New York Mets shortstop Jose Reyes has long been a fantasy stalwart due to his sizzling speed and surprising pop. After a lost 2009 season in which the switch-hitter injured his right hamstring and played his last ball game in late May, fantasy players were hoping to get a discount on an electric talent in 2010. To this point, though, Reyes is hitting more like Rey Ordonez.

Since making his season debut on April 10 (he opened the year on the DL with a thyroid imbalance), Reyes has hit a feeble .215/.267/.289 in 146 plate appearances. His wOBA is .260, and he has yet to go deep in 2010. Jose has eight steals, but that doesn’t matter much when you’re showing the offensive skills of Willie Mays Hayes. What’s going on here?

The first thing that stands out is Reyes’ lack of patience at the plate. This season, the 26-year-old has hacked at 35.5 percent of pitches thrown outside of the strike zone, about 10 percent higher than his career mark and well above the 27.2 percent MLB average in 2010. That free-swinging approach has produced a 5.5 percent walk rate, Reyes’ lowest figure since 2005.

Perhaps recognizing Jose’s expanded zone, opposing pitchers aren’t tossing him many strikes: just 39.5 percent of Reyes’ pitches seen have been within the strike zone. That’s far lower than his career 52.7 percent average and the 47.9 percent MLB average.

Swinging at so many bad pitches, Reyes has made little forceful contact. His Isolated Power is .074, slightly more than half of his career .145 mark. Reyes is getting jammed a lot, as his infield/fly ball rate is 19.1 percent. His career rate is 11.7 percent, and the MLB average is around 7-8 percent. Reyes is making less contact, too, putting the bat on the ball 82.7 percent (85.9 percent career average, 80-81% MLB average). His K rate is a career-high 15.6 percent.

During his big league career, Reyes has hit line drives at a 20.2 percent rate. In 2010, just 13.9 percent of his batted balls have been classified as liners. As mentioned in the discussion of Chone Figgins‘ rough start to 2010, the classification of line drives can be tricky. But liners have a .731 batting average and a .990 slugging percentage in the NL this season. Relative to his career batted ball averages, Reyes has swapped 6-7% of his line drives for infield fly balls, which are near-automatic outs. That’s a trade that no hitter wants to make.

Though there are plenty of negative trends here, Reyes has been somewhat unlucky on balls put in play. His BABIP is .252, while his expected BABIP (based on home runs, strikeouts, stolen bases, line drives, fly balls, pop ups and ground balls) is .290. In particular, the speedy Reyes has a .196 batting average on ground balls, compared to a .269 career average. He also won’t keep hitting .116 and slugging .140 on fly balls (his career marks are .195 and .477, respectively).

Jose Reyes is a mess at the plate. But fantasy owners can do little else but wait — he’s far too talented to trade away for sixty or seventy cents on the dollar. For non-owners, this wouldn’t be a bad time to make an offer. Perhaps you can pick Reyes up at a discount from someone whose patience has run thin. The Mets’ shortstop still has the potential to be an all-around force, but he’ll have to stop swinging with reckless abandon to regain that elite status.

An interesting question came through the interwebbings in general and the rotographs mailbag in particular:

Normally, it is the other owners who panic and drop someone good but struggling, and I pick them up. But Gordon Beckham hasn’t done much of anything so far this season. There has been no stretch to give me hope. I am buoyed by the fact that he has 9 walks in recent games, but the 8 K’s that go along with it is still on the high side, and in any case, walks don’t count in my league and he isn’t hitting for much of anything.

Mike Aviles, Ian Desmond, Alberto Callaspo, and Starlin Castro are all available on my waiver wire. I already have Ben Zobrist and Elvis Andrus filling MI positions plus Pablo Sandoval manning 3B, so I’m covered while Beckham struggles. I need HR and RBI and thus why I hold onto Beckham so far. What do you recommend?

