Maybe I should just get a job distributing change of address forms at the post office as I always seem to be the Old Faces in New Places guy here. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. So, like every other position, shortstop has a few guys moving onto to potentially greener pastures and could end up being some decent, low-budget options at fantasy baseball’s thinnest position. Here’s three that might interest you… Read the rest of this entry »
The 2011 class of shortstops is fortunate enough to have two of the most coveted players in fantasy baseball at the very top. It’s also unfortunate to be stocked full of mediocrity and uncertainty after that.
The follow is a list of the top shortstop options this season as complied by all of the RotoGraphs authors.
Tier 1:
Hanley Ramirez
Troy Tulowitzki
No surprises here. The kind of production these two provide from a generally weak position is what owners pay top dollar for. Few players in baseball, at any position, can match their overall talents. They shouldn’t go ahead of Albert Pujols, but a real case can be made for taking either number two in your draft.
Tier 2:
Jose Reyes
Derek Jeter
Alexei Ramirez
Stephen Drew
Jimmy Rollins
In past seasons Reyes and Jeter could make a case for Tier 1, but that time seems to have passed. Jeter’s counting stats should still be valuable, and Reyes will continue to steal bases if finally healthy. Ramirez has apparently bulked up a bit this offseason which will hopefully help his home run totals get into the 20-25 range again. Drew and Rollins are both very balanced players, contributing in any number of categories.
Tier 3:
Elvis Andrus
Starlin Castro
Ian Desmond
Yunel Escobar
Rafael Furcal
Asdrubal Cabrera
The younger players seemed to have fallen into this tier. Andrus, Castro, and Desmond could each end up in the second tier by years end. Andrus because of his steals, Castro because of his average, and Desmond because of his power. Furcal is Furcal, he’s been a steady producer at the position for years and years. Escobar seemed to come back to life a bit in Toronto. He’ll never run much, but should provide you with a decent average and double digit power.
Tier 4:
Alcides Escobar
Miguel Tejada
Jhonny Peralta
J.J. Hardy
Erick Aybar
Ryan Theriot
Juan Uribe
Jason Bartlett
Tsuyoshi Nishioka
Cliff Pennington
Reid Brignac
Marco Scutaro
Lots to go on here. Escobar’s value is going to rely on how many bases he steals. The Royals seems set on giving him the job, but if his OBP is under .300 as it was last season I don’t see him lasting the entire season. J.J. Hardy is a nice sleeper candidate. He’s not far removed from a very nice season and gets to play in a great hitters park in Baltimore. You’ll find power numbers from Uribe but little else, while Brignac provides sneaky double digit home run potential.
The rest:
Alex Gonzalez
Yuniesky Betancourt
Jed Lowrie
Clint Barmes
Alexi Casilla
Orlando Cabrera
Edgar Renteria
Ronny Cedeno
Omar Infante
Mike Aviles
The biggest wild card here to me is Jed Lowrie. The value you assess him all depends on how much playing time you think he gets. He hit nine homers in under 200 ABs last season, but couldn’t stay healthy. Personally, and other RG writers agree, I think he ends up playing more than Scutaro. The rest should only be owned in the deepest of leagues, otherwise they’re waiver wire fodder for a rainy day.
Please discuss the rankings in the comments if you’d like. I’ll try and get to as many questions as I can.
Not happy with the free agent options, the Twins went abroad to solve their middle infield woes, winning the bidding for and signing 26-year-old Tsuyoshi Nishioka. He’s coming off a huge year with the Chiba Lotte Marines, hitting .346/.423/.482 with 11 HR and 22 SB (but 11 CS). He’s hit at least .300 in three of the last four years, double-digit homers in each of the last three years, and 20+ steals in four of the last five years. That’s all well and good, but it tells us nothing about how he’ll perform with the Twins in 2011 or, more importantly, his fantasy value.
