First off, full disclosure: this is a mailbag-inspired piece and Eric/OR should get his credit. He asked a good question, and it deserves some attention.

Who will be better from here on out this season, Elvis Andrus or Emmanuel Burriss?

First, let’s look at all the things this diminutive middle infielders have in common. They both weigh under 190 pounds, they both make their living in the middle infield and own shortstop eligibility in most leagues, and they are both fleet of foot. Okay, enough of the obvious, because the similarities run much deeper.

Check out their batted ball statistics. Burriss features a 19.8% line drive percentage, a 58% groundball percentage, and a 22% fly ball percentage. Andrus? How about 19.5%, 58.5%, and 22% respectively.

It gets even crazier when you start looking at their approach to the strike zone. They both make great contact inside the zone – consider Andrus’ 93.5% contact percentage in the zone, and Burriss’ career 92.8% number. Andrus reaches a little more than you’d like from a table setter (25.2% O-Swing %), and hey, Burriss has that same fault (24.8%). Both could walk more (Andrus – 5.8% BB%; Burriss – 7.3%), but a good walk rate does not a good batting average make.

No, their speed and good contact in the zone seems to presage that these players will put up decent batting averages in the future, if only because they’ve done so before. Given their skills, their high-ish BABIPs shouldn’t be too worrisome (Andrus – .309; Burriss – .326).

ZiPS, at first, seems to predict the same regression for both, though the reason for the regression is not immediately clear. Andrus owns a rest of season projection of .249/.304/.428 with 26 steals, and Burriss has a projection of .256/.312/.301 with 27 steals.

That slugging percentage is where the twins begin to separate a little more. The doubles and triples that Andrus has on Burriss will be valuable in many leagues (8 combined for Andrus, five doubles and no triples for Burriss). On the other hand, don’t count on home runs from Andrus – an 11% HR/FB percentage is not sustainable when you’re only hitting 22% of your balls in the air.

If there is a difference between the two, it just might be found in their slugging percentage, their BABIPs and in their differing strikeout percentages (Andrus – 13.1%; Burriss – 16.9%). Strikeouts are negatively correlated with batting average, and Burriss’ also has a little farther to fall because of his higher BABIP. Give a slight edge to Andrus for his lower strikeout rate, lower BABIP, and higher slugging percentage.

Any edge that you’d like give Burriss for his 300 extra plate appearances might disappear depending on your opinion of the 4-component speed score. While he had elite totals in the minors (7.8 and 7.7 in A ball), his 4.1 this year is dwarfed by Andrus’ 7.3 (despite only topping 7.0 in the minors once).

Though they seemed like twins to begin, Andrus looks to have slight edges in some key categories. The improving lineup around Andrus is the final nail in the coffin. Don’t bet against Elvis.

In recent seasons hitting has not been an issue for the Texas Rangers ball club. Pitching and defense, though, have been a different stories. The club has been unable to obtain top free agent pitchers to the club, so it must continue to wait for some of the impressive, young pitchers that are currently being developed on the farm (And there are quite a few of them).

As for defense, the club is looking to improve in that area ASAP. Incumbent shortstop Michael Young has been moved to third base, where his lack of range will be less of an issue and he should continue to benefit from good hands and strong throws from the hot corner. The shortstop position has been handed to rookie Elvis Andrus, who was originally obtained from the Atlanta Braves in the Mark Teixeira trade in 2007.

There are some good reasons to be concerned about Andrus this season. He is just 20 years of age and has only 482 at-bats above A-ball and zero experience at the Major League level. On the plus side, though, he did hit .295/.350/.367 with 53 stolen bases. His career line in just under 1,600 at-bats is .275/.343/.361. So far this spring, Andrus is batting .267/.308/.317 with three stolen bases.

The Venezuela native is obviously not going to hit for much power in the Majors with 25 extra bases hits and an ISO of .073 in Double-A, so he’ll have to contribute offensively by playing small ball and using his speed. The good news is that Andrus won’t need to chip in significantly with the bat with the likes of Chris Davis, Josh Hamilton, and Ian Kinsler in the everyday line-up.