-M

This is a unique situation. While M is “set” at middle infield, Zobrist and Sandoval are struggling and holding on to Beckham means those players have to start through the struggles. If M wants to keep on chugging, he’d be best served by picking up one of the hotter middle infielders on the wire – most likely one of the Royals. But even if this is the move, who is the dropper? He’d want to drop the guy with the least upside, in order to keep upside on the bench. And since Panda and Andrus are virtually dripping with upside, we turn to Zobrist and Beckham as the most likely droppers. Let’s compare them to Aviles and Callaspo to get an idea of where to go. (For those touting Castro, I’ll say that the .111 minor league ISO removes him from home run consideration despite the hot streak so far.)

Let’s begin by using the ZiPs RoS projections as an eyeball test:

Zobrist .263/.356/.431 with 11 HR, 11 SB
Beckham .257/.330/.422 with 14 HR, 8 SB

Aviles .284/.313/.412 with 6 HR, 4 SB
Callaspo .293/.347/.427 with 7 HR, 2 SB

The eyeball test says he’s got the players with the most upside on his team right now. Though the batting averages of the guys on the wire are useful, M owns Fat Ichiro and would seemingly not need batting average as much as the counting stats. In fact, that may end the discussion right there… if not for the interim problem of being stuck with two struggling middle infielders, and the question of Beckham.

We’ve talked about how few statistics are significant in such a small sample size, but it’s the swing rates that stabilize the quickest. Well, Beckham is reaching slightly more (28.9% this year, 24.8% last year), but he’s swinging about the same overall (46.0% this year, 46.9% last year) and making similar contact (79.7% this year, 80.1% last year). The reaching is a little worrisome, but Beckham has always been a reasonably disciplined hitter with average walk rates (7.3% in the minors, 11.6% in college), and the difference is not so great that it suggests that Beckham is broken.

Instead, let’s point to two numbers that stabilize the slowest that suggest that Beckham will be okay. He owns a .241 BABIP (.279 career) and a .061 ISO (.160 career), and both of those numbers take more than 400+ plate appearances to become significant.

In this last bit of analysis lies the last wrinkle: Beckham has just barely passed the career threshold to make his ISO significant. In other words, he’s just now accrued enough plate appearances that his .160 career ISO predicts his future ISO at a 70% level. He did have a .197 ISO in the minor leagues, but he wouldn’t be the first player to experience a power dip upon entering the bigs. Since his speed is suspect (60% success rate career), if his power takes a dive, he’s obviously the dropper on this team. So M, if you are feeling antsy and want some batting average in the short term, it all depends on how strong your stomach is. But you’ve got all the upside on your team currently, and that’s usually the best way to go.

Mired in a three game losing streak, the Cubs shook things up last week by shifting Ryan Theriot to second base and calling upon top prospect Starlin Castro to assume shortstop duties. Bryan ranked him as the 25th best prospect in the game coming into the season, then introduced you to him on Friday, so let’s not reinvent the wheel and instead focus on what his arrival means for you fantasy owners.

Castro debuted in a huge way, whacking a three run homer in his first big league plate appearance before ripping a bases clearing triple later in the game, making him the first player in history to pick up six RBI in his debut. And that’s on top of being the youngest shortstop in Cubs’ history. It was without a doubt an impressive debut, and as things like that tend to do, it sent more than one owner scrambled to the waiver wire to gobble him up before anyone else did.

CHONE projects a .251/.290/.339 batting line (.280 wOBA by my calculation) with three homers and 14 steals this year, and a projection like that would have him outside of the top 16 fantasy shortstops. Unfortunately for your fantasy team, a big chunk of his value comes from his ability to field a premium position, which does nothing for you unless you’re in a league that counts UZR or +/- (that would be pretty cool).

Even if we want to dream a little bit and say that Castro will instead approach the league average .326 wOBA with 15 or so steals the rest of the year, it puts him on fantasy par with guys like Alexei Ramirez and (not to mix positions, but) Luis Castillo. Basically backup options in mixed leagues or second and third tier starting options in deep mixed or AL/NL-only leagues. However, I look at Castro and think he compares favorably to another NL Central rookie shortstop: Alcides Escobar.

