It has been just about a year since Jhonny Peralta was dealt from the Cleveland Indians to the Detroit Tigers. It was July 28th, 2010, and Peralta was continuing his slide from the previous season where he saw his production fall in every meaningful category. His work ethic and conditioning were often criticized and given that his listed weight had gone from 180 pounds to a suck-in-your-tummy 215, his future at shortstop seemed rather dubious.

Cleveland had decided that Peralta wasn’t going to be worth the $7.25 million option they had on him for 2011 and the Tigers decided that having half their team on the trainers table wasn’t getting them any closer to a pennant. And thus, the “other” Giovanni Soto was sent to Cleveland for an underwhelming Peralta, hitting just .246 with seven home runs over 91 games. The general reaction was a bit of a shrug of the shoulders.

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Zack Cozart | SS, Reds | 4% Owned (Y!) | 4% Owned (ESPN)
Prior to hyperextending his elbow during Saturday’s game against the Braves, Cincinnati Reds’ shortstop Zack Cozart was providing his ball club with great production in an area of need. Initial x-rays of Cozart’s arm came back negative, and while we don’t have a definitive time table for a return, his injury was much less serious than it could have been.

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By now you’ve probably heard. Diamondbacks’ shortstop Stephen Drew will miss the rest of the season after fracturing his ankle sliding into home last night, an injury that was Jason Kendall-esque. I was actually watching the game live and it was pretty gruesome, and since I’m a bit of a softie I won’t link to the video here. I’m sure the FanGraphs’ faithful can find if it you’re so inclined.

Anyway, Drew was one of fantasy baseball’s better shortstops, a position lacking depth. His .252/.317/.396 batting line is unspectacular, but he had the fourth most RBI (45) among players at the position. It’s safe to drop him off your roster entirely given the nature of his injury and expected timetable, so let’s try to dig up some replacements…

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It’s been awhile since we’ve done one of these. Let’s get right to it and take a look at some shortstop performances over the past two weeks.

Risers:

Hanley Ramirez

He’s actually steadily improved every month, but even his improvements were still far less than we’ve come to expect from Ramirez. His wOBA by month are .245, .312, .324, .516. Needless to say, July has been pretty kind to him. In his 61 plate appearances this month he’s hitting .392/.492/.706 with 4 HR, 17 RBI, and 7 K to 10 BB. The four home runs tie his high for a month this year and the 17 RBI are already eight more than he had back in April. It’s only been 61 plate appearances but it looks like Ramirez may finally be turning the corner we’ve all been waiting for. For all of us who have stuck by him this entire season I sure hope that’s the case.

Jeff Keppinger

His month of June was actually pretty amazing. He hit .297 in 105 plate appearances, but only managed a .681 OPS. He was the definition of an empty batting average. So far his July is pretty amazing as well. In his 42 plate appearances he has a 0.0% walk rate and 0.0% strikeout rate. Somehow he’s been able to run into two homers and banged out three doubles, giving him one less extra base hit than he had in June. He’s never hit for much power over his career, but has been able to maintain a decent enough average to retain value in deeper mixed or NL only leagues. He’s currently hitting .314 and is available in 93% of Yahoo! leagues.

Fallers

Starlin Castro

When Castro isn’t hitting for average he provides very little to your lineup. He doesn’t hit for any power and doesn’t walk enough to pick up any steals. This month he’s hit just .236 with zero steals and zero home runs. His strikeout rate has ballooned to 21.4% in 56 plate appearances. For someone that is owned in 91% of leagues you need better production out of him. If someone like Keppinger is available in your league you may be better off adding him until Castro can get back to his normal self.

Alexei Ramirez

They’re having shortstop issues on the south side of Chicago as well. Ramirez has been falling since June, putting up a .265/.311/.343 triple slash line with 1 HR and 11 RBI that month. That was after a hot May in which he posted a .389 wOBA. Unfortunately for him, he seems to have carried over the woes of June into July. He’s hitting .217 in the month, and while he does have two home runs his OBP is a horrible .265. The worst part about his season has been the lack of stolen bases. Ramirez had averaged 13 in his first three seasons but has only three so far, meaning he’s unlikely to reach double digits which severely damages his fantasy worth.