Depending on how his fielding develops, Starlin Castro may always be one of those players whose better in real life than in fantasy baseball. However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have any fantasy value, so it’s important that we investigate and figure out exactly how much he is worth.
Instead of looking at all the different projection systems that we feature here on FanGraphs individually, it’s best to combine the four and get some kind of consensus. Because I’m a swell guy, I’ve done that for you. And for those of you wondering, I didn’t take the easy way out by just averaging out his actual batting average, instead using the hits and at-bats like a good little boy.
Combined projection: 73 R, 5 HR, 58 RBI, 14 SB, .300 BA (549 AB)
Ah yes, the contract year. It’s a very real phenomenon, something our own Dayn Perry brilliantly analyzed in Baseball Between The Numbers. Fantasy teams benefit from contract years just as much as real teams do, and if you’re lucky you’ll roster one or two such players a year. This is 100% subjective on my part, but I put together a list of five position players that could be primed to explode in 2011 with their eyes on a contract for 2012. Tomorrow we’ll tackle some pitchers.
* Anyone not named Billy Butler and Joakim Soria, obviously.
Yesterday we looked at what remains of the Royals’ pitching staff to determine if any of those guys were worth a roster spot in a fantasy league, and today we’re going to move onto the position player crop. Fun starts after the jump…
I’m off to the Arizona Fall League and Ron Shandler’s First Pitch this weekend, so my posting schedule will be erratic. The good news is that I’ll have plenty of fodder for those posts when I do get around to writing them.
Back to the matter at hand. We’ve been talking about the middle infield recently, doing keeper rankings for second base and shortstop in the past two weeks. A fitting segue might be to a pair of middle infielders on one team, especially since their flaws are as apparent as their upside.
Ian Desmond saved a lot of Yunel Escobar owners this year, and since he was so cheap (practically undrafted going in), let’s not speak too harshly about him. On the other hand, the flaws are obvious, even within his .269/.308/.392 batting line. We know he doesn’t walk (5% career), so he’s a poor option in OBP leagues. Given his strikeouts (20.8% in 2010) and lack of power (.124 ISO last year), it’s unlikely that he’ll put up great batting averages or power a team to victory, either. To top it off, UZR (and subjective reports) have not enjoyed his defensive effort (-8.1 UZR/150 career). So what is there to like about him?
Well, for one, he’s a live, every-day body at a tough position. 22 shortstops qualified for the batting title, and their average batting line was .266/.322/.391 – Desmond’s line is even close to average, making him relevant in all leagues. Also, though his 2010 power was below-average, his career ISO (.145) is almost exactly average for all major leaguers. His career minor league ISO might be familiar (.129), but he also slugged better as he advanced. Lastly, his line drive percentage (15.8%) was so low that it only has one place to go. There’s no definite answer here, but it certainly looks like there’s power projection left in Desmond’s profile. Paired with his decent speed (5.5 speed score, 17/22 SBs), he can be a workhorse shortstop in most leagues. The flaws will probably keep him from being elite, though.
Across the middle infield from him is newcomer Danny Espinosa. Unfortunately, we only have 112 ML plate appearances to use in our analysis, and not many of his stats will have met Pizza Cutter’s reliability benchmarks in that few at-bats.
We can, however, learn something about Espinosa from his walk, strikeout, groundball and HR/FB rates, which all stabilize under 100 PAs. From his walk and strikeout rates (8% and 29.1% respectively), we can tell that Espinosa is a little bit different style of hitter than Desmond. The walks are about average, so perhaps the .365 OBP from the minor leagues will carry over. But that strikeout rate – arg. It’s a problem, and he exhibited the same problem in the minor leagues (25.7%). Even once the BABIP (.239) regresses next year, Espinosa will be a batting average risk.