For whatever reason, Escobar has gone from a 20+ SB threat to zero (and just one attempt) through the season’s first month. He says he’s going to steal more, but it hasn’t happened yet. ZiPS sees a .271 AVG with 18 SB and five homers the rest of the way, and I think Castro could give you almost exactly that as well. If anything, I’d expect just a little more pop from the Cubs’ shortstop because of his home park. 20-year-olds are tricky to project, so there’s a whole lotta dreamin’ that has to go on here.

Castro set the bar high in his big league debut, but he’s done a good job of following that up and has reached base in all four games he’s played. If you’re a frustrated Escobar owner, swapping him out with Castro could net you those steals you thought you were getting, and maybe even a little more. He’s owned in just 10% of Yahoo! leagues, so chances are he’s still available in yours as well.

Today while Andruw Jones is busting out the whoop-stick, we’ll bust out the in-season wOBA (and add ZiPS Ros wOBA) and go back to see what’s going on at shortstop. Enjoy the weekend!

The Big Four:
1. Hanley Ramirez, Florida (.349 wOBA, .404 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
2. Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado (.338 wOBA, .362 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
3. Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia (.526 wOBA, .355 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
4. Derek Jeter, New York AL (.381 wOBA, .361 ZiPS RoS wOBA)

If the season ended today, Jeter would have the best ISO he’s had in eleven years(!), so it’s safe to say that he may even approach his career high in home runs this year (24). A twenty-twenty season would make Jeter a solid top option, and depending on Rollins’ final batting average and steals total, and Tulowitzki’s home run total, he may even be a top-3 shortstop by the end of the year. Not bad for a guy that went at the end of the third round in the spring.

The Next Best Thing:
5. Jose Reyes, New York NL (.285 wOBA, .361 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
6. Stephen Drew, Arizona (.377 wOBA, .341 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
7. Rafael Furcal, Los Angeles NL (.369 wOBA, .331 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
8. Elvis Andrus, Texas (.344 wOBA, .342 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
9. Ben Zobrist, Tampa Bay (.322 wOBA, .352wOBA)
10. Jason Bartlett, Tampa Bay (.306 wOBA, .333 ZiPS RoS wOBA)

Elvis Andrus and Rafael Furcal are the big winners this week. Furcal moves up just by being healthy another two weeks and stealing a few bases, while Andrus is doing some really nice things in this young season. He’s got a great line drive percentage and is walking 17% of the time – there’s a chance he betters his batting average yet. Also, he’s stolen enough bases to say that he could easily best his ZiPS updated projection of 35 steals. If he can nudge that average up just a little higher, he has the upside left to lead this tier, or at least join Drew and Reyes at the top.

Bartlett falls and is honestly in danger of dropping from this tier entirely. His ZiPS updated projection only calls for a .280 average and 19 steals now, and those aren’t scintillating numbers. The worst thing about his season so far is that most of his secondary statistics are more in line with his pre-2009 career. Zobrist enters the list ahead of him because he still has more power upside even if he’s not showing it right now.

The Leftovers:
11. Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland (.324 wOBA, .335 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
12. Miguel Tejada, Baltimore (.364 wOBA, .341 ZiPS wOBA)
13. Marco Scutaro, Boston (.324 wOBA, .355 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
14. Ryan Theriot, Cubs (.339 wOBA, .333 ZIPS RoS wOBA)
15. Alexei Ramirez, Chicago AL (.242 wOBA, .327 ZiPS RoS wOBA)
16. Alcides Escobar, Milwaukee (.300 wOBA, .315 ZiPS RoS wOBA)

Though there is a lot of movement in this tier, the big news here is that Erick Aybar drops off the list. I know he was moving up in the ranking, and I was guilty of the same sort of Aybar love in the pre-season, but a frank look at his statistics doesn’t offer much hope for his traditional roto stats this year. See, the thing is, he obviously has almost no power (.096 ISO career) and even his speed is suspect. He only came up with 14 steals last year, one so far this year, and his speed score is currently below average. If he doesn’t better last year’s steals total, has no power, and is now showing that his batting average is also no given, well, then, he’s not so interesting, is he? I’ll take Escobar’s upside because of his wheels, even if he doesn’t yet have a stolen base.