Defensively, Andrus has solid actions and excellent range. He still makes too many errors (more than 30 in each of the past three years) but many of those were careless. The club brought in defensive whiz Omar Vizquel as a non-roster invitee as insurance for Andrus, but the veteran could spend the year schooling the youngster on defensive consistency.

From a fantasy perspective, Andrus is not likely to have a huge impact in 2009, although he could be the source of some cheap steals. His value will come on the field – and especially in future seasons – for the Rangers.

When the White Sox inked Cuban star Alexei Ramirez to a four-year, $4.75 million deal last offseason, the club anticipated that the wiry right-handed batter would hit the ground running. Though Cuban imports have historically been less of a known quantity, Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system spit out a .298/.344/.459 projection for Ramirez, and scouts liked what they saw as well. In a “Scouts View” piece ran in September of 2007, Baseball America talked to a talent evaluator who ranked Ramirez’s hit tool and speed as 60 on the 20-to-80 scouting scale (20 being poorest, 50 being major league average and 80 being superhuman). With a thin 6-3, 185 pound frame and a similar swing, Ramirez was often compared with Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano.

In his first big league season, “The Cuban Missile” turned in a .290/.317/.475 line, posting a .336 wOBA that was very close to the AL average. On the positive side, the then-26 year-old (27 as of late September) ranked 5th among qualified second baseman with a .185 Isolated Power. Playing at U.S. Cellular Field certainly won’t hurt a righty trying to pull the ball: Ramirez showed no discernable home/away split in ’08, but The Cell has boosted HR production by 28 percent from 2006-2008, per The Bill James Handbook. Alexei also made frequent contact, striking out just 12.7% of the time.

While Ramirez did show some pop and put the bat on the ball, he was also among the least patient hitters in the league. Ramirez walked just 3.6% of the time. Among all qualified hitters, only Yuniesky Betancourt, A.J. Pierzynski and Bengie Molina drew a free pass less often. In terms of swinging at pitches thrown outside of the strike zone, Chicago’s new middle infielder ranked behind only Vladimir Guerrero among batters with at least 500 AB. While the Angels’ notorious bad-ball hitter paced the majors with a 45.5 Outside-Swing%, Ramirez was right on his tail with a 42.7% mark. Overall, Alexei swung at 59.9% of his total pitches seen, again ranking behind only Vlad (60.3%).

Pitchers soon became privy to Ramirez’s free-swinging tendencies, rarely offering him a fastball. In fact, he saw a heater less than any other batter in the game with at least 500 AB, with just 47% of his total pitches seen being fastballs. Rather than giving Ramirez’s quick wrists and bat control the opportunity to do damage, opposing hurlers fed him a steady diet of sliders (24.4%, 4th among all batters with 500 AB). Ramirez also saw the second-highest proportion of curveballs (12%) and the 20th-highest frequency of changeups (12.8%).

While Ramirez is certainly an interesting player with some power and contact skills, it’s difficult to say just how much of an asset he will become (overall, Alexei was worth just 1.1 Value Wins in ’08, as his league-average bat was coupled with poor fielding numbers: his -9.2 UZR/150 at 2B does not bode well for a transition to shortstop). Ramirez is already 27- not old by any means, but in the age range where “what you see is what you get”, and his less-than-discerning eye is troublesome.

There’s some method to Ramirez’s hacking madness, in that he does frequently put the bat on the ball, but such an approach could lead him prone to seeing an even steadier stream of curves and sliders. Such a trend becomes apparent when you look at Ramirez’s percentage of fastballs seen by month:

April: 51.9%
May: 52.8%
June: 49.7%
July: 47.7%
Aug.: 42.5%
Sept.: 43.9%

“The Cuban Missile” produced a decent rookie season, and perhaps one could argue that he’ll improve a little as he becomes more acclimated to the majors. However, his lack of restraint at the dish might keep him from becoming more than an exciting, frustrating, overall average player.