Espinosa famously began his career with three home runs in his first five games and six in his first month, but how much power will he show over a full season? He hit a good amount of groundballs (45.8%), but his one-to-one groundball-to-flyball ratio is not going to keep him from showing power (Adrian Gonzalez and Ryan Zimmerman showed the same ratio this year). His minor league ISO (.185) seems to suggest that he can exhibit at least average power, if not the .233 ISO he put up in his debut.
Though he didn’t steal a base in his debut, Espinosa averaged about 24 stolen bases per full season in the minor leagues and has good wheels. Add in his average power and batting average risk, and you have another flawed Nationals’ middle infielder that can help late in 2011 mixed-league drafts. Espinosa had the more stable progression through the minor leagues, showed more power and on-base abiiity, but plays the easier position to fill. In OBP leagues, at least, he’s the obvious play between the two.
Another interesting name came up in the comments section when we did the shortstop keeper rankings last week. The Red Sox have a young shortstop from Stanford that had a good season, what’s his name again?
Right. Jed Lowrie. He of the nice walk rate (12.7% last year), booming ISO (.240 last year), and somewhat surprising 2010 slash line (.287/.381/.526), perhaps he should have been included? Perhaps.
But even before we get to his ability to repeat that performance, there is the fact that the Red Sox have an incumbent shortstop that may complicate issues. Marco Scutaro was just decent, but he’s predictable – he’s topped 2.1 WAR for three straight seasons now. Then again, Scutaro’s defense, now accrued in over 1400 plays, is below scratch (-3.5 UZR/150 career at SS). And he’s never shown a slugging percentage over .409, let alone over .500. If Lowrie can repeat his 2010 performance, Scutaro can easily settle into a super utility role… and there’s still the open job at third.
We can agree that Lowrie has more upside than Scutaro, and with 23 games at short under his belt, he’ll be eligible there – so now we can get to his ability to put up another OPS over .800. The variability in his possible 2011 performance kept him off the list at first, but perhaps it shouldn’t in deeper leagues. If Lowrie is to be an asset in fantasy baseball, he’s going to do it with his batting average and his power, so let’s unpack those portions of his game.
There’s no magic formula for a nice batting average. Lowrie, in his rookie season, showed a .258 batting average despite a strong .328 BABIP – and his strikeout rate was probably at fault (26.2%). In his lost 2009, Lowrie put up an eyesore of a .147 batting average by combining a terrible BABIP (.118) with lots of whiffs (29.4%). Lo and behold, once he ironed those two stats out last year (14.6% K%, .292 BABIP) and spawned this discussion most likely. That’s a lot of variance in his strikeout rate. Lowrie put up a 17.9% strikeout rate in the minor leagues (and over 20% in Triple-A), so it’s reasonable to expect him to strike out a little more next year. If he does, the batting average will most likely drop. This also meshes with his history well – even if you take out his lost 2009, he oscillated from .262 to .328 in the category down on the farm. Don’t pencil him in for a .280+ batting average.
Then again, plenty of players show value with poor batting averages, and a .500+ slugging percentage from a shortstop would paper over other flaws. He had a .161 ISO in the minor leagues, and his .172 major league ISO just barely topped the threshold for reliability (579 plate appearances). Since those plate appearances came over multiple years, it’s hard to say if even the .172 ISO is a repeatable skill for him. Looking over his minor league career, however, you will notice that he topped a .200 ISO in 2007 in Double- and Triple-A, and of course did so again last year. Only one qualifying shortstop last year topped a .200 ISO (Troy Tulowitzki), so this is no meaningless discussion.
Lowrie was a flyball hitter in the minor leagues – once he hit Triple-A, he never hit more than 33% of his balls on the ground – so at least he’s doing that part right. Sometimes players can have trouble with the line drive when they have so much loft in their swings, and even in his decent year last year, Lowrie showed a poor line drive rate (16.4%). There’s actually some upside left in him even if his strikeout rate returns. He could pair a strong line drive rate with all those flyballs and manage a decent batting average despite a worse strikeout rate – and of course his power stats would be happy with that combo.