Theriot’s strong play (though utterly powerless (.050 ISO)) earns him a spot on the list at the cost of the scuffling Yunel Escobar. The other (other) Escobar’s lack of real power or speed, and his steps back in batted ball profile, limit his upside anyway.

Time to take a look at the shortstops and see if anything changed in the first couple of weeks. I’ll be alternating between the middle infield spots every weekend, just as an fyi. We’ll also use projected wOBA one last week.

The Big Four:
1. Hanley Ramirez, Florida (.410 wOBA)
2. Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado (.393 wOBA)
3. Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia (.316 wOBA)
4. Derek Jeter, New York AL (.390 wOBA)

Jeter moves into the top group here. This is not because of his batting average – it’s a little BABIP-inflated even for a player with a player with a .360 career BABIP. He moves into the top because he’s showing (so far) that he’s still rejuvenated. The two stolen bases and two home runs in 10 games show that he’s still going to take off on the basepaths and that a 15/20 season looks probable. Add that to all his runs and RBI in that lineup, and his batting average, and you’ve got a top player once again. Rollins could drop out of this group – his injury doesn’t help, and may affect his steals totals this year – but he’s still a top option until he shows that he’s not going to attempt many steals when he returns.

The Next Best Thing:
5. Jose Reyes, New York NL (.342 wOBA)
6. Stephen Drew, Arizona (.321 wOBA)
7. Jason Bartlett, Tampa Bay (.389 wOBA)
8. Rafael Furcal, Los Angeles NL (.316 wOBA)
9. Elvis Andrus, Texas (.322 wOBA)

There’s a lot of movement in this tier. Reyes moves to the front – and is the best candidate for replacing Rollins in the top tier – because he’s healthy. Two stolen base attempts in the first ten games is not enough to move him higher, but it still counts as a good sign. Once he starts taking off more, and shows a little more life in his bat, Reyes should re-join the top group.

Like most of us predicted, Bartlett is indeed regressing. But if he gets his walk rate back up to historical levels, the hope is still there that he can put a nice batting average and plus steals together at a tough position. Drew moves ahead of him because he looks like he is finally putting together the better parts of his game at one time. Once the line drives re-appear, he could have a career year. Furcal joins the group more because he’s playing every day and has four stolen bases than because of his gaudy batting average. His upside looks a little like Bartlett’s at this point in their respective careers.

Andrus joining the middle group may be premature, but he’s playing so well, and Alexei Ramirez so poorly, that not making this move seems more radical than promoting Andrus. He is hitting .323 and walking 10+% of the time. But on the negative side of the ledger stand his single stolen base and his inflated BABIP (.400), meaning the batting average may come down and he needs to steal more to move up any further. If Bartlett doesn’t pick up his walk rate, and Andrus keeps hitting frozen ropes, we may see a flip-flop there.

The Leftovers:
10. Alexei Ramirez, Chicago AL (.319 wOBA)
11. Marco Scutaro, Boston (.354 wOBA)
12. Yunel Escobar, Atlanta (.357 wOBA)
13. Erick Aybar, Los Angeles AL (.339 wOBA)
14. Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland (.354 wOBA)
15. Miguel Tejada, Baltimore (.344 wOBA)

Cabrera and Escobar are not yet capitalizing on the gains they have made in their early careers, so the surprising repeating veteran Scutaro jumps ahead in the rankings. Scu-Scu-Scutaro is still not swinging at anything outside the zone, which bodes well for his newfound patient approach. Aybar moves up because he’s showing a nice walk rate in the early going (13%), but this part of the rankings has been generally underwhelming. Perhaps Alcides Escobar can begin stealing bases so that he can supplant someone here?

