Ridiculously Early Pre-Season Power Rankings

These power rankings are not based on the voting done to determine the SLB divisions. Rather these are my personal pre-season power rankings based on factors such as: draft priority, Steven’s keeper rankings, recent history, my gut feeling and an overall team quality rating.

I’ve given everyone a reverse ranking of 12-1 based on each of these factors, 12-being the highest and 1-being the lowest. For example: Craiggers lands a 12 for draft priority and John lands a 1, respectively.

Obviously these are completely subjective and have absolutely no real merit whatsoever given that they’re based entirely on speculation. We’ll have a better idea of legit pre-season power rankings after the draft.

For now, this figures to help fill your appetite for new material here at the SLBlog.

Rating #1 – Draft Priority

When the Salmon League switched from a traditional reverse-standings draft setup to the draft priority setup in 2008 it did two things. First, it kept teams in the consolation round active and gave them an incentive to actually win and not tank games. Second, it changed the dynamic of our drafts forever.

Rather than being automatically harangued into the first pick, the dude with top priority can choose any slot in the draft he wants. Given that no team in the playoff-era of SLB has ever won the championship with the first overall pick that certainly seems like a distinct advantage for whoever carries the top priority.

In fact, since SLB switched to the playoff format in 2005 the league champions have drafted in the following spots: 2005 – 7th, 2006 – 8th, 2007 – 7th, 2008 – 5th, 2009 – 8th and 2010 – 12th. It clearly bodes well to draft in the middle-to-back half of the league.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at who grades out the best in terms of draft priority.

Craiggers takes an early lead after assembling a solid crew to help him win out in the consolation playoffs. He also has arguably the best set of potential keepers in the history of his club. In the early going, Craiggers appears to be a favorite.

Rating #2 – Steven’s Keeper Rankings

We all remember Steven’s keeper rankings from a month or so ago. This was one of the first real “talking points” of the spring for the league and I figured they made a worthwhile addition to the grading system for my ridiculous early pre-season power rankings.

The long and short of it is this: Steven used ESPN’s Top 250 rankings and took the top two position players and top pitcher from each team and averaged out their rankings to determine the weighted value of each team’s likely keepers.

Rating #3 – Gut Feeling

This is one of the two most subjective rating metrics in my power rankings, my gut feeling. I’ve got no real rationale behind why I chose who I chose or where I chose ‘em. It was just my gut feeling. Nothing more, nothing less.

Rating # 4 – Recent History

This rating is based on how each team has stacked up in the playoff era. Obviously, all of the newer managers (ie: Adam, Collin, Grant, Morgan) are going to suffer here simply from a lack of long-term data.

All-in-all, I think it values out about right. It was a tough call between me and Mike at the top, I’ve had more regular season pennants than, well, anyone ever…but I haven’t won a championship and Mike is only three years removed from hoisting the coveted Golden Salmon.

Rating #5 – Team Quality

This one figures to raise a few arguments as well being that it’s a ranking system that is completely subjective, uses arbitrary value markers and could be changed exponentially based on which set of rankings you use and when you use them. Needless to say, it’s endlessly flawed, but this entire ranking system is rating teams a month before anyone even announces keeper picks, so the entire thing is flawed and largely a waste of my time anyway.

Okay, so in a nutshell, here are the results…

Awesome, right?! Maybe not?!

Okay, let me try and explain how I got to those rankings.

I looked at four basic criteria to determine a team’s total “quality.”

I went through the Top 100 players on the Top 500 list I’ve been using and gave every team one point for every player they had in the Top 100.

I then went through the Top 25, with the points increasing to 3pts/player, then the Top 10 with the points increasing to 5pts/player and finally I went through and gave each team a 7pts/player bonus for each player on their roster who was ranked as the top player at their position.

As I said before, it’s completely flawed and has the point system has no real merit, but it’s how I ranked it, so suck it.

Here’s the breakdown:

…and there you have it.

We’ve ranked each team over six different categories, but who came out on top and is undoubtedly destined to win the league based on my ranking system?

We’ve got Craiggers taking the cake in regard to draft priority.

Jay sets the pace in the keeper category with the most overall value.

My gut says Mike has something up his sleeve this season and that’s never a good sign.

Recent history also trends Mike’s way, something that doesn’t bode well for any of us.

Finally, the team quality ranking says I’ve got the best fake squad that non-existent money can buy. Granted, this is largely thanks to the ridiculously high rankings of my three potential offensive keepers (Hanley/Wright/CarGo) and not legit view of how my team will be assembled after I have to let one of Wright/Gonzalez walk when keeper decisions are due.

So there we go, we’ve got a lot of Mike, a heavy dose of me and a little Jay and Craiggers splashed in for good measure, but who is tops ‘em all?!

Let’s take a look:

Well, there you have it folks. Given the scientific reliability of this entire rating system you’ve got unflappable proof that Mike is going to march to the Promised Land once again and at season’s end he’ll be making room on his mantle for a coveted third Golden Salmon.

That doesn’t make me want to puke at all.