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Thursday, February 16, 2012

Staff rankings: Shortstop

Posted by Nick Fleder at 5:04am

We've made it through the right side of the infield and have touched upon the catchers as well. Next up are the enigmatic shortstops, ranked up to 25, below. The staffers who ranked are Josh Shepardson, Ben Pritchett, Brad Johnson, and yours truly. We used FantasyPros.com to create our composite rankings, and if you follow the link provided in our rankings, you can see how ours compared with a slew of other experts'.

Assume a 12-team, mixed league, with standard 5x5 settings. Click on the links with our names to get to our Twitter accounts, where we'll happily answer your baseball and fantasy questions year-round. A quick recap of the rankings we've already crossed off: Catcher, first base, and second base.




























2012 Short Stops Rankings
Player NameNick
Fleder		Ben
Prichett		Josh
Shepardson		Brad
Johnson		THT
Composite		FantasyPros
Expert Consensus
Troy Tulowitzki11111compare
Hanley Ramirez22232compare
Jose Reyes43323compare
Starlin Castro54444compare
Asdrubal Cabrera36565compare
Elvis Andrus65756compare
Jimmy Rollins77687compare
Alexei Ramirez98978compare
Derek Jeter1011899compare
Dee Gordon89121210compare
J.J. Hardy1310111011compare
Erick Aybar1112131412compare
Jhonny Peralta1515101113compare
Emilio Bonifacio1213141714compare
Stephen Drew1614161315compare
Yunel Escobar1421151516compare
Ian Desmond1917181817compare
Zack Cozart2118192018compare
Alcides Escobar1819212119compare
Jed Lowrie2016202620compare
Marco Scutaro1724221921compare
Rafael Furcal2326231622compare
Cliff Pennington2527172523compare
Tyler Pastornicky222225–24compare
Sean Rodriguez–23–2225compare

Fantasy Baseball Rankings powered by FantasyPros, the leading aggregator of expert fantasy advice.

Tomorrow... Third base

Nick can be reached for questions, comments, or concerns via email: nick.fleder AT gmail DOT com.


Positively Half St. said...

I felt sure that Ian Desmond would rank even lower. I’ll take 17th, and hope he improves.

+1/2St.

Posted 02/16  at  07:50 AM
Brad Johnson said...

I don’t actually have too many thoughts on this list. My fellows who ranked Tyler Pastornicky are going to be unhappy if he’s their backup plan. He’s not going to hit enough for any but the deepest leagues.

The sleeper here is Mike Aviles who could easily put up a season comparable in total value to Desmond under the right conditions.

Posted 02/16  at  08:18 AM
Ben Pritchett said...

@Brad- If the Braves don’t start Pastornicky over Jack Wilson I will storm that front office. The Braves chose not to address the shortstop position through trades or free agency so now they have to deal with the consequences. I’m not bitter at all!

Posted 02/16  at  10:20 AM
Nick Fleder said...

Agreed wholeheartedly Ben. Oliver likes Pastornicky, Brad: 8 homers, 51 ribbies, 24 steals, .258… Bullish, maybe, but nothing to whiff at as the 24th ranked SS.

Posted 02/16  at  10:29 AM
Brad Johnson said...

Oh, I don’t doubt Pastornicky will play most of the time, at least to start, I just expect him to be utterly overmatched at the plate. Which could mean more Jack Wilson down the line.

Posted 02/16  at  10:35 AM
Nick Fleder said...

Unless he’s somehow worse than a 55 wRC+, he probably wont yield time to Wilson. Pastor would have to be incredibly inept in the field, too.

Posted 02/16  at  10:39 AM
Ben Pritchett said...

FWIW, here’s Fangraphs’ scouting report on Pastornicky. It’s not bad and free which is always good.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/tyler-pastornicky-atlanta-braves-shortstop-prospect-starter-2012

Posted 02/16  at  11:00 AM
Brad Johnson said...

Nick,

Two words, one name:

Fredi Gonzalez

Posted 02/16  at  11:21 AM
Dave Shovein said...

I like this list better than the 2B list overall, but I do have a few observations here as well.

I think Andrus should be ranked ahead of Asdrubal, but that’s probably just a personal preference.

I think that Bonifacio is too low, I’d bump him up ahead of Peralta, Aybar and Hardy.

