All Star Break Consensus Ranks: Shortstop
There’s some decent movement in the shortstop rankings.
A lot of the movement was a long time coming. Larger samples have made the starts by Jean Segura, Everth Cabrera and Jed Lowrie more believable. Segura’s batting average came back to earth, but there are more reasons to believe in his power now. Everth Cabrera still doesn’t have any power, and is pretty bad with the glove, but his new contact rate now comes in a bigger sample now. Maybe he isn’t doomed to hit .250+ going forward. Jed Lowrie has managed to avoid catastrophic injury too. He’s one or two games away from a career high in plate appearances!
There’s still some hope for the droppers, but there’s a decent theme running through some of them. Starlin Castro, Elvis Andrus, Alcides Escobar, Andrelton Simmons: these are young men that seemed to be on one trajectory that have taken a step back. Is it a half-season step back, or do we have to recalibrate what we expect for them for the rest of their careers? Those questions seem worth in-depth looks.
It does look like the shortstops have proven that they are once again the worst offensive position. Catchers can complain, second basemen had their chances, but shortstops… having to roster Yunel Escobar in a 15-teamer with an MI slot has got to be painful.
With the color-coding we hope to highlight the biggest movers. That definition changes as you follow the ranks down the list — players had to move more to register a color change as you near the bottom of the list. These are rest-of-season rankings for 5×5 roto. Jeff Zimmerman’s rankings are a combination of ZiPs and Steamer rest-of-season projections with playing time determined by our depth charts. You can find the projections on every player page and the depth charts here.
RG | Player | ES | JZ | MP | ZS |
1 | Troy Tulowitzki | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
2 | Jose Reyes | 2 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
3 | Ian Desmond | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
4 | Hanley Ramirez | 4 | 2 | 2 | 7 |
5 | Jean Segura | 5 | 6 | 5 | 5 |
6 | Ben Zobrist | 7 | 8 | 6 | 8 |
7 | Starlin Castro | 8 | 5 | 7 | 10 |
8 | Everth Cabrera | 6 | 16 | 9 | 6 |
9 | Asdrubal Cabrera | 9 | 14 | 8 | 9 |
10 | Elvis Andrus | 10 | 7 | 10 | 14 |
11 | Jimmy Rollins | 14 | 13 | 11 | 12 |
12 | Alexei Ramirez | 16 | 10 | 12 | 15 |
13 | Jed Lowrie | 12 | 26 | 15 | 4 |
14 | Martin Prado | 11 | 9 | 19 | 19 |
15 | J.J. Hardy | 17 | 17 | 16 | 17 |
16 | Nick Franklin | 13 | 30 | 14 | 13 |
17 | Erick Aybar | 22 | 15 | 23 | 11 |
18 | Alcides Escobar | 15 | 12 | 20 | 25 |
19 | Jhonny Peralta | 21 | 20 | 17 | 18 |
20 | Brad Miller | 18 | 24 | 13 | 22 |
21 | Andrelton Simmons | 19 | 18 | 21 | 28 |
22 | Derek Jeter | 20 | 19 | 18 | 31 |
23 | Zack Cozart | 27 | 23 | 25 | 29 |
24 | Didi Gregorius | 24 | 41 | 22 | 20 |
25 | Brandon Crawford | 23 | 40 | 29 | 16 |
26 | Yunel Escobar | 30 | 22 | 27 | 30 |
27 | Jurickson Profar | 31 | 27 | 36 | 21 |
28 | Mike Aviles | 32 | 25 | 37 | 23 |
29 | Stephen Drew | 26 | 39 | 26 | 27 |
30 | Jordy Mercer | 25 | 41 | 30 | 26 |
31 | Josh Rutledge | 29 | 29 | 35 | 35 |
32 | Ruben Tejada | 33 | 33 | 41 | 24 |
33 | Jose Iglesias | 28 | 41 | 31 | 32 |
34 | Brian Dozier | 33 | 38 | 28 | 34 |
35 | Danny Espinosa | 37 | 21 | 41 | 41 |
36 | Cliff Pennington | 34 | 28 | 41 | 40 |
37 | Grant Green | 39 | 31 | 38 | 37 |
38 | Maicer Izturis | 32 | 41 | 39 | 36 |
39 | Eric Sogard | 34 | 41 | 41 | 33 |
40 | Pedro Florimon | 36 | 41 | 33 | 41 |
41 | Dee Gordon | 38 | 32 | 41 | 41 |
42 | Daniel Descalso | 36 | 34 | 41 | 41 |
43 | Marwin Gonzalez | 40 | 41 | 32 | 39 |
44 | Billy Hamilton | 35 | 41 | 41 | 38 |
Also ranked once were Adeiny Hechavarria and Rafael Furcal.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Rollins seems low but my only argument to rank him higher is track record and his 2nd half from 2012. He always ends up a top 5 SS in 5×5.
Only issue with Rollins is that he doesn’t hit for average anymore, his power is more or less gone, and he doesn’t run anymore either. Throw in the atrocious offense taking a crap on his run and RBI totals….
Outside of that, He’s got all the makings of a top-5 SS