In the newest installment in how luck may have played a role in a hitter’s fortune/misfortune, let’s take a look at Khalil Greene’s precipitous fall in 2008. Is there any hope for him going forward? I will once again refer you to Chris Dutton and Peter Bendix’s great work on xBABIP which will be referenced. Additionally, BABIP in these posts is defined (H-HR)/(PA-HR-K-BB-HBP) and xBABIp is the outcome you’d expect in a “luck-neutral environment.”

2008 did not treat Khalil Greene kindly. Hampered by injury and limited to only 105 games, Greene had his worst year as a Padre. He posted a slash-line of .219/.260/.339. In his four previous full seasons of work, he’d never posted an OPS below .725. Greene’s HR-output also took a significant hit: only 10 in 105 games. His k-rate was the highest of his career, as well. All in all it was a terrible year for Greene, but it might have been a little better with a little more luck.

Greene also posted the lowest BABIP of his career (.255), which was a pretty decent departure from his xBABIP of .276 and his career BABIP of .285. Obviously with his peripheral statistics down (along with his power), it makes sense that Greene’s xBABIP would expect him to perform at a lower level than his career norms. If we adjust his stat-line for the hits he seemed to lose to bad luck it would be a little more respectable .229/.274/.359. Those numbers are still pretty bad and likely someone you would not even sniff in a fantasy draft. Fortunately for Greene, he’s moving out of cavernous Petco Park and into the new Busch Stadium. While Busch Stadium is not Coors Field it should be at least a slight upgrade to Petco.

Below is his adjusted stat-line in four scenarios: the first is his actual 2008 numbers, followed by his numbers in Petco with “luck” stripped out, then those numbers in a neutral field, and finally his production using the new Busch Stadium’s park factors.

As you can see he isn’t setting the world on fire, but his numbers definitely improve. If Greene can also get his talent level back to where it was before 2008, then he would be due for a big resurgence. Greene also plays shortstop which is generally a pretty weak spot for hitters especially in deeper leagues. I would consider Greene as a late-round pickup or a guy to keep your eye on the first month of the season.

The shortstop position in fantasy baseball as we head towards the 2009 season has three players in the top tier and around 10 players fighting for position in the second tier. One of the interesting players is Indians shortstop Jhonny Peralta. In three of the past four years, Peralta has delivered good numbers in home runs, runs and RBIs. Last year he led all shortstops in RBIs and finished third in both runs and HRs. Unfortunately, he contributes nothing in steals and his average has not been a plus since 2005.

Last year, Peralta’s numbers benefited by him putting more balls in play. Both his BB% and SO% decreased as he set career highs in five plate discipline metrics. He had 17 more plate appearances than 2007 but 51 more balls where he made contact. Peralta’s BABIP was his lowest since becoming a full-time player in 2005 but he posted his second-best fantasy season, going .276-23-89-104-3.

A switch in the batting order also helped Peralta’s 2008 numbers. Last year he spent much of the year in the cleanup spot after hitting fifth, sixth or seventh most of the year in 2007. As the Indians did not add a slugger in the off-season, Peralta still figures to hit in the heart of the order, which should keep his RBI numbers high.

Peralta should be a pretty good bet to match last year’s numbers. What is harder to say is where fantasy owners should target him. One ADP report has him at #83, which is at the end of the seventh round. Another report has him at #117, which is in the middle of the 10th round. This is a pretty big discrepancy, but perfectly reasonable given how bunched up the second tier of shortstops actually are.

One of the keys to being a successful fantasy player is understanding the ebb and flow of your draft. Even if you rank Peralta as the fourth-best shortstop in fantasy, is there any reason to draft him in the seventh round if J.J. Hardy, Troy Tulowitzki, Michael Young, Stephen Drew and Derek Jeter are all still available?

Peralta should put up good fantasy numbers once again in 2009. But he is just one of many middle-class options at shortstop. You should feel good if you wind up with Peralta as your starting shortstop. Just remember not to reach or overpay for the privilege.

