Deepness of Positions

[fantasybaseballfan1]

I keep hearing how deep certain positions are usually first and third base but when I was making my rankings I wondered how all of the positions are. My league does a 5x5 roto with 5 OF a MI and CI and 9 Pitchers and a 7 player bench with 3 dl spots. Obviously this makes all position more scarce because more players from the position are taken.

When I was looking at 1b I noticed that it was in fact very deep I feel comfortable drafting Adrian Gonzalez or Adam LaRoche anywhere from 9-13 as my starting first baseman. I also noticed that 2b was deep in the sense that an adequate starter in Iguchi and Barfield can be drafted pretty late. However, when I looked at third base I noticed that about five teams will have elite third baseman Atkins, Mcab, Arod, Wright and Aram and after that all other teams will get significantly less production. At SS I noticed another big dropoff in the starting talent after Furcal and again after Hall and Guillen. Personally I would not want to target Hall or Guillen as my starters so the gap in talent is even bigger if you don't trust those two. Lastly, I also noticed that OF was extremely shallow especially in a league with a large amount of outfielders with there being questionmarks about everybody after Manny.

Has anybody else noticed any of these things? Or does anybody think I'm wrong about this stuff and there is talent to be found later?

[jfg]

I like Hall at SS. But I agree that 3b drops off fast.

[Old_Style]

This is what I've been preaching every since the end of last season. I like the fact that if I don't get Utley extremely early, I can wait about 8 rounds and select a 2B that is just as capable as the second picked 2B.
I'm involved in a league that drafts LF/CF/RF instead of three OF positions. I ended up taking four outfielders with my first four picks...A) Because they were the best players available at the time and B) Because the position depth is so weak.

EDIT: There are also two UTIL spots, so it's not like I wasted a pick by taking four outfielders.

[Niffoc4]

Yeah I think depth-wise it goes
C
2B
SS
3B/OF (it's too close to call in my mind)
1B

but if you break down the OF into LF/CF/RF... LF gets put near 1B, RF between 3B and SS and CF in between SS and 2B.
I think that this year 2B has a large quantity of fantasy worthy players, but SS has better quality. Look at the top-3 for each:
2B SS
1. Utley Reyes adv. Reyes
2. Figgins Jeter adv. Jeter
3. Cano Rollins adv. Rollins
It continues like this at least through the top 8. Think about it... if Carlos Guillen were 2B eligible, wouldn't you think about making him top 2 or 3?

[Ender]

I'm in a league with basically the same settings as the original poster.

I rate depth as...

C
OF
3B
SS
2B
1B

Now those numbers probably look pretty wierd but with 5 OF the production falls off very fast. While there are a number of good SS it falls off pretty fast after the top 10 as well so when you are drafting 42 MI's its not all that deep. There are tons and tons of mediocre 2B so unless you grab one of the top 3-4 you might as well just wait on it and my numbers show that most of the MI slots will probably be filled by 2B and not SS.

I actually combine positions though because of the MI/CI and I end up with...

C
OF
MI
CI

[Yoda]

Now those numbers probably look pretty wierd but with 5 OF the production falls off very fast.

This is key. It really depends on your roster but in my league with 5 OF, they are probably more scarce than any other position. Luckily my leaguemates do not know this.

[The Loveable Losers]

Here were my scarcity adjustments from the spreadsheet for my h2h 14 team 5x5 league with k/9 instead of k as a category and normal Yahoo positions (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 3OF, Util, 2SP, 2RP, 3P, 5Bench).

Catcher ReplacementValue = -6.19
SP ReplacementValue = -1.67
RP ReplacementValue = 2.43
SS ReplacementValue = 2.99
2B ReplacementValue = 3.34
OF ReplacementValue = 5.24
3B ReplacementValue = 5.57
1B/Util ReplacementValue = 6.48

Now this is replacement value. This doesn't speak to how the tiers break down. At second base for example Utley isn't valuable because of a poor second base replacement value - he's valuable because he's in a tier all by himself. Also keep in mind that my starting pitching replacement value is so low because we're a h2h league. The average team carries 6 starters so you're looking at the 85th best pitcher being your replacement level guy. That stings quite a bit.

[Ender]

Problem is replacement level doesn't tell you very much about the depth at the position~ Its good that you don't use it to decide your rankings though, STD Dev or a tiered approach is definitely the way to go. If you are in a 14 team league and there are 14 amazing SS's and the 15th is the worst player in baseball the position is extremely deep.. replacement level has almost no meaning.