I get it – Dee Gordon probably burned you in 2012, when you took him as the 10th shortstop off the board, expecting 60-plus stolen bases and a Billy Hamilton-esque layup in the steals category.

Coming off a 24-steal performance in just 56 games the year prior, it was easy to look past the fact that Gordon only sporadically showed a good discipline profile in the minors. This guy can run. ZIPS wasn’t quite as friendly as public opinion but still saw a .271 average and a .310 on-base percentage that was good enough to afford Gordon 74 stolen base opportunities.

He failed. He stole you 32 bases, sure, but scored just 38 runs, appeared in only 87 games and had a pathetic .228/.280/.281 slash line.

It’s time to forgive him.
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For the second time in two days, I’m going to build off of Mike Podhorzer’s quick hits about the most added fantasy players through the season’s first week. Hey, this is a shortstop beat, it’s week two, and he touched on two of the buzziest shortstop names going.

One of those names was the second most added fantasy piece last week, vaulting from five percent ownership to 31 percent in CBS leagues. It’s been slower in Yahoo formats, but Adeiny Hechavarria is up to 13 percent ownership there, too.

I’m asking you today to throw him back.
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I had Jonathan Villar late last season in a league I needed some extra speed in (net stolen bases) and he gave me a solid 10 steals over the last third of the season. I had him in a dynasty league as well so I have been monitoring him for some while. The Astros have had a solid core of shortstops in their system with Villar then on the verge of major league play and Carlos Correa and Nolan Fontana further down the minors behind him. Villar got overshadowed due to Correa’s incredible upside, but he is now becoming a more common name among fantasy circles due to his impressive speed.
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With one day in the books, you’ve already got one prediction right when it comes to the shortstop position: Yes, Jose Reyes will get hurt at some point this season. On the first at bat of the season, to be precise.

While Reyes’ injury history was surely priced into his ranking and projections already, his opening-day-uhh-why-did-he-play-on-the-weekend-at-less-than-100-percent injury serves as a reminder that things can change quickly. Chris Owings is a full-time starter, Alex Gonzalez surely earned himself some additional early PAs, and Hanley Ramirez is the bustiest bust to ever bust.

It’s technically a day too late, but here are the moment-in-time shortstop tiers for the 2014 season.
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It’s officially April, and with the dawn of a new fantasy season comes the return of a beloved fantasy pastime: dumpster diving.

These are the players you didn’t read about in the magazines, who didn’t make the final cut in your draft, who would otherwise be nonentities on the fantasy radar were it not for the deepness of our leagues – and the regular necessity of patching up spots when players go down with injuries, lose playing time, and deal with the usual topsy-turviness of fantasy life.

But you didn’t come here to read an intro, you came here to dive. Let’s do this.
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The baseball blogosphere received a late Christmas present this morning when the Detroit Tigers traded Steve Lombardozzi to Baltimore in return for veteran shortstop Alex Gonzalez. Yeah, that’s the same Alex Gonzalez who limped to a .194 wOBA with the Milwaukee Brewers before getting released mid-season with a -1.1 WAR. Amongst non-pitchers with at least 100 plate appearances, Gonzalez compiled the third-worst wOBA in Major League Baseball, ahead of only Casper Wells and Luis Cruz. Tremendous company.

Of course, the Tigers are attempting to replace the injured Jose Iglesias without signing Stephen Drew, which would cost the organization a draft pick, or trading for Nick Franklin, which would involve sacrificing prospects from an already-thin farm system. It appears the organization has opted to compile a handful of fringe internal candidates, hoping one or two sticks enough to bring competent production to the shortstop position.

For fantasy purposes, though, should owners even bother paying attention to this battle?

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Back in 2008, his first big league season, Alexei Ramirez slugged 21 home runs, drove in 77 and added 13 steals, establishing himself as a top fantasy shortstop.

But those long balls represented something of an aberration for Ramirez who, despite averaging 16 homers over the next three seasons, has seen his power collapse in the past two years, putting just six over the fence in 2013.

As the homers have faded, so has his fantasy stock, to the point where the 32-year-old is currently being drafted 14th among shortstops on Mock Draft Central. But as Ramirez’s profile as a hitter has evolved, he’s found other ways to help fantasy owners, leading me to wonder if he’s being a tad undervalued right now.

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Unlike at second base, you could find your speed among the shortstop crop. There are also a host of guys who offer intriguing blends of power and speed, as well as a nice mix of youngsters with upside and established veterans.

The shortstop edition of Pod’s Picks may help you find value or learn who to avoid at their current going rates. The bullish section will only include players from my top 20, while the bearish group will only include those whose RotoGraphs consensus is in the top 20.

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Here’s a super easy post, I’ll admit it. All I did was take the difference between my rankings and the consensus rankings (which you can find on the right-hand nav bar) and sort. But I’ll do a little writeup for each group of hitters so you can know why I like them. The numbers listed for each player are steamer projections, which aren’t exactly what I used, but can give you an idea of how useful the player will be in your league. Good luck drafting.

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Currently, Jed Lowrie is going as the 16th shortstop or 17th second baseman in Yahoo! leagues. This is the third hitter on a playoff team who played a full season last year with a high average and solid power production, and as I previously alluded to, is eligible at two of the notoriously weakest hitting positions in the game.
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