For Marco Scutaro the 2009 season was a career year for him on many fronts. His triple-slash of .282/.379/.409 marked career highs for him in each category which earned him a rather pleasant wRC+ of 117. Coupled with solid defense at shortstop, Scutaro, was worth 4.5 WAR. Not bad at all. This earned him his first lucrative free agent contract with the Boston Red Sox, a two-year deal worth $12 million.

Scutaro will be 34-years-old this season and what can we expect from the new shortstop entering the shortstop carousel in Boston?

First off, his .304 BABIP in 2009 may suggest regression upon first glance when you consider that Scutaro’s career BABIP is .289. Enter the Hardball Times BABIP Calculator and the system spits out an xBABIP of .311. While it’s useful to look at career BABIPs and recent trends it’d be hard to penalize Scutaro for his BABIP with the calculator confirming his 2009 score especially when we consider his altered approach at the plate.

Scutaro’s plate discipline statistics here are quite telling. Simply put, Scutaro stopped offering at so many pitches in 2009. His z-swing (55.5%-61.6% career) and swing percentages (34.5%-40.3% career) took big dips compared to his career and 2008 rates. This coincides with his career high 13.2% walk rate. Maintaining this new approach will be pivotal for Scutaro going forward as it seemed to take his performance to a different level and boosted his OBP to a very nice .379.

He also set career highs in homers (12), slugging percentage (.409), and stolen bases (14). Expecting around ten stolen bases next year looks like a reasonable assumption and lucky for Scutaro his new approach and power at the plate are two skills that don’t figure to erode as quickly with his age.

Scutaro is also moving to a friendly hitters park which figures to assist him and pad his line even if he isn’t as good as he was last year. He’s spent the majority of his career in Oakland and Toronto which are two prominent run suppressing environments.

Consider his home and road splits over the past three seasons according to wRC+.

2007: Home-76. Road-100.
2008: Home-88. Road-96.
2009: Home-105. Road-129.

This further cements the notion that the move to Fenway park is only going to help Scutaro. He is already familiar with the AL East and should enjoy spending half of his games at Fenway.

Scutaro may have peaked at a later age but if he can maintain the approach at the plate that he displayed last season then we should expect another solid season from Scutaro in 2010. He should also benefit from the strong forces around him in the line up. I’m very underwhelmed by THE FANS .272/.351/.379 projection for Scutaro. I like ZiPS’ .297/.378/.420 projection much more despite their super optimistic batting average.

While Scutaro isn’t a great fantasy option by any means he’s a good, cheap option if you’re bare at the shortstop position. He’s currently only owned in 58% of ESPNs leagues and is being drafted towards the very end of drafts. He should be owned in much more leagues. Don’t let Scutaro’s rare, late performance peak fool you. He’s in a good situation to excel in Boston and has a great chance of putting a stop to that shortstop carousel in Beantown for the next two seasons.

The injury to Alex Gordon opens up more playing time this spring for the Royals in the infield. Most of the early speculation has been on Alberto Callaspo and Josh Fields. But one player who should not be counted out is Mike Aviles. After a breakout season in 2008, Aviles crashed last year, mainly due to an injury which required surgery. In Friday’s game that the FanGraphs group caught, Aviles started the game at second base while Callaspo was at third and Fields at first.

Aviles had Tommy John surgery in July. The normal prognosis is for up to a year to come back from the procedure. But Aviles was feeling strong early in camp and there were thoughts he might be ready to play much earlier, possibly even making the Royals as a utility infielder. The plan for the Royals was to give Aviles some early playing time in the Cactus League at second base, where he would not need to use his arm so much to make long throws. And with Gordon going down, it made finding playing time for Aviles even easier.

