The foundation of your fantasy baseball roster starts in the first three rounds or with players purchased for $20-plus in auction leagues. These should be the easiest players to identify; after all, they are today's top talents. But history shows that there is an extraordinary amount of year-to-year turnover, which can sabotage our best efforts.
Anyone who has drafted Giancarlo Stanton or Andrew McCutchen the past two years knows what I'm talking about.
But we can do a better job of identifying the players with the best chance of returning fair value at the top of the draft board. It comes down to separating players into four general groups.
Group 1: Veteran elite
These are the proven players who consistently post elite numbers every year. You know these guys; they are no-brainers when they drop to you.
Group 2: New elite
These are players who posted elite numbers for the first time last season. They may have skyrocketed up from obscurity or taken a more gradual developmental path. The point is, they could be facing some regression.
Group 3: Possible rebounds
These are players who have posted elite numbers in the past but fell off last season due to underperformance, injury or random chance. These players own their track record, and given a change in circumstances, they could return to form.
Group 4: New risers
These are players who have not posted elite numbers yet but have shown enough potential that drafters are willing to speculate on their upside. Recency bias tends to drive these expectations, along with a healthy dose of wishful thinking and fear of missing out.
Here is the great thing about these groups: Research in the 2017 Baseball Forecaster shows that they form a high-level hierarchy of how players tend to fare during the season.
Last year's average draft position (ADP) top 30 yielded the following results:
"No." is the number of players who fell into each group. "ADP$" is each player's ADP rank converted to a 15-team mixed 5x5 rotisserie value. "Earnings" are what these players actually earned in roto value. "Net" is the difference between those two.
Yes, the sample sizes are small, but the players who fell into each group made sense. And yes, all our picks were losers, on average -- that's the nature of the beast -- but you stood a better chance of retaining some value the higher up in the hierarchy that you targeted your picks.
It's good advice, but that's not how players are being drafted this spring. Here are the current top 45 players, according to the National Fantasy Baseball Championship, and where they fall in the hierarchy.
Group 1: Veteran elite
In 2016, we had our best report card since 2008, with seven of our first 15 picks returning top-15 value. So the list of Group 1 veterans is long. It is led by Mike Trout, who notched his fifth straight top-10 finish and is ranked No. 1 for the third straight year. Jose Altuve (3), Clayton Kershaw (5), Nolan Arenado (6), Paul Goldschmidt (7), Manny Machado (8), Max Scherzer (11), Josh Donaldson (12) and Miguel Cabrera (14) compose this year's vet-heavy Top 15.
That is a good thing. Stability at the top makes our job easier. But there are some very nice veteran targets in the second and third rounds, some of whom could be defensible as first-round picks.
Charlie Blackmon (16) is just a tad outside this group, but three straight $30 seasons certainly merit first-round consideration. Joey Votto (22) is one of five first basemen going early, as is Edwin Encarnacion (25). Both are stable picks as well.
Chris Sale (21), Corey Kluber (23) and Starling Marte (24) are stable second-rounders, and Robinson Cano (30) follows up well after finishing No. 25 last year. I'll include Jon Lester (36) in this group, even though his ADP is a big drop-off from last year's 16th-ranked earnings. Similarly, Nelson Cruz (41) and Justin Verlander (42) still merit consideration as stable picks despite finishing higher last year. Johnny Cueto (44) rounds out this group.
Group 2: New elite
Mookie Betts (2) leads the new elite, having earned the most roto dollars in 2016, a jump from No 29 in 2015. Other current first-rounders are Kris Bryant (4) and Madison Bumgarner (15).
In the second and third rounds are more of 2016's first-time stars: Jonathan Villar (20), Freddie Freeman (26), Xander Bogaerts (27), Francisco Lindor (28), Brian Dozier (34) and Daniel Murphy (37). Without a longer-term track record, these players are slightly riskier to own.
Group 3: Possible rebounds
The next level begins with the biggest high-risk, high-reward player, Bryce Harper. He currently is going No. 9, but drafters are counting on a return to his 2015 form. A rebound is probably a safe bet; a return to the top 10 is riskier.
Jake Arrieta (31) was baseball's top roto earner in 2015, then dropped to No. 53 last year. It's been four years since Yu Darvish (33) finished as high as No. 27, but his current ADP is a huge jump from last year's No. 228.
Drafters are hoping A.J. Pollock (35) is healthy; his No. 5 rank in 2015 is driving his ADP. It seems like Stanton (38) has become a perennial rebound candidate, but drafters can't forget his top-10 finish in 2014.
Top-ranked catcher Buster Posey's current No. 40 ADP doesn't offer much bounce from last year's No. 46 finish, but he's never finished higher than No. 20 (2012). Drafters are pushing David Price (44) and Dee Gordon (45) to rebound from their respective finishes of No. 108 and No. 241 last season.
Group 4: New risers
The key criteria for this group is that these players are being drafted far higher than they've ever previously finished.
Leading them is Trea Turner (10), who finished his partial 2016 at No 55. Anthony Rizzo's (13) career path has seen consistent, though gradual growth, but he finished at No. 34 and No. 20 the past two years.
Carlos Correa (17) was a new riser last year at No. 6 but finished No. 72; drafters are still optimistic. Noah Syndergaard (18) is moving into elite levels after finishing No. 58 in 2016. Corey Seager was drafted No. 58 last year, finished 37th and is now being pushed to No. 19. Trevor Story (29) is getting into the top 30 despite finishing just No. 111 last year. George Springer (32) and Rougned Odor (39) are both getting drafted at least 20 spots higher than their previous high finishes.
Most of these players are future stars; it's their draft spots that are questionable. I still stand by the oft-advised adage: "Never pay for a level of performance a player has not previously achieved."