Positional Scarcity, August 5

SP is the scarcest position by elite edge (+283); 1B is the deepest (+60).

"Catcher is thin" gets repeated every season and almost never measured. Measured, the picture is different: the position where an elite player beats what you can pick up for free by the widest margin is SP, and the position where he barely beats it at all is 1B.

Scarcity by position

Replacement is the average of the first three players at a position who would NOT be started in a twelve-team league, the best of what is sitting on waivers. The edge is what an elite player at that position gives you over him, and it is the only one of these numbers that changes a roster decision.

What this actually means

A big edge means paying up is justified: the drop to what you would otherwise run out is steep. A small one means the position is deep and the premium is mostly reputation, at 1B the waiver player is worth 329 and the elite one 389, a difference of 60, which is not worth a high pick or a large trade.

The elite tier at each position

The players carrying those edges.

What this means

Start with first base, because it is the one position where the table says outright that paying up is a mistake. Pete Alonso projects for 389 points. The best first baseman you do not start in a twelve-team league projects for 329. That is a gap of 60, the smallest on the board, and it is the whole argument. Sixty points across a season is a good month from a hot bench bat, or one waiver pickup who runs into a two-week heater. You do not spend a premium pick on 60 points.

The mechanism is not that first base is deep in bodies. Only 102 players qualify, the same count as catcher. It is that the ones who qualify are nearly interchangeable at the top: median starter 368, elite 389. Twenty-one points separate the middle of the position from its best player. Nowhere else on the diamond is the distribution that flat. Corner power is the most replaceable commodity in the game right now, and the market has not repriced it because the names at the top of first base are still famous names.

The best case against me is about eligibility drift, and it is a real case. That 329 replacement number is high partly because the first base pool absorbs qualified hitters from elsewhere, and a pool propped up by borrowed eligibility is fragile. Lose two of those swing bats to injury or to a manager who stops writing them in at first, and replacement level at the position falls toward the high 200s while Alonso stays at 389. Then the edge is not 60, it is 100, and I look silly. So here is the test: watch whether the guys you are counting on as your free first baseman keep starting there rather than in a corner outfield spot or at DH. If they do, hold the line and take the cheap bat. If replacement at the position visibly thins by midseason, that is when you pay, and you will pay less than you would have in March.

Spend on starting pitching. Skubal at 412 beats replacement by 283, more than four times the first base edge, and the reason is structural: replacement at starter is 129, the lowest mark for any position you fill multiple slots with. You dig deep into 197 eligible arms because you start a lot of them, and digging deep is exactly what drags the bottom of your rotation down. An ace does not just add points, he removes a start you would otherwise have to make from the 129 tier. Outfield is the second place to spend, and for a different reason. Crow-Armstrong at 464 is the highest raw projection anywhere, and with 294 eligible the replacement bar sits at 219, well under the median starter's 267.

Catcher deserves a sentence of its own, because the edge number misleads. The elite catcher edge is +132, but Dingler projects for only 285 and the replacement catcher for 153. The value at catcher is almost entirely in getting from 153 to the median 251, not in climbing the last 34 points to Dingler. Fill the slot competently and move on. Relievers are the same story with smaller stakes: 385 eligible, 69 points between Varland and the guy you leave on the bench. Ignore the position until the endgame.

The decision, plainly: take pitching and outfield early, take your first baseman from whatever falls, and be honest that the cost of being wrong is roughly one hitter's worth of production, not your season.

How to read this

Replacement level is what you can have for nothing. That is the correct baseline for a roster decision, a player is worth what he gives you over the alternative you would otherwise start, not what he produces in isolation.

Elite is the third-best player at the position rather than the first. The best player is usually unobtainable and using him would make every position look scarce; the third is someone a manager in a twelve-team league actually owns.

Players count at every position they qualify for, because that is how a roster uses them. Using only a primary position badly undercounts outfielders and depends on an ordering that carries no meaning.

The obvious version of this measure, how far value falls from the best player to the last startable one, mostly measures how good the best player is. Starting pitcher looks like the steepest cliff in baseball by that method, which says more about the top arm than about what you can stream.

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