Fantasy Baseball: Ranking Position Depth

My 2B rankings discussion of yesterday may be a bit surprising to people (if so, please comment - I'd love to hear some input). I was having a similar discussion regarding the depth and shallowness of the other positions for fantasy baseball, and did some number tinkering. For reference, I used numbers derived from last year's player statistics, projected into a standard points league (detailed at the bottom of this post).

Taking the top 300* hitters (sorry, no pitchers or DHs here - the pitching numbers don't marry well as a direct comparison in points leagues, and the DHs are too few), you get the following standard deviations within those positions. (For those unfamiliar with a standard deviation, it's a rough statistical calculation of how much members of a group vary amongst themselves. If a group all score very similar points, that group will have a very low standard deviation. If the difference between players is great, then their standard deviation will be larger.)

1B	149.0868
SS	144.6618
OF	125.9941
C	119.4956
3B	107.5955
2B	103.2491

*Note: There are 3 Utils of note here (Ortiz, Hafner and Thomas). To fit them in, I'm actually putting them into every category to raise each StDev even

Whoa, what are the Firstbasemen doing up so high?!? Well, when you factor in how unbelievably well Pujols, Howard and Ortiz performed, they really skew the numbers. Plus, once you get beyond the 20th 1B, things really spiral downward. And the high score for SSs seem to be in line with early expert mock drafts, where 8-9 SSs are being drafted before Round 7. So let's focus in a bit, and take just the starters (okay, top 15, 40 for OFs) for a 12 team league:

C	91.97971
2B	77.91002
OF	72.2821
1B	71.14352
3B	64.33469
SS	62.42214

Here's where putting the Utils starts to skew things a bit - take a look at those Catchers! Taking them out gets the following:

1B	69.7932
OF	69.03502
3B	64.33469
SS	53.29755
C	53.02394
2B	49.30079

So what does this mean - grab a 1B as soon as possible? Not necessarily - but it demonstrates a number of things:

1. 2B is a much more consistent category than thought. Utley is still king, and there's a big gap, but once you get beyond that, there's not much variation. (An Utley-free list drops 2B to 34.2.)
2. 1B has incredibly talent at the top. (Without Pujols and Howard, that number drops to 48.1.)
3. OF is consistently mislabelled as a "deep" position. Feel free to wait on your #3, but your #1 and #2 better be good to be competitive.
4. People are drafting SSs with a bit too much enthusiasm. If 8-9 SSs are going in the first 7 rounds, why would you reach for one? Spend your time upgrading your usual SP or OF, and wait for these shallower position players later in the draft.

And don't forget - if you're in a Roto league, these projections MUST be taken with a grain of salt. Keeping track of how you're doing in particular categories is imperative, and points-league rankings do not reflect these differences.

My Points League Setup:
Singles, Walks, RBIs and Runs: 1 pt
Double, Stolen Bases, Sacrifice: 2 pts
Triple: 3 pts
Home Run: 4 pts
Strikeout: -1 pt
Caught Stealing: -2 Pts