We have made it to shortstop week here in beautiful RotoGraphs country. So that means it’s once again time to check out the results of my Pod’s Picks at the position.

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The 2013 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. This week focuses on shortstops.

The players were ranked based on their 2013 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. To keep things manageable and avoid skewing the numbers, players were only considered if they amassed 400 plate appearances over the course of the year. The replacement level was also adjusted to account for players eligible at multiples positions. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and traditional 5×5 roto fantasy leagues, where only one catcher is started.

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. So, a player who missed time due to injury but put up great numbers during his time on the field would be worth less.

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

Analyzing prospects in short-season leagues can often be a confusing and fruitless endeavor. All three of pro baseball’s three large development hurdles–the jump to full-season ball, the jump to the upper minors, and the jump to the majors–remain in front of such players, and projecting how raw 17-21-year-olds are going to handle those difficult transitions years down the line cannot be done with much certainty. Still, there are plenty of relevant prospects in the short-season circuits, and today I’m going to discuss the first of a few that I personally viewed in the Rookie-Advanced Appalachian League in 2013: Mets shortstop prospect Amed Rosario.

Rosario had the distinction of being named the top prospect in the Appy by Baseball America, which immediately pegs him as someone to watch. So does his birth date: November 20, 1995. He was the youngest position player to open the year at the Rookie-Advanced level, which says a lot about how advanced he is for his age, even if the numbers he posted (.241/.279/.358 with a 43/11 K/BB, 3 HR, 2 SB, and a .941 fielding percentage in 58 games) veer closer to “problematic” than “exciting.”

But a player’s ranking on prospect lists and his raw numbers (particularly at such a low level at such a young age) do little to shed light on what sort of player he may become. For that, we have to turn to visual evidence.

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When discussing a fantasy baseball ‘Least Valuable Player,’ we’re looking at a few different things to factor in. Obviously, an under-performing stat line is one. But we’re also looking at the relative cost of the player in relation to other players at his position. If he didn’t cost you more than a 15th round draft pick or $2 in your auction and he didn’t perform well, then so be it. Very little harm done. But when you’ve used a third or a fourth round pick on him and he doesn’t meet expectations, it’s a much bigger deal. We’re also taking into account that player’s in-season trade value. Some guys who are in a slump, you can still trade them on name and reputation, but when the performance is so bad that no one wants to trade for them, an LVP award is just begging to be won. For me, this season, no one epitomizes the LVP award more than Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro.

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Jean Segura wasn’t the best fantasy baseball player in 2013. He might not have even been the best shortstop for fantasy teams this year. But given the context of projections with the overall production, Segura pretty much destroyed any reasonable expectation from the preseason.

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With just a week to go in the season, teams mostly fall into two firm camps: those with something to play for, and those without.

Teams with something to play for can be counted on to play mostly their top players, while those without could trot out an Astros-esque lineup without raising any eyebrows.

It makes the last week of the season difficult for those still lucky enough to have something to play for. Ideally, you want players on a “still playing” team, because their playing time is safer, against teams “not playing,” who may throw out terrible pitchers.

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On June 28, Jean Segura was on pace to hit .332 with 23 home runs, 94 runs scored, 67 RBI, and 50 stolen bases, placing his performance among the elite shortstops in recent years. And that was after he had cooled significantly after a white-hot start. Today, his pace suggests he’ll finish up at .298/13/79/53/48. That’s nothing to scoff at, and it significantly outperforms even the most pre-season projection for him. But it most certainly points out that something has gone awry from the end of June to where we currently stand.

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We’re going real deep today folks for perhaps the last deep league waiver wire piece of the 2013 season. If you’re looking for middle infield help, it’s your lucky day!

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If you drafted a shortstop early this year, chances are you’re looking back and you’re pretty disappointed. That’s because very few of those shortstops drafted as starters in a 12-team league returned positive value relative to their draft positions.

This analysis will use Yahoo’s Average Draft Positions (ADP), and while a lot of people also play in auction leagues, it stands to reason that ADP and auction dollars would be tightly correlated. And of course, comparing ADP to actual value rank perhaps isn’t fair since the context of the rest of a person’s draft is required, but it should still be a good approximation of the majority.

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While it seems like time is rapidly running out, there are still roughly three weeks to go in the regular season and that’s still enough time to make a move in a few of the categories involving counting stats. Runs scored and stolen bases are still available on your waiver wire and while it might take the full three weeks to see some results, an impact can still be made…hopefully. With such little time left, you’ve got to pull out all the stops and every bit of help counts. Here are two guys who can probably help in those categories. Read the rest of this entry »