I’ve shown my fondness for power hitting shortstops in this space befor; writing about Asdrubal Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta. Today the focus turns to one of the most overlooked players in fantasy thus far: J.J. Hardy.

Like Peralta, Hardy had success a few seasons ago then struggled with both performance (.292 wOBA in 2009) before seemingly righting the ship this season. Hardy is injury prone, which hasn’t helped his quest to get back to All-Star status. He was released after a moderately successful season, yet injury prone, season in Minnesota that saw him hit just six home runs in 375 plate appearances. In fact, before this season Hardy had just 17 dingers over his last 840 PA’s. That’s after back to back seasons with 26 and 24 respectively. The Twins traded him to Baltimore which looks to be the perfect landing place for the 28 year-old.

He’s missed a few weeks this season due to injury – did you expect something less? – but now that it appears he’s finally healthy he’s putting up numbers that will place him near the top of the shortstop rankings. Camden Yards is a great hitter’s park and Hardy is taking full advantage. In June, his one fully healthy month, Hardy hit .362/.409/.686/.324 (ISO) with 9 home runs and a .468 wOBA. Obviously he can’t keep that up for a full season, but it shows what he can do when healthy, especially in that ballpark. Currently Hardy is ranked 13th among shortstops in Yahoo! leages after only 237 at bats, and his .361 wOBA would be 4th in baseball if he qualified. His 13 home runs put him 4th at his position, just three behind Troy Tulowitzki. As our own Mike Axisa pointed out nearly a month ago, Hardy is hitting fly balls at a career high rate (49%) which translates into good things in Camden Yards.

The ZiPS projections have Hardy hitting .269/.323/.443 with 8 home runs and 26 RBI from this point forward. That would leave him with a .349 wOBA, which would have ranked 4th among all shortstops last season. Currently Hardy is owned in just 67% of leagues. That’s a crime. Yes, he gets hurt, but with a position as scarcely populated with good players as shortstop that number deserves to be much higher.

You’ve heard about Howard Bender’s draft. And you’ll hear about Jason Catania’s draft and Jeff Zimmerman’s draft. Because we all got together and decided to pick six, deep league style. Our CI, MI, OF, C, SP and RP all had to come from a pool of players that was owned in less than 10% of Yahoo leagues. Here are my picks and why. In the order I drafted. I had the third pick of four.

Chris Heisey
A disclaimer about deep leagues and waiver wires: One thing you want are live bodies with some upside. It’s the usual caveat. So Heisey has flaws — he’s now struck out in 18.2% of his at-bats in his first 396 plate appearances, so he might have that flaw. Then again, his minor league rates were closer to 20% most years. He could improve in that category. His BABIP is fine (.308) and though his current ISO (.209) would rank high in his minor-league work, it would still fit. And he’s got a .192 ISO so far in the majors. He stole 27 bases against two caught-stealings in High-A, and had very good success rates all along. So he has good speed. And power. And could improve his strikeout rate. And is battling for playing time with a guy with a .245 career batting average and a strikeout rate over 33%. Yes please.

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It’s been a little while since we’ve updated the shortstop rankings. There’s been some substantial movement since the last edition, including a new number one. Please feel free to debate the rankings/call me an idiot in the comments.

Tier 1:
Jose Reyes
Asdrubal Cabrera
Troy Tulowitzki

Reyes has easily jumped to the number one spot rankings, taking his place back amongst the fantasy elite. He’s easily having the best season of his career, hitting .354/.398/.529 which would all shatter his previous highs. Even though the slugging percentage is excellent he’s only hit three home runs, which may have to do with CitiField more than anything as Reyes is on pace for career highs in triples and doubles. The BABIP is .375, which is likely to go down, but Reyes is the type of player who could sustain that for a single season. Ranking Cabrera second over Tulowitzki and Peralta was tough for me, but his 12 steals was the deciding factor. I’ve written enough about him this season, and as long as he keeps up the power numbers he’ll maintain a high ranking. Tulowitzki has the potential to make a run at Reyes with a strong second half, but until he can improve on his current .256 BABIP that’s going to be hard.