After hitting below .190 in his first two pro seasons combined (479 at-bats), it looked like Robert Andino was going to be a bust. The 2002 second round draft pick out of high school improved the next season, though, and hit .280 between two A-ball levels. At the end of 2005, he earned a late-season call-up to Florida and played in 17 games but hit just .159/.245/.250.

In 2006, Andino began his first of three straight seasons in Triple-A. He hit .256/.304/.364 and received another brief call-up to the Majors. The next season, the shortstop had his best full season in the minors and hit .278/.322/.428 in 598 at-bats with 13 triples, 13 home runs and 21 stolen bases (although he was caught 13 times). Andino received his third Major League stint and appeared in seven games.

Finally, in 2008, the Miami native had the chance to spend some significant time in Florida. He appeared in just 43 Triple-A games, while spending the rest of the season in the Majors. That said, he managed to get into just 44 games and had only 63 at-bats while hitting .206/.254/.333 with an ISO of .127. He also posted rates of 6.0 BB% and 36.5 K% while being shuttled between the Majors and Triple-A all season long.

Recently in the newspaper, Andino expressed a desire to play or be traded. It’s not surprising that the 24 year old does not see a future for himself in Florida with Hanley Ramirez at shortstop (.308/.400/.540 career) and Dan Uggla at second base (.262/.341/.490 career). The club also traded for young second baseman Emilio Bonifacio earlier in the off-season. The problem for Andino, though, is that he has little trade value at this point because he has yet to prove that he can hit Major League pitching.

Andino is also out of options, which means he’ll have to go through waivers if Florida attempts to send him down at any point in 2009. The Pittsburgh Pirates were rumored to have been interested in Andino earlier in the winter. There is a lot of varying thought on Andino, who strikes out way too much for a player with modest power. He also does not take advantage of his speed due to poor instincts on the base paths. The CHONE projection system suggests a 2009 line of .237/.296/.352 (in 489 at-bats), while Marcel projects .262/.326/.410 (in 219 at-bats).

It’s possible that everything could click for the athletic Andino is 2009, but a lot of things have to go right for that to happen, including a trade or waiver claim to get him out of Florida.

Elvis Andrus is the 20-year-old phenom coming for Michael Young’s job. Last year, Andrus was a 19-year-old holding his own in AA. He hit .295 with 54 stolen bases. The rest of his game, though, was pretty incomplete. At the dish, Andrus only walked 7.3% of the time and showed very little pop (IsoP of only .073). With the glove Elvis did not fare much better. While he has shown extraordinary range, he has not proven to be very sure-handed. He had 32 errors in 109 games which is right in line with his career .944 fielding percentage.

So with these facts in mind, why is the Rangers front-office planning on moving the very expensive Young to 3B? It seems they are trying to make room for Andrus, but the question of whether or not he’s ready is a good one. I would expect that the Rangers will employ a stopgap option at SS while they wait to see how Andrus does in the minors this year. Asking Young to move was likely similar to what the Rays did last year with Iwamura and Longoria; they did not expect Longoria to come to the Bigs so early and planned on using a stopgap at third. If Andrus does come up next year, then what can we expect?

Looking at Andrus’s MLEs, you see a slash-line of .235/.292/.290/.582 for his performance last year. This is very unimpressive. His projections are not all that pretty either. The big-ticket issue with Andrus, though, is his steals and position eligibility. If you can get 30-40 steals from a cheap SS without him killing you in other categories, then you are in business. Another thing that makes him a little more attractive is his home ballpark: Arlington. If we can bump his rate-stats up some for that then he could be useful. These MLEs also go off of a BABIP of .289. It would not be surprising to see him with a BABIP much higher considering his speed and line-drive hitting ability.

All in all, Elvis Andrus probably isn’t someone you want to draft unless you play in a pretty deep league. The best idea (and what I plan on doing) may be to keep a close eye on his minor-league box scores, the newspapers in TX, and whatever the SS for the big-squad is doing. Be poised and ready to make a waiver-request because a .290/.330/.320 line at SS with a lot of steals may just be sitting there at the All-Star Break. A less-enthusiastic projection could even see him as the SS version of Willy Taveras.

