There’s nothing terribly sexy about Alexei Ramirez as a fantasy baseball player, despite his 2014 line. He batted .273 with 15 home runs and 21 stolen bases this past season, but we know that power isn’t a big part of his game anymore. This year’s homer total clearly pushed some of that volume in RBIs and runs scored.

Come to think of it, there’s nothing terribly sexy about Ramirez, period. He’s listed at 6-foot-2, 180 pounds (incidentally, also my dimensions). Look at him. He’s a stick. Granted, some people find men like him extremely attractive. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I’m confident that folks in that demographic don’t make up the majority. He doesn’t exactly fit the image of the prevailing notion of a hot slab of man beef.

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After losing four categories of production in 2013, Jimmy Rollins disappeared from draft boards around the country. Nobody wanted a piece of his age 35 season when it seemed like his career might be winding down. However, I boldly predicted 40 home runs plus steals (HR+SB) in a rebound season, and Rollins provided the goods. For a player I acquired in most of my leagues for $3 or less, Rollins turned around with $16 of value. According to FantasyPros, he averaged just $4 to acquire.

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It’s been more than a decade since Jose Reyes broke into the majors, and for this Mets fan, who grew up in Shea’s baseball wasteland of the ’90s when the likes of Jay Payton, Paul Wilson and Rey Ordonez were paraded around as can’t-miss future superstars, the teenaged shortstop’s arrival was indescribably refreshing and exciting. Here, at last, was a homegrown all-star who was a natural leadoff hitter, excellent fielder and stolen base machine whose energy, smile, youth and awe-inspiring talent seemed to spell the coming of better days in Flushing.

Eleven years and two teams later, it’s still a bit unsettling to talk about Reyes as an aging ballplayer, though his injury history and 31 years of age make it unavoidable. But the star power continues to shine, as Reyes this year finished second among all shortstops in Zach Sanders’ end of the year rankings, first at the position in standard CBS formats and 36th overall on ESPN’s Player Rater, re-establishing his credentials as an early-round candidate after an injury-marred 2013 campaign.
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The Javier Baez era has begun. Perhaps it did so a bit sooner than most had anticipated. Baez came up as a shortstop, but someone named Starlin Castro had solidified himself at the position in Cubby Land. So in 2014, Baez was pushed over to second base to accelerate his path to the Majors. He had just defensive wiz Darwin Barney in his way there, so it was clearly the path with the least resistance.

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Going into the season, we ranked Elvis Andrus seventh and Alcides Escobar 19th. At the end of the season, Andrus was 12th and Escobar was sixth. And yet, they’re still the same person. That’s the perils of depending on the ball in play for your value.

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The headline on this column may not feel particularly bold, seeing as Ian Desmond finished 2014 as the No. 1 shortstop in fantasy. Still, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume he’ll be behind the likes of Troy Tulowitzki, Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez in the majority of 2015 preseason rankings.

In a way, this is completely fair. Both Tulowitzki and Hanley have higher ceilings year-to-year than Desmond, while Reyes has been a top option at the position for nearly a decade. What sets Desmond apart is his ability to stay on the field, compared to his competition among the top few shortstops.

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Today we move to the last position on the infield, shortstop. So as usual, it’s time for me to review my preseason Pod’s Picks. As a reminder, I compared my rankings to the three other rankers and categorized those players whose rankings differed most as players I am apparently most bullish and bearish on.

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The 2014 fantasy baseball season has come to a close, so it is time to look back at the season past and determine which players were the most valuable at each position. We’re on to shortstops this week to finish off the infield.

The players were ranked based on their 2014 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and standard 5×5 roto fantasy leagues, where only one catcher is started. Players are listed only at their primary positions from 2014.

One important thing to note is the premium (or lack thereof) placed on the position a player occupies in your lineup. For example, while a first baseman may be able to accumulate superior overall numbers, the availability of such production lower in the rankings severely dampers the amount the player was worth. These rankings are meant to reflect a player’s value should he have occupied this spot in your lineup for the entire year. A player who missed time due to injury but put up great numbers during his time on the field would be worth less.

This year, I’ve added in RotoGraphs’ preseason consensus rankings so you can see what we thought of each player coming into the year. This ranking can be found in the “Pre” column. “EOS” of course stands for End Of Season, and the rest should be self explanatory.

With all this in mind, here are your rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, FanGraphs’ fearless leader Dave Cameron tweeted out Steamer’s projections for top shortstop WAR (per 600 plate appearances). The top five? Troy Tulowitzki, Andrelton Simmons, Brad Miller, Hanley Ramirez, and Chris Taylor.
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Normally, I produce tiered second-base rankings for my first piece of each month. Now that it’s September and trade deadlines have passed in 99.9% of fantasy leagues, it’s not very useful for me to fill this space with my thoughts on players that owners cannot acquire. Therefore, I scoured waiver wires to find three lightly owned middle infielders who could help fantasy owners over the season’s crucial final weeks.

Joe Panik (15% Yahoo, 20.8% ESPN, 26% CBS)
194 PA – .318/.366/.397, 23 R, 1 HR, 15 RBI, 0 SB

Despite providing consistent production that has him at No. 7 among fantasy 2B over the last month, Panik’s ownership rates are far from widespread. Eno Sarris wrote a great piece yesterday in which he interviewed Panik about his approach at the plate, so I’m not going to get too long-winded here, but we should definitely still take a moment to discuss his fantasy value.

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