Well, I can't sidestep the obvious today.
Angels SP John Lackey will miss at least the first month of the season with triceps tendinitis -- and possibly more, depending on the team's re-evaluation of him at that point. Unlike Prince Fielder's conversion to tofu (which I hopefully tackled yesterday), this news should send shock waves through the Fantasy community because a presumed ace now no longer fits the description.
I mean it: Lackey, a 19-game winner last year who finished third in Cy Young voting, now has the rug pulled completely out from under him. And triceps tendinitis is such a vague injury with such an uncertain prognosis that I almost expect that early timetable of one month to extend even longer. I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, and I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I wouldn't fall out of my chair if this "tendinitis" developed into a season-ending injury at some point. This isn't the case of Yovani Gallardo, who suffered a freak injury with a clear resolution and recovery (and to his leg, not his arm). Lackey has me running scared.
How scared? Well, based on what I know right now, I have to drop him from my second to my third tier of starting pitchers -- in the A.J. Burnett/Francisco Liriano range, because he comes with similar upside and risk. I reserve the right to drop him even further, though, and if push came to shove in an actual draft, I could see myself taking John Maine over him.
In light of this injury news, now seems like an appropriate time to revisit my tiers, offering you the latest update from the most recent developments in spring training. Also, with the final installment of my Draft Day Dos and Don'ts series currently featured on the site, I want to make my tiers easier for the newcomers to find.
Anchors away.
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In case you don't know what I mean by "tiers," I'll direct you to two of my columns: Draft Day Dos and Don'ts, Part I and Draft Day Dos and Don'ts, Part IV. In fact, you should just go read the whole Draft Day Dos and Don'ts series. I won't get paid more money if you do, but I'll feel awfully good inside.
Now, I want to clear up a few issues on these tiers before I go right into them. Obviously, I created them from my own personal rankings, not the CBSSports.com defaults. I encourage you to create your own tiers based on your own rankings, but if you want a guide, you now have mine.
I tried to make my rankings as generic as possible, meaning they don't appeal to any particular scoring system. I would obviously fine-tune them based on the scoring system, and certain players would make dramatic leaps higher or l
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