Farm Futures: Dynasty Rankings Update/Top 100 Prospects

I completed the full update to the top 400 dynasty rankings Friday night. These take so much time and effort to get to a point where I feel comfortable publishing them that I was unable to finish the full update to the top 400 prospect rankings this week, as initially planned. However, I will provide a sneak peak at the updated top 100 prospects at the bottom of this article.

First, I want to note some things regarding how these dynasty rankings are intended to be used.

• These are for 5x5 rotisserie leagues where OBP is used instead of AVG.
• These are roughly intended for 15-team leagues where every team starts two catchers. (One example of these first two factors coming into play is Adley Rutschman being the sixth ranked prospect, while he is the 10th ranked prospect on the prospect rankings, which are for AVG leagues where roughly 20 catchers are started).
• I love the guys who steal bases and provide positive value in other categories, but the Adalberto Mondesi types aren't anchors to me in dynasty leagues, because you don't need to win that category or even finish top third to win your league. In fact, if my roster build has been executed perfectly, stolen bases will be my worst offensive category.
• Like any good set of projections, these rankings are intended to be used as a starting point or a tool, NOT as a decisive factor in trades or startup drafts. Part of what makes these rankings so hard to put together is that there are so many factors at play regarding how valuable a certain player is to your team. Are you a legitimate contender? Are you loaded on the pitching side but light on hitting? Have your past tendencies shown a strong ability to add closers off the waiver wire, or a strong ability to add the next hot prospect before he is seen as a consensus top-100 prospect? Is your league in danger of dissolving in a year or two? These (and many other factors) are all worth considering when evaluating each individual player.
• I feel good about these rankings — good enough to put my name behind them anyway — but I promise you I'd change dozens of things about these in a couple days, let alone a couple weeks, and you could probably convince me I'm too high or too low on many of these players less than 24 hours after I published them. I say this to stress again that these are a tool, not the be all end all.
• Dynasty baseball is supposed to be fun, and if you know what you're doing, you'll have a blast. Don't accept a trade that's going to make the game less fun for you just because a set of rankings tells you it's a good deal. If you're able to separate emotion from the game, then you're a rare breed, and you're also probably quite successful. However, I always remember my bad trades more than my good trades, so just be careful out there.
• If I'm much higher or lower on someone than you are, it's fine (and recommended) to trust your own evaluations to a large degree, especially if dynasty baseball is something you've had success with in the past.

I'm happy to discuss any player in the comments section or on Twitter, but here are some quick notes on the top of the rankings:

My top 11 (Acuna, Tatis, Soto, Vlad, Trout, Turner, Betts, Bellinger, Bichette, J-Ram, Harper) was pretty easy to put together. Once I ranked those guys, the order didn't change once over the span of the rest of the time I spent on these.

I told my friend Ian Kahn a few days ago that I wasn't going to have any pitchers in my top 20, but I ended up making a late audible to move Gerrit Cole up to 15. Yes, a rebuilding club whose window to win won't open for a couple years should be looking to trade Cole, but they can drive a hard bargain and get a massive haul, while the contending teams with Cole are locked and loaded to hunt championships for the foreseeable future.

Shohei Ohtani's ranking is for weekly leagues and I'm ranking him here based on the assumption that I'm only ever going to start him as a hitter, with the potential exception of a rare two-start week. Of course, the dream for anyone who has Ohtani in dynasty is that he scraps pitching and becomes a full-time right fielder, at which point he could challenge for a 50-homer/25-steal season. His value in dynasty leagues has been all over the map ever since he signed with the Angels, and I still think there could be plenty of volatility here going forward, so I don't feel great about where I have him.

Christian Yelich (24), Trevor Story (44) and Francisco Lindor (50) were three of the biggest fallers. 

Yelich might be the hardest player to value in dynasty right now — probably either him or Ohtani. Prior to 2020, Yelich was a god in OBP dynasty — someone you could build around who would anchor all five roto categories and who looked poised to have another 4-5 more years of prime production. His recurring back issues are concerning, but not as concerning as his 31.2 K% since the start of 2020. Of course, the back issues are a factor with the strikeouts, and the conditions of the 2020 season seemed to hurt him more than most players, so I don't think this new K-rate is undoubtedly here to stay, but it could be. Story's production has been down this year and he may only have two months (or less) left to call Coors Field home, so that uncertainty makes him very tricky to value. I know Lindor isn't as bad as he has been this season, but all of his batted-ball data is at a career-worst level and I'm not sure what level we can expect him to bounce back to. This could be an overreaction, but shortstop is so deep and his stolen bases are less of a swing factor than they are in redraft contests with overall prizes, so I'm wary about assuming we'll see the 2018-2019 version of Lindor again.

TOP 100 PROSPECTS

This is a sneak peak at the top 100 of the top 400 prospect rankings, which will be updated next week. As you should know, the prospect rankings are for 5x5 rotisserie with AVG instead of OBP and are roughly intended for 20-team leagues where each team starts one catcher. I'll probably make some changes inside the top 100 before fully updating the rankings on the site, but this preview should capture the notable movement you'll see. I've also noted where I think the tier drops are within the top 100.

I'll have an article next week accompanying the updated prospect rankings, but I'm also happy to answer any initial questions in the comments of this article. In the meantime, I hope everyone enjoys the holiday weekend. Cheers.