Smada here! This release of dynasty rankings marks the first update in quite a while and the first of many for the 2025 season. If you read anything, read this: this is not just one list of 1,300+ players. It's a customizable dynasty list with multiple inputs for league size, type and valuation preferences that then feed both a trade analyzer tool and league analyzer tool.
Intro
If I can be completely honest with everyone, I've always really disliked our dynasty rankings. In the past, lists of the top 100-150 players were submitted by members of the team and then combined. Then Jordan would take projections to formulate the basis of the rest of the list and the team would manually edit them down to the final product. It became a hodgepodge of averaged opinions, somewhat random edits, lots of missing players and at times bizarre ranks. There wasn't a writer's name slapped on it so it wasn't given full attention and oversight by any one person. At the end of the day, the only person to blame for that was myself. I came up with the process, I rushed to get stuff out and was bogged down by data management instead of buttoning up a solid list.
So this year I've decided to take the reigns and attempt to fix the mess that I created. The default list you'll see has been handcrafted by me over the last three months, with a lot of that time spent getting reproducible processes in place to make updating the list a smooth and quick process throughout the season. The only part that was a group effort is the prospect rankings (with a few rare edits for 2025 ETA guys) aligning with the Top 500 list. The end result is something I'm really proud of completing and has given me a renewed a charge to continue innovating in the dynasty space.
I'm sure you're over my rambling, or just skipped the above paragraphs altogether so let's get to the important details:
Default Settings
The default order and $ values were created with the following league settings in mind:
15 team league with 5x5 roto scoring, OBP and SV
A change from previous editions that were based on saves + holds. In my experience, holds league strategy comes down to waiting on RP because the league overvalues the closers. Additionally, holds players players pop up frequently on the wire. Essentially... I'm not sure if holds rankings are all that useful. But saves rankings might be.
Starting roster with 14 H spots (1x C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, CI, MI, 5x OF, 2x UT) and 9 P spots
7 bench spots and 10 MiLB roster spots
Creating Your Custom Top 1300+ List
There is not a "standard" dynasty league. That fact makes league settings & value preferences extremely important when it comes to trade & startup draft values. Which makes every static dynasty list inherently lacking.
With that fact in mind, we built the ability to create your own list and values based on your settings and preferences. The default settings that I mention above act as a starting point and our tool allows you to customize the list from there. Below are all the current options and filters (in process of adding more and will take requests).
There are two settings that change the order of the players are ranked:
Changing the League Type from OBP to AVG moves the hitters around quite a bit. The process used was to take peak projections for OBP & AVG and change them into Z-scores (happy to go into more detail if you want) then calculate a value change to a players OBP $ value. For example, Jackson Holliday, ranked 57th has a peak projected OBP of .380, but a projected AVG of just .265. This results in an adjustment of $5 in average leagues, bringing his value down from $18 to $13 and his rank down from 57th to 107. On my list to add is another option that use both OBP and AVG as separate categories, which will simply be half the adjustment demonstrated in the example.
Ding older players dynamically creates a more youth friendly list. It crudely reduces 30-31 yo player's $ value by 20%, 32-34 yo by 25% and 35+ yo by 35%. I've got it on my list to provide a way to make these percentages more or less severe.
Coming very soon will be a 2 catcher
Then there are the settings that keep the player order but change the $ values, impacting replacement level:
The number of teams, starting roster spots, bench & MiLB squad total all impact $ calculations.
The Dollar Value Calculation setting changes the $ values by either "Valuing Stars" more or "Valuing Depth" more. You know how your league operates and sometimes it's impossible to trade for a star player without "overpaying." Conversely, maybe your trying to evaluate your team as a whole and give value to the depth of your squad. Whatever the case is, you have options to increase & decrease $ values quickly and can be helpful to find a range to that player's value.
Under the Filter Options you'll also see a toggle to choose AL/NL only leagues. Dollar values will re-calculate with only those players included.
List Filters
Quickly view subsets of the list by position, age and team. I'm in the process of adding more filters like MiLB/MLB only, prospect levels and tiers.
Similar to the Top 500 Prospects list & PLIVE+, you can upload your Fantrax or CBS available players file and then toggle the filter to see the top available players in your league. Soon, tools will include Fantrax Salary & Contract information as well. If you need help with this, please reach out!
Updated Tools
This list and customizable values also feed into two tools in the app suite:
The Trade Analyzer tool sits on another page in the app suite, but it utilizes the Top 1300+ dynasty list as its backbone. All the same league setting options are here and if you were already changing settings on the dynasty list page, you can copy over those settings here.
The League Analyzer tool sits within the dynasty list in a tab that says "Evaluate League". You'll upload All Taken Players files from either Fantrax or CBS and be presented with cumulative team value given your league settings along with average player age & average player ownership %. From there you can toggle teams to see players and their values, age and ownership %.
Where To Find the List & Tools
The list and tools can be found in the PLIVE+ APP SUITE which is available to The 60 Tier Patreon subscribers ($10/mo). The app suite post above also has a google sheet of the Top 1300+ that includes the tiers I'll be working into the app later, some notes and peak projections for quick reference.
Additional Notes on List Creation & Future Editions
Jordan Rosenblum's Peak Projections that fuel PLIVE+ values (redraft version OOPSY now on Fangraphs) acted as my starting point. I then went and manually ordered players into positional ranks and grouped into tiers. Then tier by tier I folded in and manually ranked the positions together.
For consistency and a nod to the expertise of our dynasty team, 99% of the prospects in this list are ordered the same as our Top 500 list. I did move up a handful of 2025 impact players who I believe deserve to be ranked higher than their prospect rank translates on this list. Here are the prospects: Michael McGreevy, Joey Cantillo, Nick Yorke, Payton Eeles, Billy Cook, Alan Roden, Craig Yoho, Andrew Walters, Edgardo Henriquez, Zach Maxwell, Franco Aleman, Seth Halvorsen, Will Wagner, Caleb Durbin.
Because this list focuses on RP for saves only, the RP included is a bit lacking in comparison to other positions & prospects. I'll be adding more over time and hopefully figuring out a way to allow users to manipulate RP $ value.
There will likely be some readers who think I've undervalued prospects & younger players to a certain degree. I'm upfront about the fact that I prefer to build winning dynasty squads for 2025. In my opinion, among biases, the bias towards winning is one of best ones to have. If you hold this opinion, or are in a complete rebuild, the "Ding older players" toggle is there for you.
I plan on continually editing this list as news breaks and adding players that catch my attention that didn't make the initial cut. I also reserve the right to change a ranking that just doesn't sit right in-between larger updates.
Thanks for reading! Please reach out with any questions!