Deep dynasty leaguers and AL-only keeper leaguers should find space on the end of their bench for Lowrie’s kind of upside. Because of the high level of variability in his possible outcomes, though, everyone else should probably just keep an eye on him in next year’s drafts.
We did the shortstop keeper rankings last week, and one of the questions was succinct: “Yunel Escobar?”
If only the answer could be as short as the question in this case. Of course, if you are in a shallow league or contemplating even ten keepers in a mixed league, the answer probably is: No. Even if he has the upside to become a top-ten option at his position, after the season he just put together, he could easily be drafted cheaply in the re-stocking proceedings next year.
But let’s talk more fringe-y. Maybe you are in an AL-only league and spent your FAAB budget on your new shortstop and you’d like to know if he’ll return to grace and is worth keeping. Once again, we’ll have to assume you are not in an OBP league because then the answer is again probably easy: Yes. Before last year, his OBP was over .366 every year and his walk rate survived even his bad 2010 to hover near 10%. He’s an asset there.
The “problem” with Escobar has always been discerning a skill beyond the ability to get on base. He isn’t really speedy – his speed scores have always been below average despite his 18 career stolen bases. His batting averages have been good, but last year it was bad (.256) despite only a mediocre BABIP (.282). Even then, a one-category guy isn’t one to keep.
So it comes down to if his power will grow – an interesting thing for a man with a career seasonal high of 14 home runs. The answer to this question is not as easily parsed as the last two questions, however: Maybe. Because as bad as last year looked, there was a progression in his numbers that might give his owners some hope.
Here are his isolated slugging percentages, starting with his rookie year, and not including last year: .125, .113, .136. And his flyball percentages: 22.9%, 24.7%, 30.0%. And his groundball percentages: 56%, 58.2%, 50%. And his HR/FB: 7.9%, 9.1%, 10.1%. If only last year’s .062 ISO, 28.4% flyballs, 53.6% groundballs and 3.3% HR/FB didn’t spoil the fun, you could say that his batted ball profile was trending towards more power. More flyballs mean more power on a basic level, and that slowly increasing HR/FB was a great sign that more of those flyballs could turn into the home runs that we fantasy managers covet.
The good news is that he’s only 28 and that trends like this can regain traction even after a poor year. It’s possible that he’s older than his birth certificate says – and that would change the diagnosis slightly and make it possible that we’ve seen his best – but he’s been here a while and there’s been little speculation about his age so far. If he’s on the right side of thirty, he’s in the right place for a power resurgence and a career year. Perhaps the “Grip it and rip it” hitting philosophy in Toronto will make for a career year in 2011. Right place, right time?
There’s a chance that in the right league of the right depth, Yunel Escobar a keeper. Not quite the one-word answer for the two-word question, but it’s honest.
Over the offseason, we’ll update the rankings with a slant on the best keepers. This means an obvious tick up for youth, and a tick down for veterans, but it also been stability and consistency will be slightly more valued. One strong season doesn’t make you a top-flight keeper in other words. Here were the second base keeper rankings, and now here are the shortstops:
The Top Targets
Hanley Ramirez, Florida (27 yrs old, .300 BA, 21 HR, 92 R, 76 RBI, 32 SB, .373 wOBA)
Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado (26 yrs old, .315 BA, 27 HR, 89 R, 95 RBI, 11 SB, .408 wOBA)
In terms of multi-category goodness at the position, these are the guys. Tulo’s stolen base success percentage probably means that he won’t steal double-digit bases too often going forward, but a healthy year has him hitting different benchmarks (30 HR, 100 RBI) that would make him an elite option anyway. After three straight seasons with an ISO over .200, the bet here is that Hanley’s power returns next year. Unfortunately, his fielding is sub-par and could still mean an eventual move off of the position, but that’s no reason to trade the star at what should be a low point in his value.
