Fantasy Baseball? What does it mean?

I have never actually competed in a Fantasy League. Not in Football. Not in Baseball. It would take alot of detailed statistics to keep on a regular basis to compete with any degree of success. But I'll bet those who play it regularly, or report on it, know something about the potential for someone's abilities and worth as a player in the real league that the Fantasy is based in.

I have been examining these statistics in Baseball. I am starting with a team I feel that I know well. The Boston Red Sox. Looking at the rankings, I noticed that the Red Sox have 7 starting players listed as top-10 ranked in their Position. That has to be good? Right?

Well, you dig a bit deeper and you can see that the Sox have 2 players 'ranked' at 1st Base. Adrian Gonzalez [ranked #5], the Monster First Base acquisition from this off-season for the Sox. Kevin Youkilis [ranked #6], last season's regular First Baseman [on Day's Mike Lowell was off or DH'ing and V-Mart was catching]. The Red Sox have no one ranked [or even listed] for 3rd Base. Is this good [for the Red Sox] ? Not sure.

At 2nd Base we have Dustin Pedroia [ranked #3!] and at Shortstop we have 2 players ranked. Marco Scutaro is ranked a respectible #10 while Jed Lowrie is sitting at #24 [still better than out beyond 32!]. At Catcher we also have 2 ranked players. Saltalamacchia [Salty for short] is ranked #22 [decent] while Jason Veritek still gets a respectible ranking of #30 [better than beyond #32] even though he is 'scheduled' to catch 50 games or less.

Now in the Outfield, the Sox have a TON of Talent. Recent Monster acquisition, Carl Crawford comes in ranked as the #4 Outfielder in all of Fantasy Baseball. Jacoby Ellsbury comes in ranked #7. Two Outfielders ranked in the top 10 sounds awesome! Right? How about poor JD Drew [ranked #65] is stuck way down in the lower tier of players. Not too good for someone making $15 million per year. He is a good hitter, a little streaky.. but good.. But he is prone to that darned injury bug.

At DH, we have David Ortiz. The absolute Cream of the Crop when it comes to desireable DH's. He is ranked #1 and performed that way too last season, even including his slow start running into May.

So, what do you think? Seems like a solid line-up, right? Last year, Jacoby Ellsbury was ranked #2 as an outfielder. But his major rib-cage injury proved impossible to allow him to play much [less than 20 games]. So he was a major bust [fantasy league wise]. I guess that means we will never know until we get further into the season whether these rankings mean something.