In his two games so far, Aviles has gone 2-for-3 in each. Additionally, the Royals consider Aviles to be a strong defensive player. Manager Trey Hillman told the Associated Press:

“I asked one of our developmental people if they could identify our most fundamentally sound infielder. Its (sic) Mike Aviles far as textbook fielding a ground ball, approaching a ground ball and doing it right all the time. One of the staff guys grabbed me the other day and said that’s as good as it gets.”

Neither Callaspo nor Betancourt have good defensive reputations. Callaspo put up some good fielding numbers in limited time previously at second base, but was below average last year in 146 games and the perception was even worse than the numbers. Betancourt had a UZR/150 of -23.9 last year, including a -28.6 after being acquired by the Royals.

If Aviles is healthy and has the best defensive option, his playing time might rest with how well he does at the plate. His big year in 2008 was the result of a .357 BABIP. Last year in 36 games he posted just a .223 mark. The projection systems show Aviles with a BABIP ranging from .300-.316 and with an AVG of .270-.284.

If everything goes right, Aviles could produce a .290 AVG with double digit totals in both SB and HR. That could be a nice pot of cheese at the end of your fantasy draft when you are looking to fill your middle infield position.

One other factor to consider is that Chris Getz is on the roster as a contender for playing time at second base. Getz was not overly impressive either offensively or defensively last year, although fantasy leaguers enjoyed his SB output. So, Aviles is potentially vying with both Getz and Callaspo for playing time at second, the position he is likely to play early in the season as he builds up arm strength.

Because of his defensive reputation on the club, Aviles should have a leg up in the competition. And while he may not get a ton of ABs in the spring due to Kansas City spreading them out to all of the contenders, if Aviles proves healthy throughout Cactus League play he has an excellent shot of breaking camp as a starter. And if he does get the playing time, Aviles is a good fantasy option.

Over the last little while we’ve been looking at suggested draft orders for each fantasy position. We’ve already had posts for catchers, first basemen, second basemen and third basemen.

The Top Targets:
1. Hanley Ramirez, Florida (.410 wOBA)
2. Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado (.393 wOBA)
3. Jimmy Rollins, Philadelphia (.316 wOBA)

There is a pretty big drop-off after the first three shortstops on the list. There’s actual a drop after the first two. Ramirez has seen a drop in steals over the past three seasons – from 51 to 35 to 27, as he’s moved into more of a run-producing role, which has hurt his overall game a bit. With that said, he still batted .342 with 24 homers and he drove in 100 runs for the first time in his career. He’s still a stud if he doesn’t steal 30 bases and he scores fewer runs.

Tulowitzki took a leap into fantasy stardom in ’09 with a 30-20 season and 100 runs scored. He still has room to grow and we could see a .300 average in 2010, along with 100 RBI. The fact that he took more walks last season (11.6 BB%) is a good sign.

Rollins had an “off year” and he was still a 20-30 player with 100 runs scored. He doesn’t help you in batting average, but he has a great lineup around him so he’s going to be valuable even if his recent struggles are actually regression showing its ugly face.

The Next Best Thing:
4. Derek Jeter, New York AL (.390 wOBA)
5. Jason Bartlett, Tampa Bay (.389 wOBA)
6. Jose Reyes, New York NL (.342 wOBA)
7. Alexei Ramirez, Chicago AL (.319 wOBA)
8. Stephen Drew, Arizona (.321 wOBA)

Jeter posted the third highest wOBA of any shortstop in the Majors last season but he sits at No. 4 on the list, in part due to his age (36 this season). We don’t expect him to steal 30 bases again and the 18 homers were probably a bit of a fluke (or ball-park induced, as 13 came at home).

Likewise, Bartlett’s ’09 season was probably a career year in terms of power and batting average. He’ll probably continue to be a solid contributor with the bat, but definitely not a top target. Reyes gets bumped down the list due to his injury/health woes. We really have no idea at this point when his season will begin. And much of his value is tied around his base running, so it will be interesting to see how he rebounds in that area.

