The Market Report is a weekly analysis of player valuations in the fantasy marketplace in an effort to find undervalued commodities.

By Andrew Gephardt

It’s time for the final installment in our series in which we’ve analyzed the pre-set rankings provided by popular fantasy baseball sites. This week let’s compare CBS’s rankings to those of Mock Draft Central.

Here are the greatest discrepancies between this pair of rankings:

10 Hitters Ranked Significantly Higher by CBS (by Value Difference)

1. Joe Mauer
2. Derek Jeter
3. Dustin Pedroia
4. Drew Stubbs
5. Alcides Escobar
6. Juan Pierre
7. Curtis Granderson
8. Mark DeRosa
9. Rickie Weeks
10. Ryan Braun

10 Hitters Ranked Significantly Higher by CBS (by Draft Position Difference)

1. Drew Stubbs
2. Alcides Escobar
3. Mark DeRosa
4. Juan Pierre
5. Franklin Gutierrez
6. Rickie Weeks
7. Adrian Beltre
8. Julio Borbon
9. Ryan Doumit
10. Russell Martin

22 of the 25 players ranked significantly higher by CBS were pitchers

10 Pitchers Ranked Significantly Higher by CBS (by Value Difference)

1. Huston Street
2. Derek Lowe
3. Brian Wilson
4. David Aardsma
5. Ryan Franklin
6. Chris Carpenter
7. Scott Kazmir
8. Roy Halladay
9. Hiroki Kuroda
10. John Maine

10 Pitchers Ranked Significantly Higher by CBS (by Draft Position Difference)

1. Derek Lowe
2. John Maine
3. Hiroki Kuroda
4. Aaron Harang
5. Leo Nunez
6. Joe Blanton
7. Wade Davis
8. Huston Street
9. David Aardsma
10. Scott Kazmir

10 Hitters Ranked Significantly Lower by CBS (by Value Difference)

1. Brandon Phillips
2. Jayson Werth
3. Joey Votto
4. Justin Upton
5. Stephen Drew
6. David Wright
7. Aramis Ramirez
8. Josh Hamilton
9. Nate McLouth
10. Carlos Pena

In a recent article on CBS Sports, one of their experts called Joey Votto "underrated." So why does CBS have him ranked lower than the masses?

10 Hitters Ranked Significantly Lower by CBS (by Draft Position Difference)

1. Rafael Furcal
2. Orlando Hudson
3. Jermaine Dye
4. Miguel Tejada
5. Stephen Drew
6. Jay Bruce
7. Carlos Gonzalez
8. Jason Kubel
9. Brad Hawpe
10. Brandon Phillips

10 Pitchers Ranked Significantly Lower by CBS (by Value Difference)

1. Neftali Feliz
2. Ricky Nolasco
3. Bobby Jenks
4. Edwin Jackson
5. Brett Anderson
6. Ted Lilly
7. Rick Porcello
8. Andy Pettitte
9. Joba Chamberlain
10. Jorge de la Rosa

5 Pitchers Ranked Significantly Lower by CBS (by Draft Position Difference)

1. Neftali Feliz
2. Brett Anderson
3. Ted Lilly
4. Rick Porcello
5. Andy Pettitte

So what general trends do we find from these lists? First of all, CBS absolutely loves pitchers, especially closers. That final list is short for a reason. Among Mock Draft Central’s Top 200, I could only find five pitchers whom CBS ranked more than ten spots lower than did Mock Draft Central. Meanwhile, hitters like Stephen Drew rank nearly 100 spots lower on CBS. Moreover, closers are ranked higher on CBS virtually across the board (with Bobby Jenks one noticeable exception).

On the hitting side, CBS seems to value players with a mix of adequate power and speed like Jeter, Pedroia, Granderson, and Weeks. On the other hand, CBS doesn’t value players with great upside such as Justin Upton and Carlos Gonzalez as well as players coming off disappointing seasons like David Wright and Josh Hamilton.

Overall, I’m glad that most of my leagues will be using CBS as the designated site of use. After all, the rankings for CBS are in my opinion much more inaccurate than those of Yahoo or ESPN. Joey Votto and Jayson Werth outside the top 70? Brandon Phillips and Aramis Ramirez outside the top 100? Jay Bruce, Stephen Drew, and Carlos Gonzalez outside the top 200? Some of these pre-set rankings are truly absurd.

Now it goes without saying that just because a pre-set ranking has a player at a certain spot doesn’t necessarily mean that the player will get drafted relatively close to that position. Even so, one would think that there’s a far greater chance for some of these players to fall relative to leagues on other sites simply due to the lower pre-set rankings.