Jed Lowrie has had a solid start to July, hitting .296 over seven games and showing a few signs of rounding back into form. It’s been but a week, though, and there are still some troubling signs in Lowrie’s profile. Namely, Lowrie’s power seems to be missing, and that would mark the continuation of a multi-season trend of declining slugging ability.

To be clear, Lowrie has still been 20th in shortstop value, speaking to the importance of his run production and the general terribleness of the position. His positional flexibility helps some, too, but as a player who has never looked a threat to hit .275 consistently, Lowrie’s value hinges a good deal on his ability to clear the fence.

And again, that’s not happening, with just four home runs to date and a career-low isolated slugging of .109.
Read the rest of this entry »

Hard to imagine we’re one week away from the All-Star break, but alas, time flies when you’re having fun. As we continue our never-ending search for upside guys on the fantasy scrap heap, we turn our attention to two players who can help owners, one a multi-position infield tool, the other a sleeper outfielder at season’s outset who, halfway into the season, might just be making good on his preseason promise.
Read the rest of this entry »

Just a week ago, we were looking at players I ranked differently from others or disagreed with commenters on for the month of June. Well, just like that it’s July, and it’s time for a new batch of shortstop rankings. These ones aren’t any more important than any other month, but they do provide an interesting look because they come right at the mid-way point of the baseball season.

Before we look ahead, however, I want to take a brief moment to look back. Can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been, and all that.
Read the rest of this entry »

Back on June 3 when I posted shortstop tier rankings for June, I had no idea we would be gifted staff consensus rankings shortly thereafter.

As is always the case, there are varying levels of disagreement between the ranks (although when “tiering,”the rankings are far looser). Today, I wanted to quickly hit on a few names I seem to disagree with the group on, based not only on a difference in ranking but also, in one case, commenter feedback. As a reminder, this is with a rest-of-season focus only.

Troy Tulowitzki
Everyone else thinks he’s the number one shortstop. I happen to think he’s the king of baseball. Agree to disagree.
Read the rest of this entry »

Today we continue to move along with my updated Pod’s Picks, comparing my rank versus the other three RotoGraphers. We’re now up to the shortstops, of which the consensus rankings published two weeks ago can be found here. I’ll generally only consider those shortstops that I ranked within the top 20 for the bullish category and those the rest of the crew ranked in the top 20 for the bearish category.

Read the rest of this entry »

Life is hard. It comes with a lot of tough decisions and a lot of tough questions that don’t have easy answers. We are humans, and we will make mistakes, and we should forgive ourselves for those. I’ve been dealing with a lot of this philosophical life stuff recently, and it’s been difficult.

I’m talking, of course, about Brad Miller, and it seems I’m not alone, as the baseball community remains puzzled by an important visceral question: is Brad Miller any good?
Read the rest of this entry »

We just finished ranking week (find them easily on the right-hand nav bar), and since I’m apparently a masochist, I’m going to jump right back in and examine where I was different from the consensus. We’ll do as many positions as possible today — I’ll focus on those players that are most differently positioned in my rankings — before checking out the pitchers.

Read the rest of this entry »

J.J. Hardy entered the season as the No. 14 shortstop on the consensus rankings, has ranked 28th in production to date and yet still ranks No. 15 on the latest shortstop consensus rankings. Obviously, then, there’s a fair amount of optimism that his slow start is going to turn around.

Because, well, yeah, Hardy has zero home runs to date despite having spent the last seven seasons as one of the more reliable power producers at the position. From 2007 to 2013, Hardy ranked fifth at the position in WAR, sixth in plate appearances, third in home runs, ninth in runs and fifth in RBI; the average and OBP were never great, but save for a down 2009-2010 pairing where he was limited by injuries (and a demotion), he’s been a rare and steady source of home runs and RBI at a position devoid of them.

And this year, he has gone deep exactly zero times, adding just 15 RBI in 222 plate appearances (he missed a handful of games with minor back and thigh ailments). So, what gives?
Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not cool to cheer for injuries, but for us dumpster-divers, well, sometimes guys getting hurt is what it takes to unearth opportunities. As it happens, the Diamondbacks have seen a couple of guys knocked to the sidelines in recent days, and while that’s unfortunate, we’d be remiss if we didn’t look at two players who are stepping up — both of whom have potential value in NL-only leagues.
Read the rest of this entry »

Whoo boy. What a turd of a position.

Sure, in the shallower leagues, you’re okay. There’s about 5-10 shortstops that I want to have and another seven or so that look okay to me. If you waited and picked Dee Gordon (or got him off waivers), congrats. Alexei Ramirez was another great late pick. Jimmy Rollins is resurgent. It looks like a good Alcides Escobar year — not a bad one at least.

Read the rest of this entry »