I’m definitely not a big Alexei Ramirez fan but he obviously has value as someone that can be a 15-15 player with a .260-.280 average. He also potentially offers some versatility depending on how the Sox club uses him. Drew is just frustrating. He has the talent to be a Top 5 shortstop but he just cannot put it together consistently. But he is entering his age-27 season, so maybe something will click. Drew has 20-homer potential.

The Leftovers:
9. Rafael Furcal, Los Angeles NL (.316 wOBA)
10. Elvis Andrus, Texas (.322 wOBA)
11. Yunel Escobar , Atlanta (.357 wOBA)
12. Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland (.354 wOBA)
13. Miguel Tejada, Baltimore (.344 wOBA)
14. Marco Scutaro, Toronto (.354 wOBA)
15. Erick Aybar, Los Angeles AL (.339 wOBA)

A lot of these guys are very similar in value so you could really rank them about 15 different ways. Furcal doesn’t run enough anymore to be truly coveted. But if he can play 150 games, he could score 100 runs with a good, young offense behind him. It’s hard to know what to expect from Andrus this year… and we can only hope that he avoids the dreaded sophomore curse. Don’t overpay for him. Escobar has value as someone that can hit 10-15 homers and bat .270-.300 but he’s not a run producer and he doesn’t steal bases.

Cabrera hits for a hollow .300 average but he went down with an injury today so we’ll have to await word on its severity. Tejada’s in his declining years a move back to the American League probably is not going to help. Scutaro is most assuredly coming off of a career year, but his numbers will probably dip less now that he’s in a more potent lineup thanks to his move from Toronto to Boston. He could score 100 runs at the top of that lineup. This is the year I’d like to see Aybar use his full talent and steal 30+ bases with 100 runs scored; he’s my personal shortstop sleeper pick for 2010.

Up Next: The Outfielders

When we took a look at the Royal shortstop situation on Thursday, it became obvious that the picture would not be complete without looking at the rest of the middle infield. And, as is our wont when it comes to position battles, we’ll have to consider defense – even if it doesn’t show up in our fantasy box scores.

There’s a lot of love for the incumbent at this position, and for good reason. Alberto Callaspo was, by wOBA, the second-best hitter on the Royals last year. His approach at he plate features gobs of contact (94.5% zone-contact last year, and 87.8% was the league average) and an average walk rate (8.2% last year, 8.9% ML average). Before last year, though, he didn’t show much power. Then he more than doubled his career ISO (.156 last year, previous career high was .071) and shot into fantasy relevance. The projections show some concern about that spike and all of them have him regressing in the power department in 2010. His minor league ISO (.119) would be an item in favor of that approach.

But if Callaspo can make all that contact with average power (.155 ISO is the league average), and play good defense at second base, he should win the battle with Chris Getz, right? Well, defense is an interesting question here. UZR does not love Callaspo, giving him a -2.9 UZR/150 in 209 games while Total Zone had him as pretty much a scratch defender at the position in the minor leagues. The fans? The fans, they don’t love him. The Fans Scouting Report has Callaspo as the fourth-worst fielder on the Royals, just below Jose Guillen. Ouch.

There’s a lack of consensus on the appraisal of the defense in the case of Getz as well. The Fans Scouting Report has him as significantly better in terms of range, speed and first step, giving him an average ranking of 3.3 to Callaspo’s 2.3. UZR doesn’t like him as much, but his -6 UZR/150 has only come in 101 games, so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Total Zone rates him as solid but not spectacular. In any case, the overall picture is one of player that has the chance to be better than Callaspo on defense.

If the Royals agree with assessment and need D, they will get Getz’ glove in there. What will his bat provide? So far it looks like below-average patience (7.1% walk rate), below-average power (.084 ISO), and good speed (7.3 speed score, 5.0 is average). There’s hope for a little more, though. Getz walked more in the minors (10.2%) and players usually improve in that category as they age. He had a sub-.100 minor league ISO, though, so it will only be patience and speed from Getz if he wins the job.

