Player Rater Review: Top 50

October 7, 2008 4:48pm CDT

Who are the 50 most valuable fantasy players going? Are saves “worth” more or less than stolen bases? How do you compare a hitter to a pitcher on an equal playing field? We at Rototimes.com have a tool called the Player Rater, and instead of the normal game plan of listing the top-50 fantasy performers as we have done all year, this week we’ll break down the top-10 options at each infield position using the following parameters: a 12-team mixed league using standard 5x5 scoring with 14 hitters, nine pitchers and a $260 salary cap.

You can click on the following link to find the actual Player Rater Tool.

* Note: We will cover outfielders and pitchers next week.

CATCHERS

$16.52 Joe Mauer The AL batting champ (.328) was also second in the AL in OBP (.413). On the year he had a superlative BB/K mark of 1.68 (84 BBs, 50 Ks).

$15.65 Brian McCann Clearly the best power option at catcher now that Jorge Posada is on the downside of his career. McCann hit 23 home runs with 87 RBI and a .301 batting average for the Braves.

$13.85 Russell Martin The only catcher who really runs any more (18 steals), Martin also hit .280 while scoring 87 runs and knocking in 69.

$11.17 Ryan Doumit Doumit finallycontributed at the dish like the team always believed he could after he was drafted in the second round in 1999. Doumit hit .318-15-69-71 in 431 ABs.

$10.68 Geovany Soto The likely NL ROY, Soto hit .285-23-86 with a .868 OPS as he fulfilled even the most optimistic of projections.

$7.43 Bengie Molina You may not be aware of it, but the catcher with the most RBI this season was Molina, who knocked in 95 runs. He also hit .292, though because he runs in sand, he scored only 46 runs.

$3.36 Kelly Shoppach Shoppach blasted 21 long balls in just 352 ABs after taking over for an injured Victor Martinez. Shoppach did strike out 133 times, though that power bat will play in ’09.

$3.18 Mike Napoli Talk about a power bat, Napoli hit 20 home runs in just 227 ABs and now has 46 home runs in 714 career at-bats.

$2.95 A.J. Pierzynski
Over each of the last six seasons A.J. has hit at least 11 home runs and 50 RBI. He is the only catcher that can make that claim.

$1.53 Chris Iannetta The Rockies catcher hit .264 with 18 home runs in 333 ABs this season and has a .249-24-102-84 line in 607 career ABs.


FIRST BASE

$39.69 Albert Pujols Flat-out the best hitter in baseball. Not many people seem to realize he was second in OBP (.462) and first in OPS (1.114).

$34.36 Lance Berkman Stole more bases (18) this year than he has the past three seasons comnbined (14). He did fall one home run short of his third straight 30-home run, 100-RBI season.

$29.05 Mark Teixeira Was fourth at the position with 121 RBI and was the only first baseman who hit .300-30-120 (he finished at .308-33-121).

$27.46 Ryan Howard After an average .832 OPS prior to the All-Star break, his second half surge led to a .954 OPS in his last 66 appearances covering 246 ABs.

$25.99 Kevin Youkilis Easily had the best season of his career with career highs in the following categories: average (.312), home runs (29), RBI (115), SLG (.569) and OPS (.958).

$25.95 Miguel Cabrera Other than Ryan Howard, Cabrera was the only first baseman to hit at least 35 home runs (37) with 120 RBI (127). Fell just short of qualifying at third base for next season with only 14 games played at the hot corner.

$23.94 Adrian Gonzalez How is this for three-year growth? Adrian hit 24 HRs with 82 RBI in 2006, 30-100 in 2007 and 36-119 in 2008.

$23.09 Justin Morneau Though he hit .300 overall, he struggled down the stretch, hitting just .267 over his last 258 ABs.

$22.22 Carlos Delgado Over his last 66 games he powered 21 long balls while knocking in 63 runs with a .991 OPS.

$19.37 Prince Fielder It's very infrequent that 34 home runs and 102 RBI are viewed as such a poor effort. However, that was the case here after Prince hit 50 homers with 119 RBI in 2007.


SECOND BASE

$31.68 Dustin Pedroia
The possible AL MVP ended the year as the most valuable performer at second base due to his tremendous overall effort (.326-17-83-118-20 with 54 doubles and 213 hits).

$30.45 Chase Utley The class of the position in home runs (33), RBI (104), Utley also led the position with a .915 OPS.

$27.91 Ian Kinsler Kinsler was well on pace to leading the position in performance before being struck down by a sports hernia that limited him to 121 games. He still hit .319-18-71-102-26 in a tremendous all-around effort.

