No. Reddit's front page ranking has no hidden metagaming from the mods. (The most they can do is hide it)
In terms of submissions getting to the front page and disappearing, that's a different issue entirely than insider privilege (namely, highly selective rule enforcement). The subreddit /r/undelete captures these incidents.
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/30z70k/reddit_ch...