History tells us it is hardly a given that the best baseball players in past full seasons are going to be the best ones during a future half-season. There is constant and often unpredictable volatility regardless of position, but that does not necessarily mean we should rip up our original rankings, either. Mike Trout and Gerrit Cole should be statistically awesome whether the season is 162 games or half of that, but we also know that strange things happen in smaller sample sizes. Hot streaks — and cold ones — and injuries and ballparks and a plethora of other factors will affect statistics.
ESPN MLB writers Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield mapped out their thoughts on a potential shortened season with historical data, statistical projections and random thoughts, so it only seems fair for some fantasy analysis as well. My general belief is that fantasy managers will want to