To the surprise of, well, absolutely no one, the Padres whacked second baseman Orlando Hudson on Thursday, sending him to the unemployment line thanks to a line of .211/.260/.317 and rumors of his unhappiness at his situation. At the same time, they placed Jason Bartlett on the disabled list with a strained knee that’s in no way as painful as his unbelievably poor .133/.240/.193 performance. Whether or not we see Bartlett in a San Diego uniform again — his release has been rumored for a while as well — it’s clear that the last-place Padres are committing to youth in the infield, starting with the promotions of second baseman Alexi Amarista and shortstop Everth Cabrera.

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It’s Wednesday, or “hump day”, as the cool kids say, so you know what that means, right? Time to feel sorry for all you deep leaguers out there. The funny part about writing this weekly column is that I am reminded how crazy deep mixed and Only leagues are. When you get excited about picking up the players I highlight, you know your league is deep. So who looks tastiest one the free agent buffet?

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With Brendan Ryan hitting a sultry .149 at the dish, there’s going to be an opening for a new shortstop in the Seattle Mariners’ lineup. There are a few different options to be explored, and since finding shortstops in deeper fantasy leagues is a royal pain, let’s take a look, shall we?

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Swooning over high upside teenagers can quickly become an obsession for rebuilding fantasy owners. While vigorously checking box scores is far more interesting than watching one’s team struggle, there are two important characteristics to remember about fantasy baseball prospects that one must remember before getting too excited.

Of course, all prospects — even those atop your favorite rankings — have a high failure rate. Adding fantasy baseball into that equation doesn’t help. In most leagues, the massive failure rate is compounded by vastly decreased playing time opportunities which leads to an increase in quality of replacement-level and league-average players.

Today, I’m going to discuss the fantasy outlook of Indian’s shortstop Francisco Lindor. Lindor will have no issue sticking at shortstop. He is a complete defender, mixing great technical skills, a good first step and strong natural instincts. His ETA is 2015 when Asdrubal Cabrera becomes a free agent. Of course, if Cleveland extends Cabrera or decides to trade him in 2014 that could change things drastically.

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Shortstops are the red-headed stepchildren of the offense, but this year, catastrophic injury has stayed away. Oops, jinxed. You can blame the next one on me.

Early changes in contact rate and batted ball mix are the first to become reliable, so look there for possible reasoning. Speed is a tricky thing, too — it’s such an athletic skill that sensing a slight decline early in the season might just be enough to worry about their wheels. Unfortunately, we haven’t yet seen a study that points out a harbinger for a speed loss (could Bill James‘ speed score become reliable in a third of a season perhaps?).

Questions for another time. For now, your Updated RotoGraphs Rest-of-Season Consensus Shorstop Rankings ™.

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This week we’re going to take a look at two National League shortstop eligible players who have increased their value dramatically over the past two weeks. One is far less of a surprise than the other.

Jed Lowrie:

He’s always had the potential to be a productive fantasy shortstop but hasn’t been given a full time opportunity. His time in Boston was checkered with injuries and up and down performance. Here are his OPS and games played numbers each of the past four season

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With a full month of baseball in the books, you’d have to think that your league’s waiver wire has been picked clean.  However, between the recent rash of injuries and rookie call-ups, there are certainly a few names that have slipped through the cracks.  Here are two guys you might want to consider depending on the holes in your roster. Read the rest of this entry »

As night turned to day and the sun slowly rose in west we were graced with a new top rated shortstop, breaking Derek Jeter’s stronghold. It was bound to happen eventually, unless Jeter had another 1999 type season, and will certainly happen again, but I don’t think anyone could foresee who would take over a month into the season.

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As we wrap up the month of April it’s time to go back to your waiver wire and sift through some of the names of players that have been dropped over the last few weeks.  Usually they are players who were taken in the later rounds of your draft and, with an early season slow start, have been discarded by their owners and forgotten on the free agent scrap heap.  However, a number of those players are now starting to turn things around and could be timely adds to your roster, whether it’s for a starting position or even just quality depth.  Here are a pair of just such examples and, even better, at thin positions.

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Let’s take a look at some early season surprises and disappointments at the shortstop position:

Surprises:

Derek Jeter

Anyone that had Jeter hitting .411 through 16 games raise your hand. Now put your hand down because you’re a liar. After two “down” seasons he’s hitting like its 1999 again. He has nine multi-hit games He already has four home runs. He hit six all of last year. It’s not likely he’ll be able to keep up this good of a pace considering his batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is currently over .400. He’s swinging at more pitches inside and outside of the zone but making the same amount of contact he always has. According to Mock Draft Central he was the eighth shortstop taken on average. If he can maintain anything close to this line, say .310/.360/.400 with 15 homers and 15 steals for the season he’ll easily eclipse that pre-season ranking.

Emilio Bonifacio

Bonifacio’s good production isn’t really a surprise. He showed last year that he was capable of having a productive season, but the acquisition of Jose Reyes lead to uncertainty about the amount of playing time he’d receive. With shortstop, third and second base filled he was pushed to the outfield where he’s won the starting centerfield position, at least for now. He already has nine steals in 16 games, but no extra base hits. He’ll never have much of a slugging percentage, but to see his Isolated Slugging (ISO) at .000 is amusing to look at. Like last season he’s been able to maintain a good average thanks to a high (.386) BABIP. He’s been keeping the ball out of the air again (21.1% FB rate), allowing him to maximize his speed. With consistent playing time he should be able to steal 35+ bases again unless his bat completely disappears.

Disappointment:

Alexei Ramirez

Having a career high strikeout rate and career low walk rate are great things for a pitcher. They’re far less great when you’re a hitter. That’s what Ramirez has done so far this season. He’s normally a lock for ~15 home runs, ~70 runs batted in and ~75 runs scored, and still may very well reach those totals. So far, though, he’s been awful. His one home run and four RBI seem out of place for someone that plays his games in hitter friendly US Cellular Field. That’s not out of the ordinary for him, though. His career wOBA for March/April is .254. The lowest it is in any other month is .315.  His issues look to stem from a lack of patience. He’s swinging at more pitches outside the zone (39.0%) and more pitches period (53.2) than at any point since his rookie season. That’s something to keep an eye on going forward.

Jhonny Peralta

Coming off a 21 home run season, a bit more was expected of the pudgy shortstop. Through 15 games he has zero home runs and five runs batted in, though he does have seven doubles. His BABIP is .326 but his OBP is .298 thanks to a 5.3% walk rate. He’s a better hitter than that. Even in his worst year his walk rate was above seven percent. He’ll need his power to return, though, if he’s going to have much fantasy value. He doesn’t steal bases so he relies heavily on extra base hits to keep his head afloat. A 15 homer, 75 RBI campaign may be more realistic than the 21/86 he put up last season. If he struggles a little while longer he could turn into a nice buy-low candidate if a frustrated owner makes a rash decision.