Hitter List 6/20: Ranking the Top 150 Hitters To Own ROS

[hitter_list list_id=”22103″ include_stats=”1″ season=”2018″]

Welcome back to Hitter List. Every Wednesday during the regular season, I’ll rank the current value of the top 150 hitters for the remainder of the year. Use these rankings to help get a sense of both a player’s expected performance and his trade value in your fantasy leagues moving forward.  They’re constructed with 12-teamer, H2H, 5×5 leagues in mind; adjust as needed for your specific setup. Position eligibility does factor in to a degree.

As a reminder: There’s still over half the year of baseball left to be played, and these are rest of season rankings. We’re interested in the long view ’round these parts. That said, adjustments to the List are more aggressive as we move deeper into the year. With that should come the acknowledgment that small shifts in a specific player’s ranking are often as much a consequence of other players’ more drastic movements as anything else. This is especially true when injuries occur. Put another way, please do not @ me if a guy moved up like two spots even if he’s failed to get a hit in the last couple games. I do, however, welcome more substantive grievances in the comments.

On to the highlights!

• I’m writing this on a plane! Is this a measure of my dedication to being yelled at by random strangers on the internet, or my lack of desire to do any work whilst on vacation? I believe Mayor Quimby said it best. Vacation was also the reason that I didn’t dive into the comment section last week as normal.
• Injury roundup: Just minor casualties this week, as Matt Chapman (thumb) and Jorge Soler (foot) hit the disabled list with injuries that shouldn’t keep them out for terribly long periods.
• New to or back on the List this week: Evan Gattis, Joc Pederson, Scott Schebler, Ian Desmond, Leonys Martin, Paul DeJong, and Michael A. Taylor. Several commenters last week rightly pointed out that Gattis has been killing it of late, so he was overdue to reappear in this space. Pederson’s hot hitting has continued long enough to earn him a provisional place toward the bottom of the List. Both Schebler and Desmond have been great this month, although the latter is still running an insane 42.4 HR/FB% (and before you say anything about Coors, 11 of his 14 homers on the year have been on the road, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). I’ve been slow to embrace Martin after years of being burned, but he’s playing well and locked into the leadoff spot for the Tigers. DeJong appears to be returning ahead of his original timetable, as all reports indicate we’ll see him back on the field by month’s end. Hand injuries can be tricky, so for now he’s on the fringes. Lastly, while Taylor won’t play every day with Adam Eaton back in the fold, he’s been hitting well lately and running a ton when he has been in the lineup.
• Honorable Mentions: Jonathan Villar, Randal Grichuk, Derek Dietrich, Ryon Healy, and Josh Harrison.
• Miguel Sano’s demotion to the minors came as a surprise, and it obviously throws his immediate future into doubt. I’d be surprised if he’s down on the farm for all that long, but he was probably overdue for a significant downward revision.