This is a tougher battle to handicap than the shortstop situation. The defensive numbers are not as clear, and the bats in question are somewhat similar. Because Callaspo’s power last year hasn’t been duplicated on the major league level, and because the team decided to acquire another second baseman in a trade, you have to consider that he is on thin ice. Getz does have an option left, and it may behoove the organization to demote him to AAA while they pump up Callaspo’s value and perhaps trade him mid-season. If Callaspo’s already shaky defense gets worse as he ages, he will only become less valuable in the coming years. His bat gives him the current leg up, and Callaspo should get regular at-bats somewhere on the field no matter how this battle shakes down, but neither one of these guys gets an unequivocal thumbs up because of the risk, and they only make late-round fliers in deep leagues at best.

There is no greater intersection of fantasy and ‘real’ baseball analysis than the Spring Position Battle. How better to reap the rewards of good number-crunching than the correct prediction of the winner of the lion’s share of playing time at a given position? It’s one of fantasy baseball’s best moments.

And there’s no easier place to look for this feeling than the worst teams in baseball. The worse the team, the younger the team, the more likely they’ll allow an inexperienced young man to steer the helm at a given position. The Pirates, for example, currently have 30(!) players with three years or fewer experience on their 40-man roster.

Follow this string of thought to the end, and you’ll inevitably end up looking at the team being run by the worst GM in baseball (if Tim Marchman is to be believed). There might be some debate about whether or not it’s more important to feature your best players up the middle, but it’s got to be a given that it’s not a good sign to go into camp not knowing who is going to make up your keystone combo. (The name of that combo should really be a clue.)

So we come to the Royals. At the incumbent starting shortstop position stands Yuniesky Betancourt. By WAR, he was the worst position player that qualified for the batting title last year, costing the Royals $2.2 million on top of his $3.375 million salary. He accomplished this (little) feat by walking only 4.1% of the time while also displaying below-average speed (3.9 speed score, 5.0 average) and power (.106 ISO, .155 MLB average). The worst part for such a ‘key’ defensive position? He had a -23.9 UZR/150 last year, which would be less worrisome if he didn’t also feature a negative rating for his career. I’m struggling to find something good to say, but apparently his demeanor can be even worse than his performance.

Let’s just say he doesn’t offer too much of an obstacle, should, say, Mike Aviles step to the fore. Aviles was once a too-old for his leagues prospect that tore his way through to the major leagues with good contact rates and not much else. He was once over-rated, yes, but now seems under-rated. His injury hurt his good contact rates (90.7% in the zone down to 85.6% last year) and sapped his average power (.155 ISO down to .067 last year). As exhibits in his favor, I submit his minor league ISO (.167) as well as minor league walk and strikeout rates that were virtually identical to his rookie year numbers. Aviles may not have been as good as he looked his rookie year, but he wasn’t as bad as he was last year.

In defense of his defense, there’s no real evidence that it’s terrible, despite the fact that he’s played all over the diamond and his general manager had the (misguided) idea that he needed to acquire another shortstop. His UZR/150 was great in his rookie year (+31.6 UZR/150) and bad last year (-12.7 UZR/150), but Total Zone had him as a positive defender at shortstop in the minors. The Fan Scouting Report pegged him as better than Betancourt even in his poor ’09. Aviles scored better than his competitor/teammate in every category… but arm strength. And now he’s coming off of Tommy John surgery. On the other hand, we must consider the case of Cesar Izturis, who had TJ surgery in 2005 and last year the fans say he sported an arm that was a little better than Stephen Drew‘s and a little worse than Jason Bartlett’s. Izturis had surgery on 9/16/2005 and returned in mid-June 2006. Aviles had his surgery 9/07/2009.

The normal caveats apply. This is is the Royals, we have no idea what’s going on at second base with Alberto Callaspo and Chris Getz (a post for another time), and every recovering arm is different, but in the interest of being unequivocal: By mid-June Mike Aviles should be starting at shortstop for the Royals.