Michael Young has requested a trade from the Texas Rangers. This is not good news for Fantasy owners who have Mr. Young on their rosters. A move from the Ballpark in Arlington would certainly affect his numbers. Young hit .305/.362/.441 at home in 2008 – and just .264/.317/.364 on the road. In his career, his splits are: .322/.369/.480 at home, and .279/.323/.404 on the road.

The option of staying in Texas, though, may not be too appetizing either. The shortstop, who had his string of five 200+ hits seasons broken in 2008, has been asked (told?) by Texas to move to third base for the 2009 season in preparation for top prospect (and shortstop) Elvis Andrus. Young – who came up in the Jays system as a shortstop – previously moved from second base to shortstop at the Major League level to help fill the void left by Alex Rodriguez‘ departure from Texas.

Despite his .300 career batting average, Young does not have the power potential traditionally required at the hot corner. His career slugging percentage is .442 but it has been at .418 and .402 in the last two seasons. Young’s ISO has gone from .145 in 2006 to .103 in 2007 to .118 last season. Andrus, with a .073 ISO in 2008 at Double-A, will not help make up for lost power.

Defensively, the move may be wise. Considered a plus defender at shortstop in the minors, Young’s defence was overrated. He has steady hands and converts what he gets to, but his range is below average. At third base, he would have less ground to cover. In the last two seasons, Young has posted UZR rates of -10.1 and -3.9.

Young is also beginning the first year of an ill-advised, five-year contract that will pay him about $62 million (It was originally $80 million but some was handed out as a signing bonus, and some is deferred) despite the fact his overall value as a player – both offensively and defensively – is diminishing. That will make it very difficult for Texas to adhere to the shortstop’s wish for a trade – unless the organization eats a large portion of the contract.

The Los Angeles Dodgers organization has committed to a number of veteran infielders this off-season, including third baseman Casey Blake, shortstop Rafael Furcal, and second baseman Mark Loretta. There are a number of positives that can be taken from those acquisitions, but there are also three negatives: the loss of opportunities for promising young players Chin-Lung Hu, Blake DeWitt, and Tony Abreau.

Hu had a dismal season in Los Angeles in 2008 and he hit just .181/.252/.233 with an ISO of .052 in 116 at-bats. The Dodgers gave up way too quickly on the gifted fielder, who is just 24 years old. He has a solid minor league career line of .299/.344/.422 in more than 2,200 at-bats. Hu also had good bat and strike zone control. He had an overall contact rate of 82.8% and made contact in the strike zone at a rate of 92.9%. Even during his poor season his rates were 8.7 BB% and 19.8 K%, which suggests he was not over-matched. He could stand to get stronger though, with a line-drive rate of just 12%.

DeWitt was not supposed to be anywhere near the Major Leagues in 2008, but he spent just 27 games in the minor leagues. The remainder of his time was spent playing for the Dodgers and filling in admirably at both second base and third base. Despite being rushed, the now 23-year-old infielder hit .264/.344/.383 with an ISO of .120 in 368 at-bats. He posted rates of 10.9 BB% and 18.5 K%. He had a nice eye at the plate and only swung at pitches outside the strike zone 24% of the time. After slumping in June and July, DeWitt improved his game in late August and September and showed that he could make adjustments. The former first-round pick may not have set the world on fire in 2008 but he certainly deserved another shot in 2009.

Abreu missed all of 2008 after undergoing hip surgery in May. In 2007, at the age of 22, he made his MLB debut and hit .271/.309/.404 with an ISO of .133 in 166 at-bats. Abreu maintained that line despite a .301 BABIP. Defensively, he split time between second base, third base and even shortstop.

Of the three veteran signings, the Furcal move makes the most sense, followed by Loretta and then Blake. Furcal is only 31 and still has offensive potential – if he can stay healthy – but he does not utilize his speed like he used to in his prime. You have to worry a little bit about him pulling a Luis Castillo. Loretta, 37, is still a solid contributor and only signed a modest one-year contract. Blake has been consistent in the last few years but at 35 his time is running out and his three-year deal could look pretty bad in 2011.

