While the 2016 Fantasy Starting Pitcher rankings certainly weren’t the first set of rankings you looked at this season, they are ones you’ll end up paying more than the normal amount of attention as the season wears on.

There are reasons for this!

Since Fantasy Baseball writers regularly expound on the great virtues of waiting for starting pitchers (smartly so!), owners usually end up working on their hitters first and foremost. Even if they do choose to draft a starting pitcher or two early – it’s still not several starting pitchers.

In Fantasy Baseball, the outfielders position is unlike any of the others, despite having the looks of the other hitting positions. Our 2016 Fantasy outfielders rankings exhibit the differences you should understand.

With other Fantasy Baseball positions, you’re usually dealing with mostly power hitters (corner infielders) or run producers with speed (middle infielders) or players you’re just hoping don’t sink you (catchers).

In recent years, the third base position has thinned out just a bit, but you’ll certainly find that’s no longer true with our 2016 Fantasy Third Basemen Rankings.

While it’s true that Edwin Encarnacion and Miguel Cabrera have defected over to the not-so-defense-heavy first base side, along with Ryan Zimmerman, there’s still no reason to panic!

Anyone that has read my columns over the past 15 years knows that I’m a big fan of the catcher position, and as usual, I kick off my rankings with the 2016 Fantasy Catcher Rankings.

The position often gets looked over because the 30-HR hitters at this position are few and far between.

How often do we dip into the slow, plodding first basemen in order to bulk up on our power numbers? Our 2016 Fantasy First Basemen rankings are full of guys that swing a bit bat, but are adept on the field enough to stay out of the designated hitter’s spot.

It’s understood that our 2016 Fantasy Relief Pitcher rankings are likely going to change faster than any other set of position rankings on this site.

It’s not to say ours aren’t good rankings, but instead, that even good closer rankings are subject to the insanity that is the ninth inning in Major League Baseball.

Why is the closer position the most volatile position in sports, though? Why does this position, year in and year out, go through the most changes compared to every other position in baseball – and sports?

I’m a much bigger fan of looking at individual position rankings for my cheatsheet, helping me see which positions have depth available, allowing me to build my best lineup. But looking at the top 250 Overall Fantasy Baseball Player Rankings has its advantages as well, especially in the early part of the draft.

For the first round of every draft, of course, you like to know how the best players rank against each other. For instance, I like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper better than Paul Goldschmidt if you have one of the top two picks.

Remember back in the day when Alfonso Soriano and Bret Boone were crushing 30 bombs a season? As you look through these 2016 Fantasy Second Basemen rankings, you won’t find any 30-HR 2Bs, and you’ll be happy if you can even pull a 20-HR second baseman.

We were spoiled on Fantasy Shortstops back in the day, when we had Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Miguel Tejada and Derek Jeter in his prime. Over the past few years, we’ve struggled to find much at the position outside of a healthy-once-in-a-while Troy Tulowitzki and Jose Reyes.