Just two years ago, Dee Gordon was enjoying the fanfare of being listed amongst Baseball America’s Top 50 Prospects. The son of major league reliever Tom Gordon, the young shortstop was receiving rave reviews for his defensive play and, most importantly, his speed. He had cruised through the Dodgers system relatively quickly, got called up mid-season in 2011 and earned the starting nod to open the 2012 season. Not everything had gone according to plan as injuries derailed a lot of the past two seasons, but Gordon had some memorable moments that indicated he could be an impact player at the big league level. Well, with Hanley Ramirez hitting the disabled list for already the second time in this young season, Gordon is finally getting his chance to show what he can do. Read the rest of this entry »

When Aaron Hill was placed on the disabled list last week, the Diamondbacks called up prospect Didi Gregorius, whose name sounds more like a maid’s than a baseball player’s. Seriously, what sounds more correct — Maid Didi or Didi, starting shortstop? Well, if anything, he has certainly cleaned up…at the plate so far! Gregorius came to Arizona over the offseason during that surprising three team trade with the Indians and Reds that sent Trevor Bauer to Cleveland and Shin-Soo Choo to Cincinnati. He has two homers in 11 at-bats already. In NL-Only leagues and perhaps deep mixed leagues, he’s likely gone after last night’s FAAB. But is he worth a look in shallower leagues while Hill remains on the shelf?

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Welcome to the inaugural edition of the deep league waiver wire. Join me every Wednesday morning decked out in your scuba gear ready to dive into the free agent pool searching for hidden treasure. I have limited the pool of players to those owned in 10% or less in CBS leagues, which should be deep enough for most. Unfortunately, Only leaguers sometimes have to choose between any Major Leaguer with a roster spot or going empty, so it’s a much easier decision!

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The Chicago Cubs are pinning their future on the improvement of Starlin Castro. Three years into his career, Castro has been a slightly above-average player. His 103 wRC+ confirms that notion, and his .330 career wOBA is hardly elite. But there is reason for optimism. Castro is just 23-years-old, and has been a regular in the majors since his age-20 season. While his offensive performance hasn’t been great thus far, there’s reason to believe he can turn into a great hitter.

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Usually one of the shallower positions in fantasy, shortstop has added some much needed depth with players like Ben Zobrist and Martin Prado joining the fun. Let’s take a look at the tiers based on our Rotographs consensus rankings.

Tier 1:

Starlin Castro
Jose Reyes
Troy Tulowitzki

Castro is extremely durable and hasn’t even reached his peak seasons yet, what’s not to love? The 23-year-old’s average dipped below .300 last year (.283) but he increased his home runs, steals, and RBIs. He’s a safe bet to at least match last season’s totals which is why he’s number one in our rankings. Reyes can easily grab the top spot in this tier if he hits like he did in the second half of last season when his line was .312/.361/.495 with 20 stolen bases. He’s leading off for what should be an impressive Toronto lineup so he’ll have ample run scoring opportunities as well.

If healthy the top spot would belong to Troy Tulowitzki without question. No one provides the type of overall production at the position like the seventh year man out of Long Beach State. He looks to be recovered from the groin injury that cut his 2012 season short. If other owners are wary you may be able to pick up him at a discount on draft day.

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Last week, I began looking at which players my ranking differed most from compared to the staff consensus. Shortstop is a much better position this year when digging for sleepers than its middle infield counterpart, second base. That gives you the opportunity to bypass the top options and grab when of the late rounders with nice upside. For the shortstop bullish and bearish picks, I will once again only look at my top 18 for bullish and the consensus top 18 for the bearish group.

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My how times have changed. Four seasons ago the Yankees rode one of the best infields in baseball history — combined 23.5 WAR out of their starting catcher, first baseman, second baseman, shortstop, and third baseman — to the World Championship, but when 2013 opens they will have one bonafide superstar, one major question mark, and three guys either hurt or coming off injury on the infield. You have to see it to believe how ugly it is:

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Last week was all about the consensus ranks. This week, you’ll see some tiered ranks as we also try to finish up the depth chart discussion. But before we move on too quickly, I thought it would be interesting and informative for me to pick out the players that I liked and disliked more than the other analysts involved in the consensus ranks. Hopefully I’ll have a short, concise reason for my rankings in each case. Hopefully.

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Over the last few days, my compatriots four of my compatriots have begun presenting you with an extremely valuable draft tool: consensus positional rankings. But for those of you who play ottoneu, things differ a bit, especially if you are in a 4×4 or Points League.

Starting today, I am going to take a look at those rankings and let you know where ottoneu players should take a different stance.

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You know what? I don’t think I have to link back to the positions we’ve done before. Because David Appelman was kind of enough to revamp the RotoGraphs landing page, and now you can easily access all your draft tools — including our consensus ranks, and later our tiered positional ranks — just by scrolling your eyeballs to the right an inch-plus. Scroll those eyeballs! Enjoy one-touch draft tools! Applaud the dark overlord!

Okay, back to shortstops. Given the health and bust/regress concerns of the other shortstops in the top five, maybe it’s not surprising that we have a new number one shortstop this season. Starlin Castro won’t wow you in the speed or power stats, but he is on the right side of his peak, and he has been slowly building his skillset, so it seems that his risk of regression is low, and he should be healthy, too. It’s in interesting that we agreed by not agreeing — only one analyst had Castro first, and yet it seems fine that he is first. It’s not like we can just wipe away those lost Jose Reyes seasons.

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