$25.63 Brian Roberts This speedster led the position with 40 steals and has now racked up 90 steals the past two years, not to mention 210 runs and a .293 average.

$17.33 Mark DeRosa Besides hitting .285-21-87-103-6, DeRosa played at least 20 games at second base, third base, left field and right field.

$17.07 Dan Uggla Rumors of him being on his way out of Florida continue to grow, though it has nothing to do with his on-field production that has led to an average of 30 home runs, 90 RBI and 105 runs scored the past three seasons.

$16.07 Brandon Phillips Had a somewhat disappointing season cut short by an injured middle finger, though he still produced a second straight 20/20 campaign with 21 home runs and 23 steals.

$15.29 Jose Lopez How many second basemen had more than the 89 RBI that Lopez knocked in this season? Try two in the “U-boys” of Utley (104) and Uggla (92).

$14.69 Alexei Ramirez Turned out to be a tremendously potent weapon for a late-round gamble, finishing with a .290-21-77-65-13 line in under 500 ABs (480).

$11.54 Kelly Johnson
Blistered the ball to the tune of a .398 average in September on his way to another strong overall campaign (.287-12-69-86-11).


THIRD BASE

$35.72 David Wright Just keeps getting better. Over each of the past four seasons he has hit at least .300-25-100-95-15. He is the only player in baseball that can make that claim regardless of position.

$33.10 Alex Rodriguez One of the best run producers ever, A-Rod has scored at least 100 runs in 13 straight seasons with at least 100 RBI in 11 straight.

$26.50 Aubrey Huff
From a late-round gamble to the cream of the crop at third base, it was quite a season for Huff, who used a .332 average in the second half to finish at .304-32-108-96 with a .912 OPS.

$23.78 Chipper Jones The major league leader in average (.362), Jones has posted an OBP of at least .400 in 10 of the past 11 seasons, and his OPS has been over 1.000 in each of the past three years.

$21.01 Aramis Ramirez In five seasons in Chicago, Aramis has never failed to hit at least 25 home runs while driving in at least 90 runs (he hit 27 HRs with 111 RBI this season).

$18.67 Jorge Cantu A waiver-wire pickup in most leagues, Cantu had 29 home runs, 95 RBI and 92 runs scored in a tremendous effort.

$15.49 Melvin Mora Mora was fourth at the hot corner with his 104 RBI, thanks, in part, to what could have been a second half for the ages if he wasn’t injured (.376-12-56 in just 48 games).

$14.77 Garrett Atkins Had his worst effort in three seasons, though he still hit .286-21-99 with 86 runs scored.

$13.60 Mark Reynolds Though he had an all-time record 204 strikeouts, he did hit 28 home runs with 97 RBI, 87 runs and 11 steals.

$13.40 Evan Longoria He started a bit late and also dealt with an injury but still hit .272-27-85 in a fantastic rookie season.


SHORTSTOP

$37.93 Hanley Ramirez Though his average fell .031 points from 2007 down to .301, his OBP went up .014 points to a career best .400, thanks to a career-high 92 walks.

$37.81 Jose Reyes Over the past three years Reyes’ worst numbers in the five standard offensive categories are .280-12-57-113-56, and that would be one hell of a season.

$21.91 Jimmy Rollins Though the perception is that he missed a ton of time resulting in his down production at the plate (.277-11-59-76), Rollins actually had 556 ABs, which is just 33 fewer than Hanley Ramirez.

$15.58 Jhonny Peralta Peralta was just the 12th shortstop in baseball history to hit 20 home runs (23) and 40 doubles (42). He also knocked in 89 runs while scoring 104 runs.

$14.26 Michael Young Had his worst season in six years, but that effort still produced 183 hits, 102 runs, 82 RBI and 10 stolen bases.

$13.98 Derek Jeter Even though he hit .344 over his last 49 games, Jeter still finished with his worst overall effort in his career (.300-11-69-88-11).

$13.29 Stephen Drew Could be a major player in ’09 after quietly being just one of two shortstops to hit at least .291 with 21 home runs (the other was Ramirez).

$11.64 J.J. Hardy Second at the position with 24 home runs, Hardy has back-to-back efforts that resulted in at least 24 home runs, 74 RBI, 75 runs and a .275 average.

$11.60 Orlando Cabrera Likely on his way out of Chicago, Cabrera has recorded at least 90 runs in three straight seasons and at least 19 steals in four straight.

$11.32 Ryan Theriot Only one shortstop, Cristian Guzman (.316), had a higher average than Theriot’s .307 mark. Toss in 85 runs and 22 steals, and it was a heck of a campaign for the scrappy Cub.