Remember the excitement over Matt Wieters‘ debut only several years ago? The hype was so over the top, an entire website was created to list all of his “accomplishments” and “facts”. Now having logged 2,031 plate appearances with just a .327 career wOBA, it’s fair to say that Wieters has been a disappointment to many so far. He was also one for fantasy owners this season who hoped for that big breakout finally, but he earned just $10, ranking him 8th among catchers. Is this it or is the big breakout finally coming next season?

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No, I’m not alluding to Alexander the Great or commenting on Chris Young’s agility, which I’m sure he possesses boatloads of. Back on October 20, Young came to the Beane, as he was traded to Oakland to give them their bajillionth outfielder. Without even looking at numbers, we could be pretty sure that all else equal, Young’s performance will suffer moving into spacious O.co Coliseum (can I officially nominate this as the worst name for an MLB park? thanks). But of course, this is FanGraphs, and we’re all about our calculators and slide rules, so let’s see exactly how his production may be affected.

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Who was one of the most surprising shortstops this season? Your fourth ranked Nationals breakout star Ian Desmond, who earned $19 this season. Obviously, no one saw this coming. The RotoGraphs consensus ranked him just 15th at the position, and no one was more optimstic than Jeff Zimmerman at 14, whose ranking was based on ZiPS projections. If it weren’t for a torn oblique injury that forced him to miss nearly a month of the season, his counting stats, and resulting ranking, would have been even better. So has he established a new level of skill, or was this just a typical career year ripe for regression?

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How often does a 22 year old actually perform basically right in line with pre-season expectations? Well, Starlin Castro pretty much did just that this season. According to Zach Sanders’ calculator, he earned $18, ranking him 5th among shortstops. Our RotoGraphs consensus rankings slotted him fourth, so Castro did what he was supposed to. Top players are certainly expected to be consistent year in and year out, but this was only Castro’s third full season, so really, a major breakout or a flop wouldn’t have been too surprising. So what does the future hold for young Starlin?

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This week is all about the hot corner. Our own mathemagician Zach Sanders published his final season rankings and dollar values for third basemen this morning. Sitting all the way down at a disappointing 19, with just $4 earned, is the Blue Jays’ third sacker Brett Lawrie. In the pre-season, we were pretty consistent with our opinon on Lawrie and ranked him fifth overall, tied with Adrian Beltre. Were we suckered in by his sizzling play in 2011 in a small sample of just 150 at-bats?

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Before the season, Neil Walker basically epitomized the term “blah” when describing his fantasy baseball prospects. He was expected to contribute a little here and a little there, but not stand out in any one category. These types of players always seem boring, but are typically undervalued as the perceived value of their across the board contributions are less than those from the speed demons or big power hitters. Surprisingly, we had a bit of disparity in our pre-season rankings, as they ranged from 9 to 15, with a consensus of 13. I personally came in at 15, which provides yet a second surprise given the fact that I boldly predicted that Walker would earn top five value at second base.

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This morning, Zach Sanders sprinkled his fairy dust and like magic, every second baseman’s season stat line produced a dollar value. Sitting down at 21, with earnings of a mere $4, is the Mariners sophomore, Dustin Ackley. Though he had just 333 big league at-bats to his name heading into the season, the RotoGraphs pre-season rankers were actually relatively agreeable about our performance expectations. His rank sat in a narrow range between 13 and 17, which was a bit surprising for a young guy who many people really liked, and others, not so much.

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Josh Rutledge has been filling in at shortstop for the injured Troy Tulowitzki and has done quite an admirable job, having posted an impressive .445 wOBA over 84 plate appearances. Unfortunately, we have no projections from any sources for the rookie and fantasy owners are left wondering what to expect from him for the rest of the season. Fear not loyal RotoGraphs reader, the Pod Projections have returned to answer that very question.

I have decided to project him assuming a full season to give you an idea of what he would do on a pro-rated basis. His current statistics are not factored into the final projected stat line. They are only used to help formulate the projected underlying metrics themselves.

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I am foregoing my weekly AL starting pitcher post to hit on a more timely topic today. As you know, we have been unveiling our consensus rankings by position, and yesterday, we published the second sackers. As expected with any set of rankings from multiple people, there were many examples where our opinions diverged. Jose Altuve was one such player, so I thought it would be fitting to jump back onto the Pod hitter projections train and analyze my projection and how I got to that number nine ranking. In addition, if I find my ranking of a player is far off from the consensus, I then go back to my own projection to make sure I wasn’t unreasonably optimistic or pessimistic.

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After finally having somewhat of a breakout season in 2010, after showing little progress over the previous three seasons, Delmon Young disappointed once again last season, actually posting the worst wOBA of his career. He dealt with injuries to his oblique and ankle, which limited him to 473 at-bats and likely hurt his production. With the addition of Prince Fielder, let’s see if we should expect a rebound.

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