Still Strong And (Mostly) Young:
Jose Reyes, New York NL (27 yrs old, .282 BA, 11 HR, 83 R, 54 RBI, 30 SB, .329 wOBA)
Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia (32 yrs old, .243 BA, 8 HR, 48 R, 41 RBI, 17 SB, .317 wOBA)
Starlin Castro, Chicago (21 yrs old, .300 BA, 3 HR, 53 R, 41 RBI, 10 SB, .325 wOBA)
Elvis Andrus, Texas (22 yrs old, .265 BA, 0 HR, 88 R, 35 RBI, 32 SB, .298 wOBA)
This might be slightly controversial. Jose Reyes is often thought of as an elite shortstop, but even though he’s still a solid keeper, his last season highlighted too many of his flaws to put him in the top tier. His old problems garnering walks returned (5.1% BB%), and with so much of his value tied up in stolen bases, a low total in that category, or another injury to his hamstrings, and he’s pretty much a liability. Selling now would be selling low, but a nice half-season might be all you need to move him along. Ditto Rollins, actually, who is no longer a spring chicken and has flaws of his own (declining speed and injury concerns). Andrus has flaws, but he’s still young enough that there’s hope that he ups the average a bit and fills out for some (still probably marginal) power. In real life, Castro is the better hitter than Andrus, but he’s also more likely to move off the position eventually, and he probably won’t rack up ‘counting stats’ on the same level of Andrus’ stolen bases. In roto leagues, though, Castro’s all-around excellence is preferable.
Veterans That Are Still Useful In Deeper Keeper Leagues
Derek Jeter, New York AL (36 yrs old, .270 BA, 10 HR, 111 R, 67 RBI, 18 SB, .320 wOBA)
Alexei Ramirez, Chicago AL (29 yrs old, .282 BA, 18 HR, 83 R, 70 RBI, 13 SB, .322 wOBA)
Rafael Furcal, Los Angeles NL (33 yrs old, .300 BA, 8 HR, 66 R, 43 RBI, 22 SB, .366 wOBA)
In terms of present value, most of these guys outrank Andrus, most likely. But they’re all older than you might think, and none is currently so amazing that they need to be kept over the Ranger shortstop. Maybe Jeter has another good year left in him, maybe Furcal can stay healthy for a year. Maybe Ramirez has another good power year before his poor efficiency on the basepaths (64.5% success) costs him his stolen bases. But each of these possibilities is much less likely than improvement from the 22-year-old Andrus. Admittedly, it’s a fault line, and some may come down on the other side, but the long-term view, valid in more established keeper leagues, says Andrus and Castro are in a different tier.
Will They Get Better?
Stephen Drew, Arizona (28 yrs old, .278 BA, 15 HR, 83 R, 61 RBI, 10 SB, .354 wOBA)
Ian Desmond, Washington (25 yrs old, .269 BA, 10 HR, 59 R, 65 RBI, 17 SB, .308 wOBA)
Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland (25 yrs old, .276, 3 HR, 39 R, 29 RB, 6 SB, .301 wOBA)
Cliff Pennington, Oakland (26 yrs old, .250 BA, 6 HR, 64 R, 46 RBI, 29 SB, .315 wOBA)
Alcides Escobar, Milwaukee (24 yrs old, .235 BA, 4 HR, 57 R, 41 RBI, 10 SB, .270 wOBA)
Each of these shortstops probably deserves a more in-depth look over the offseason, but suffice it to say that they’ve each shown glimpses of possible mixed-league value while also displaying real flaws that make them deep-league dynasty league keepers if anything. Drew and Desmond are borderline keepers if your league keeps enough players, but we now have 2700+ plate appearances for Drew and 2010 was his best year, so we probably know who he is – and Desmond’s line last year was way too similar to his minor league line (mediocre as it was) to hope for much more either. Desmond is also a poor defender, which may factor in sooner or later. These are all flawed players – but they are young for the most part.