I’d probably also put Cozart a spot or two higher, ahead of Drew and Escobar

I’d drop Pastornicky off the back end of the list and include Aviles or Alex Gonzalez

Posted 02/16  at  11:22 AM
Brad Johnson said...

Two of us had Elvis ahead of Asdrubal, so consider team consensus to be split on that pick.

I’m probably guilty of subconsciously considering OPS since my home league uses that instead of AVG. Bonifacio still strikes me as a steals only guy who could otherwise hurt you across the board. I’m only investing at the cheapest of costs. In an OPS league, he can be lethal - as can most baserunners.

Posted 02/16  at  11:41 AM
MH said...

@Nick

A bit surprised at your bullishness on Asdrubal following the discussion of Kendrick at 2B—it seems like a similar situation.  I’m more willing to buy into some of the power gains that Asdrubal made last year—he’s not nearly the ground ball machine Kendrick is, already had a 40 double season to his credit before last year, and didn’t see the same K% spike—but I don’t see him matching last year’s power output and his upside in AVG is more limited. 

That might be nitpicking though, I don’t see a huge difference in value between Asdrubal and Starlin Castro.  I’d probably have Castro ahead by a nose, but that’s at least partly just because of the scarcity of AVG security, which he brings.  I see Rollins as pretty similar in value to these two also, with a bit more power-speed potential than Cabrera but the weakest in AVG. 

I do think you’ve gotta be really worried about Reyes to rank any of these guys ahead of him though.  In a sense, I can see writing off the AVG as a fluke and thus view the single digit HR and less than 40 steals as a warning sign, but he did also have the best contact rate of his career by a solid margin (and it was very good already) while his ISO was above his career rate despite a HR/FB below his career rate.  The days of 60+ SB may be over, but I’m not ready to write off double digit homers for him yet, and the AVG boost looks less flukey than a lot of other cases of players having monster AVG years.  I have him at around .295-90-50-10-35 pretty comfortably, which is a pretty large jump ahead of anyone besides Tulo and potentially Hanley.  Injury is always a risk, but even in a year where he had a hamstring injury and a recurrence, the only marks on that line he didn’t best in 2011 were the HR and RBI.

Posted 02/16  at  11:48 AM
MH said...

@Dave,

Agreed on Cozart, but less on Bonifacio.  Might have him ahead of Peralta, even Hardy maybe, but I prefer Aybar.  Saving those thoughts for another time at the moment though.

Posted 02/16  at  11:51 AM
Nick Fleder said...

MH: Asdrubal experienced much of his regression to the mean in the second half of last year. He hit .266 in July, .239 in August, .234 in September; his BABIP ended up .21 lower than his career mark and he still hit .273. He was two batting average percentage points from being league average or above, per linear weights, in all five major categories. Sure, he probably won’t hit 25 homers again, but his runs/rbis are prettier.

I like Castro, too, and considered him at 3 or 4. Don’t know, honestly, why I have Reyes that high. He has zero shot of hitting that well again, little chance at a clean bill of health, a fat contract to fall into laziness under. He’s a perpetual red flag and I never draft him. Agreed totally there.

Posted 02/16  at  12:04 PM
MH said...

@Nick

My bad, I think I worded that confusingly on Reyes, I meant to suggest I don’t see how you can rank Reyes lower than 3rd. 

Again—career best contact profile (7% K%, 4.1% SwStrike, 90.2% Contact%, 1.05 BB/K, all elite marks, career bests, and much better than Castro) so even with a BABIP correction he should still be above .290 and likely in the .300 neighborhood.  His ISO was better than his career rate despite a HR/FB below so I don’t think you can write double-digit power off.  The only think I think you can write off is 60+ steals, but even in a year where he had two DL trips he stole 39 and scored more than 100 runs.  I’m not saying I crazy about drafting him at his price, but I think he’s a clear #3 at worst, possibly #2, and there’s a large dropoff after the Top 3.  I’d be all over him if he fell past the second round. 

I would have Castro and Asdrubal and 4 and 5 though, but I don’t necessarily expect a big positive BABIP regression from Asdrubal.  His BABIP was below his career mark, but it was still .302, and his FB% was a career high as well, so you’d expect a slightly lower than typical BABIP.  Subtract a handful of home runs and the AVG is basically a wash even with a touch of BABIP improvement.  I see ~.275 as his true talent level.

