week..

Yeah, Bay's an oversight. Not sure where I'd plug him in exactly.

I'm just going to guess that you've never owned Santana. I've got him in a couple of leagues this year and his reliability and consistency to anchor my pitching staff make him more valuable to me than all those other hitters. There is no doubt he's number one SP, and it's a big drop off after him as well. In the first round, if Pujols is gone I'm grabbing him. At the beginning of the season that might have been different, but if I drafted today- Santana is the number 2 pick for me.

Your argument about hitters being 5x more valuable than pitchers doesn't make sense either. Because each hitting category counts for exactly as much as each pitching category.

It's a matter of preference really. Some managers say not to take a pitcher at all in the first three rounds. I don't agree with them either.

[Geek]

2004 5X5 rankings:
1. Albert Pujols
2. Vladimir Guerrero
3. Barry Bonds
4. Johann Santana
5. Randy Johnson
6. Adrian Beltre
7. Carlos Beltran
8. Bobby Abreu
9. Eric Gagne
10. Manny Ramirez

2005 5X5 rankings:
1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Albert Pujols
3. Derrek Lee
4. David Ortiz
5. Mark Teixeira
6. Mariano Rivera
7. Manny Ramirez
8. Chris Carpenter
9. Johann Santana
10. Billy Wagner

2006 5X5 rankings
1. Alfonso Soriano
2. Albert Pujols
3. David Wright
4. Carlos Beltran
5. Carlos Lee
6. Jose Reyes
7. Jim Thome
8. Johann Santana
9. Jonathan Papelbon
10. B.J. Ryan

To summarize:

There are only two players who have provided top 10 value in 2004, 2005, and the first half of 2006:

1. Albert Pujols
2. Johann Santana

Furthermore, there are only two that have provided top 10 value in two of the past three years:

3. Carlos Beltran
4. Manny Ramirez

I don't see how anyone can see that Johann Santana should be ranked behind the likes of A-Rod, Bay, Miguel Cabrera, Crawford, etc based on this.

[duckbillgates]

Given the fact that Johan's ERA is already about 1.25 below where it was at the All-Star break last year and that he has been virtually unhittable after the break in his career (and that the Twins bats seem to waking up), he seems poised to have the kind of season that will make this debate be huge next year.
He could potentially end the season with a sub-2.00 ERA in 225+ innings as a starter, and, as has been pointed out, he is seemingly the only sure-thing that isn't named Pujols.
I would probably go:

1 Albert Pujols
2 Alex Rodriguez
3 Johan Santana
4 Miguel Cabrera
5 Vlad Guerrero
6 David Wright
7 Carl Crawford
8 Manny Ramirez
9 Jason Bay
10 David Ortiz