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For once, the Pittsburgh Pirates aren’t a punch line or a prelude to Steelers training camp. At 38-37, the Bucs are just three games back in the NL Central. That’s no thanks to the offense, however, which ranks 14th in the NL in runs scored.

Pittsburgh will turn to a pair of prospects in an effort to plate more runs: infielder Chase D’Arnaud got the call prior to Friday night’s game versus the Red Sox, and outfielder Alex Presley is expected to be added to the roster before an interleague series in Toronto on Tuesday. Here’s a quick look at what these two will bring to the table in fantasy leagues.

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Obviously, one of the keys to making savvy waiver wire pick-ups is to do so with a specific category in mind.  Whether you have a particular need in your head to head league or you have a roto category that looks like you can make a big jump in points, you should be targeting specific players to help out in that area.  Maybe they don’t help in other categories, maybe they do, but for the immediate need, they make sense.  Stolen bases is usually that category.  It always seems to be one of the easiest to move up in in roto leagues and an easy one to match or beat your opponent in head to head.  Here’s a look at a pair of infielders that just might be able to help you make that jump right now. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a rare thing these days when success by a shortstop goes under-reported. I’ve beaten you all over the head with the fact that the position is the weakest it’s been in some time. Asdrubal Cabrera came out of nowhere to surprise people this season and has gotten a lot of burn in the fantasy world because of it.

Another American League Central shortstop is having a very nice season after spending the past two living in fantasy irrelevance. Without much fanfare Jhonny Peralta is having the best season of his career.

Aside from his 2005 season with Cleveland in which he hit 24 home runs and put up a .376 wOBA, Peralta has had a pretty up and down career. His fantasy value outweighed his real life value, especially if you don’t play in an OBP league (though I think everyone should). The 2006 campaign was a disaster. Peralta hit .257, even though he had a .327 BABIP, with just 13 home runs and 68 RBI. He looked to have bounced back in 2007 and 2008, averaging 22 home runs, 80 RBI, and a .273/.336/.451 triple slash line. Things were looking up. Then the past two seasons happened.

Peralta still put up good RBI numbers, 83 and 81 respectively, but his hits, runs, home runs were all significantly down, as were his batting average, on base percentage and slugging percentages. His ISO, a better indication of a hitter’s pure power, which was .228 in 2005 and .197 in 2008 dropped to .120 and .143 in 2009 and 2010. He hit 26 total home runs in those two seasons after averaging 22 in the two seasons prior. It’s tough to pinpoint exactly what Peralta was doing wrong without taking a few liberties.

His BABIP fell every year from 2005-2010, but only dipped below .300 in the 2010 season. Wild fluctuations in his 2009-2010 batted ball data surely doesn’t help. It’s hard to know what you’re going to get when your data looks like this

This season, however, Peralta seems to have found it again. His BABIP is up to .321, he’s hitting nearly .300 and already has 11 home runs. He’s hitting far more fly balls than he ever has. Last season’s FB% of 43.4% was the highest of his career by 7%, and he’s at 48.2% this year. It’s hard to look at any specific set of data and determine why that change has occurred. That’s usually the outcome of a change in a player’s swing, but I couldn’t find anything when Googling. I don’t put too much importance on these numbers yet, but he’s swinging at fewer pitches in the zone (68.5%) than he has in the past four seasons. He’s also making contact with more pitches overall (81.2%) and more pitches in the zone than he ever has (90.6%). His O-Swing% hasn’t changed drastically, which is why I caution you in putting a ton of faith in those numbers going forward.

Last season Peralta finished ranked 297th overall. To this point he’s sitting at 93rd. A stark improvement. You likely got him fairly cheaply in your leagues, and the man with the funny name is paying dividends thus far.