Posted 02/16  at  12:21 PM
Brad Johnson said...

Shortstop is a good position to demo how my actual draftboard differs from my theoretical board above.

Tulo
Castro
Andrus
Cabrera
Ramirez
Peralta
Drew
Y. Escobar
Furcal
Scutaro

If I don’t get one of those names at a reasonable price, then I’ll take care of SS at the end. The other 15 names above are just noise to me.

Posted 02/16  at  12:31 PM
Nick Fleder said...

MH: I doubt Reyes will put up such an impressive average next year and his SB rate seems stuck between 30-40. So you’re buying 30+ games of injury as a baseline, and he was the #2 shortstop last year; #5 the year before; and wasn’t among the top 36 in 2009. He’s probably closer to the middle—of course 2009 was riddled by injury - and an average of 2010 and 2011 would be the upside for me at this point.

Posted 02/16  at  01:51 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

While our top 10 look similar, i feel my 10-20 rankings will be a bit controversial:

Rank   Player Name   Team
1   Troy Tulowitzki   COL
2   Hanley Ramirez   MIA
3   Jose Reyes   MIA
4   Starlin Castro   CHC
5   Asdrubal Cabrera   CLE
6   Elvis Andrus   TEX
7   Jimmy Rollins   PHI
8   Derek Jeter   NYY
9   Alexei Ramirez   CHW
10   J.J. Hardy   BAL
11   Dee Gordon   LAD
12   Erick Aybar   ANA
13   Jhonny Peralta   DET
14   Emilio Bonifacio   MIA
15   Stephen Drew   ARI
16   Tyler Pastornicky   ATL
17   Yunel Escobar   TOR
18   Alcides Escobar   KCR
19   Ian Desmond   WAS
20   Zack Cozart   CIN
  Just missed: Cliff Pennington, Alex Gonzalez

Posted 02/16  at  02:53 PM
Brad Johnson said...

I don’t see anything unusual aside from Pastornicky and Cozart. Isn’t Pastornicky’s upside supposed to be Cozart?

Posted 02/16  at  02:58 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

I personally see Cozart as a 10/15 guy, but Pastornicky as a 5-8/25 guy. Otherwise very similar. I just think Pastonicky has more overall upside. My issue with Cozart is that he looks like a Mike Aviles type with less speed.

Speaking of which, if Aviles get regular playing time….

Oh dont worry, i wont beat that drum again…

Posted 02/16  at  03:03 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

Brad, I also agree with you about Aviles. If he gets regular PT, I could seek him just barley cracking the top 15 among SS

Posted 02/16  at  03:05 PM
MH said...

@Nick

I hear what you’re saying, but I do think you’re underselling him a bit.  He doesn’t have to hit .340 again to be a positive contributor in AVG, and the projection systems buy into the AVG spike: 

ZiPS:  .297-77-47-10-33 (499 AB, they don’t list PA)
James: .303-92-51-10-36 (594 PA)
Rotochamp:  .301-87-56-9-35 (599 PA)

(Keep in mind, he’s fallen shy of 600 PAs just twice in his career, 2011, when he had 586, and 2009, when he missed most of the year, and his upside is over 700 PAs if you assume there’s a non-zero chance he plays in 150+ games).


I don’t have the Oliver forecast (I know! I know!), but at least these three are buying the AVG gains, and all three of those are better than you’ll see for SS projections not next to the names Hanley or Tulo.  Its basically the same as Castro with about double the SB, or Andrus with more power and AVG, and while he likely won’t match Cabrera’s power or RBI, he’ll trump him by a decent margin in the other three cats.  The risk of injury and low replacement level of the position probably make him a poor investment at the prices he’s going at, but ignoring price, he’s in the top 3, and there’s a pretty big dropoff after that group.

@Jeffrey

Flip Cozart and Pastornicky and I’d be on board with that 10-20.  Otherwise the only guys you’re substantially higher on than I am are Andrus and Alexei.

