It's the most wonderful time of the year: fantasy baseball draft season. Ok, maybe you find other things like March Madness or "the entire NFL season" more enthralling, but the relative popularity of fantasy baseball in the sports landscape is nothing to sneeze at.
Sites and sources abound, and a check of the composite rankings put together by the good folks at CBS Sports gives us some nice information on which we can base a draft strategy. As you would expect for a team with numerous star players, many Philadelphia Phillies rank pretty high up in the rankings at their positions. Let's see if CBS did them the justice they deserve, or if any of their rankings seem a little bit askew.
Note: These are the players' roto ranks using the consensus of three CBS writers, whom we will talk about individually at various points throughout.
J.T. Realmuto is ranked 3rd among catchers
It's a changing of the guard, as Adley Rutschman assumes the slam-dunk top spot among backstops that J.T. Realmuto owned for so many years. It's to be expected, though, as Realmuto is now firmly in the "boring veteran" stage of his career.
He still charts as high as second on Scott White's individual list; however, owing to how shallow the catcher pool is. In fact, no matter where I look, the absolute lowest I've seen Realmuto is fourth, behind Rutschman, William Contreras, and Will Smith. I think he's right there with Smith as the No. 3 option. We'll call this one spot on.
Bryce Harper is ranked 3rd among first basemen
Once again, this seems pretty fitting, as Freddie Freeman and Matt Olson are no-brainers at the top two spots at the cold corner. But Harper still makes a big splash at his new position, beating out the likes of Pete Alonso and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Neither of these players can match Harper's overall run production numbers and a healthy dose of steals, which should make him a top option at first base for years to come. We can't really argue with this placement, either.