Sport: MLB

The first step in winning your fantasy baseball leagues does not start with drafting well, but rather the planning and preparation that comes before the draft. One key to planning and preparing successfully is establishing a system of rankings and following those rankings during your draft. At every pick in the draft, fantasy baseball managers can go in many directions with which player and position to choose. And managers must make those choices quickly or risk being auto-drafted. To avoid those problems and make those decisions easier, fantasy managers should rank players in positional tiers.

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What are Positional Tiers?

Rather than just make a rankings list of players at a position, fantasy managers should tier their rankings. What this means is that you are grouping players by their output or value. This way, managers can make quick decisions if a player on their radar gets taken.

For example, I may plan on taking a first baseman – Freddie Freeman. If he gets selected by another manager a few picks before me, I can look at my first base tiers and see Bryce Harper and Rafael Devers in the tier with him. I know that I value them similarly, so I can just pivot to one of them if needed. Setting up my rankings in tiers helps with making quick decisions.

Positional tiers also allow managers to see positional weaknesses and where there is depth at a position. Managers do not need to have the same number of players in each positional tier. You may only have one or two catchers in tier one at that position, but 10 outfielders in tier one for that position. An example of how positional tiers can show depth or lack thereof is with second base from last season.

In 2025, it was difficult to find elite talent at second base. Knowing this and seeing it in the positional tier rankings helped guide fantasy managers to an easy decision to take one early. You can even name your tiers to help with the decision-making process. This is what my tier one looked like last season at each non-pitching position (I set them up in a Google Sheet):

Catchers
1B
2B
3B
SS
OF

Superstars
William Contreras
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Ketel Marte
Jose Ramirez
Bobby Witt Jr.
Aaron Judge

Adley Rutschman
Bryce Harper
Jose Altuve
Manny Machado
Gunnar Henderson
Juan Soto

Matt Olson

Rafael Devers
Elly De La Cruz
Julio Rodríguez

Freddie Freeman

Mookie Betts
Kyle Tucker

Francisco Lindor
Corbin Carroll

Mookie Betts

Here is what tier two looked like:

Stars
Salvador Perez
Pete Alonso
Ozzie Albies
Austin Riley
Trea Turner
Jackson Chourio

Will Smith
Josh Naylor
Marcus Semien
Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Corey Seager
Fernando Tatis Jr.

Cal Raleigh
Christian Walker
Matt McLain

Willy Adames
Yordan Alvarez

J.T. Realmuto
Triston Casas
Luis Garcia Jr.

Oneil Cruz
Ronald Acuña Jr.

Yainer Diaz
Jake Burger
Xander Bogaerts

CJ Abrams
Jarren Duran

Salvador Perez
Jordan Westburg

Matt McLain
Lawrence Butler

Cody Bellinger
Luis Rengifo

Xander Bogaerts
Jazz Chisholm Jr.

Spencer Steer
Luis Arraez

Jackson Merrill

 

Okay, I Set Them Up – Now What?

Going off my tiers from last season, you can see the top-heavy nature of second and third base. This told me it would be important to select a player from my top tier at those positions early in the draft to ensure (as much as you can in fantasy sports) I could get elite production.

Because I had more first basemen and outfielders in these tiers, I knew I could wait and still get talented players at those positions.

Using Fangraphs’ dollar value system, this strategy clearly made sense. Seven second basemen and six third basemen accrued double-digit dollar value, whereas 14 first basemen and 28 outfielders accrued double-digit dollar value.

The difference between players like Freddie Freeman and Matt Olson was marginal, less than a dollar, in terms of value. So, missing out on one would not cause major decision-making problems for fantasy managers who used tiers like these because they could pivot quickly to a player of similar value.

As for third basemen, for example, anyone who missed out on players like Jose Ramirez, Junior Caminero, Maikel Garcia, Eugenio Suarez, Manny Machado, or Jazz Chisholm was likely struggling to find consistent production during the season.

Missing out on that top tier of players is not the end of the world, though, and in many cases, it is impossible to get a top-tier player at each position. However, in the instance of third base from last season, the talent drop-off was steep after tier two, and tiering rankings would have allowed managers to see this and prepare before drafting.

Does It Work the Same for Pitching?

Step Brothers Yup GIFs | Tenor

Here is what my top three starting pitching tiers looked like from last season:

Elite
Paul Skenes

Tarik Skubal

Chris Sale

Zack Wheeler

Borderline Elite
Garrett Crochet

Logan Gilbert

Shota Imanaga

Framber Valdez

Sonny Gray

Last Pitchers I’d
Hunter Brown

Want As My #1 SP
Pablo Lopez

George Kirby

Cole Ragans

Corbin Burnes

Dylan Cease

Logan Webb

Seth Lugo

I separated my pitchers into a top group of pitchers that I thought would be above and beyond the rest. Skubal and Skenes each returned over $30 of value according to Fangraphs’ value chart. Drafting them early made sense accordingly, as did drafting a number of other players in these tiers. Crochet, Gilbert, Brown, Webb, Wheeler, and Sale all returned double-digit dollar value.

There are also so many pitchers to choose from, making it difficult last season to decide whether to rank Ryan Pepiot or Robbie Ray higher. Instead, I put them in the same tier because I viewed their potential output similarly in terms of value. They finished within a dollar of each other in Fangraphs’ value chart.

Let’s Draft!

No fantasy baseball rankings will ever be 100% perfect. There are too many variables to consider with injuries, weather, splits, platoons, etc. But at the very least, organizing your rankings into positional tiers will help you make quick decisions during the draft and give you the best possible chance of drafting a quality team.

On that note, we have you covered right here at Fantrax! Keep an eye out for our positional tiers throughout the offseason, so you do not even need to make your own. We will also publish consensus rankings to help you set up your preseason rankings, so stay tuned.

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