Posted 02/16  at  03:06 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

THT Forecast 2012 projection for Cozart:

Period   Org   Lg   Age   PA   AB   R   H   2B   3B   HR   RBI   SB   CS   K   BB   HBP   GDP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS   wOBA
Year to Date   CIN   NL   26   0  
Full Year   CIN   NL   26   623   571   67   141   28   2   14   65   10   3   115   38   4   12   .246   .296   .380   .676   .296

Posted 02/16  at  03:18 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

THT Forcast projection for Pastornicky

Period   Org   Lg   Age   PA   AB   R   H   2B   3B   HR   RBI   SB   CS   K   BB   HBP   GDP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS   wOBA
Full Year   ATL   NL   22   623   561   70   144   19   5   8   51   24   9   85   39   2   12   .258   .301   .356   .657   .289

Posted 02/16  at  03:19 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

Over a rimilar PA forecast, Pastornicky is projected for -7 HR, +14 SB, and +.010 AVG.

I’ll have to run the numbers on SB:HR scarcity, but if memory serves it’s something like a 2:3 relationship.

Posted 02/16  at  03:22 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

The problem with Andrus ahead of Cabrera, IMO, is two fold:
1) Andrus has SB% issues and the Rangers have never been afraid to issue the red light. As a largely two, maybe 3, dimensional player, a red light on the basepaths is a serious looming risk

2) Cabrera is more balanced. You won’t get 30 steals, but 15/15 seems pretty certain. I’ve always been a fan of Cabrera as a 15+/15/.270-.280 player (see last year’s preseason rankings), and that balance has a lot of value because if he falls short in any one category, he’s easier to supplement the loss with other players used strategically while still providing value in other categories.

Speaking of cabrera, what the hell ever happened to everth cabrera?

Posted 02/16  at  03:30 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

Last year, 4552 home runs were hit, while 3279 bases were stolen. Tango’s old and rough auctions value formula essentially pegs a HR as being worth 5-6% more than a stolen bases.

Take away from that all what you will

Posted 02/16  at  04:34 PM
MH said...

@Jeffrey

I agree.  I’ve never understood the fantasy community’s infatuation with Andrus.  I get that he’s young and has some growth potential, but I’d love to see him steal more than 40 bases or have a GB% below 55% if he’s going to top his AVG out at .280 before I invested significantly in him.

Posted 02/16  at  04:37 PM
Jeffrey Gross said...

That said, batting behind Kinsler and ahead of Hamilton/Young/Cruz/Napoli certainly has its benefits. I think a guy like Andrus certainly has top 10 SS value in the upper 6-10 range, but I prefer a little less overall value when the production line is relatively weak for a little more balance. I’d rather have a .280/10/10/70/70-capable SS over Andrus just because, even if he total value is lesser, his contribution is more spread out and diversified.

Posted 02/16  at  04:42 PM
Brad Johnson said...

Keep in mind, a home run contributes to four categories while a steal contributes to one. That’s a very first order analysis, but it’s something to bear in mind as a general concept.

Posted 02/16  at  04:46 PM
MH said...

@Jeffrey

Agreed, he does have more of a floor particularly in R than similar players.  It just feels despite how young he is he’s already been valued by the market as a Top 5 SS for years and I don’t see him as particularly close to that.

Posted 02/16  at  04:58 PM
Greg Simons said...

In an 8-team, NL-only, 5x5 league, would you keep Stephen Drew at $8?

Tulo, Reyes and Castro all definitely will be kept by other owners, and Rollins, Bonifacio and Desmond might be, as well.

Thanks, guys.

Posted 02/16  at  11:29 PM
Brad Johnson said...

What other constraints do you have, such as # of keepers, budget, etc.

Posted 02/17  at  08:08 AM
Greg Simons said...

No keeper limit, I’ve converted our salary scale to the standard $260.  Traditional 23-player roto setup.

My pitching keepers are: Latos ($6), Strasburg ($6), Josh Johnson ($4), Anibal Sanchez ($1), Bumgarner ($1), Luebke ($1), Wainwright ($1).  Yes, I like my starting staff.

Hitting keeper are: Y. Molina ($3), Gaby Sanchez ($13), Freese ($1), Morse ($9).  Obviously, I need hitting.

Alternatives to Drew are Dee Brown, Pastornicky, maybe Furcal and Cozart.

There seem to be slim pickings on offense all around, but I have money to spend on the top guys available - J. Upton, McCutchen, Sandoval, McCann, etc.

Posted 02/17  at  11:04 AM
Brad Johnson said...

Yea just keep him and try to draft Gordon anyway. Somebody else will jump aboard an $8 Drew at some point.

Posted 02/17  at  11:16 AM
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