With the expiration of Loretta’s contract for the 2010 season, DeWitt, Abreu or Hu may have the opportunity to secure another full-time big league gig, but there certainly won’t be room for all three. The Dodgers also have promising shortstop Ivan DeJesus, 21, who hit .324/.419/.423 in 463 Double-A at-bats in 2008.

Jimmy Rollins probably left many fantasy owners disappointed last year. He hit .277/.349/.437 with 11 homers and 47 steals in 137 games. Obviously, those are good numbers, but they are may be a little below what optimistic owners were expecting. What can we expect from Rollins in 2009?

Let’s start with batting average. Rollins hit .277 last year, after hitting .296, .277, .290 and .289 over the last four seasons, respectively. Rollins’s strikeout rate was actually the lowest of his career last season, as he struck out in only 9.9% of his at bats. Over the last five years, his K rate has hovered right around 10-12%. However, last season Rollins’s BABIP was .285, but his expected BABIP (according to a new model I introduced) was .323. If you add in those “missing” hits, Rollins’s batting average becomes .311.

Additionally, Rollins improved his walk rate in 2008 – he walked a career-high 9.4% of the time, the first time in his career that he was even over 8%. This led to the highest OBP of his career, despite the (relatively) low batting average. As a result, Rollins had more opportunities to steal bases. Furthermore, he stole bases at an incredibly efficient clip, getting caught just three times in 50 attempts; this continues a trend that began in 2005 – since (and including) that year, Rollins has been successful on 165 of his 184 stolen base attempts, an impressive 90% conversion rate.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Rollins’s 2008 was his power – or lack thereof. He totaled only 11 long balls, after hitting 55 over the previous two seasons combined. Part of the problem was that Rollins played in only 137 games in 2008, after having played in every single game in 2007 and 158 games in 2006. More of the problem appears to be the fact that Rollins stopped hitting fly balls – only 30.6% of his balls in play were fly balls in 2008. In 2007, Rollins hit fly balls 44.2% of the time, but that appears to be an outlier in his career: in the three seasons before 2007, his fly ball percentages were 36.9%, 32.1% and 35.8%.

His fly balls became homers at a lower rate in 2008 (7.7% of his fly balls left the park) than in the past two years (11.1% and 10.7%, respectively), but his career HR/FB is 8.8%. The biggest problem was Rollins reverting to his ground ball tendencies – an issue that could have to do with faulty mechanics and/or the sprained ankle that sent him to the DL in April (although I highly doubt a sprained ankle would sap a player of his power). However, it could simply be that Rollins’s 2007 season was a fluke in terms of fly balls – he hasn’t hit nearly as many fly balls in any other season.

If we assume that Rollins’s fly ball totals from 2007 were out of whack, so too must we assume that the 30 homers he hit that season are likely going to be a career high. It’s certainly possible that Rollins will regain some homers from his dismal 2008 year (dismal in terms of power production, that is), as his fly ball rate will probably rise somewhat, and he could see a slightly higher proportion of his fly balls leave the park. Still, an increase in these two areas would probably yield somewhere around 15-20 homers, maybe 25 (assuming Rollins stays healthy all season). As Rollins will be 30 years old next season, it’s quite likely that he won’t match his age with his homer total ever again.

However, even accounting for Rollins’s relative lack of homers, it appears that he improved his game in other facets this season – improvements that he may carry with him into next year. Rollins is still an incredibly efficient base stealer who also runs often, and this should continue next year. Furthermore, if Rollins can take his improved strikeout- and walk-rates with him into next season, he could see a rise in his batting average (remember, his batting average should have been .311 this year) and OBP, leading to more opportunities to steal bases and more runs scored atop a powerful Phillies lineup.

You shouldn’t draft Jimmy Rollins expecting 30 homers, but you can reasonably expect 15-20 bombs, and perhaps even a batting average of around .300 and upwards of 50-60 steals. That’s still a heck of a player, especially for a shortstop.