Manny Machado and Adalberto Mondesi, two shortstops drafted inside the top-50 this spring, have had very different seasons to date.

Since signing with the Padres in the offseason, Machado has struggled (.261/.342/.451) to produce at his usual elite level. A level that made him worthy of a 10-year, $300-million contract. Mondesi meanwhile, has picked up where he left off in 2018, hitting for modest power (30 extra base hits) and batting average (.277), to go along with his league-leading 26 stolen bases.

But some of the underlying peripherals suggest that these two shortstops could see their performance trend in opposite directions during the second half of the season.

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If you had told me during spring training that Ketel Marte would enjoy a fantasy breakout during his age 25 season, I would have guessed it would include something like 15 dingers and 30 steals. Fast forward two and a half months, and Marte is indeed enjoying that fantasy breakout, but the shape of that breakout is rather shocking. As I type this, Marte ranks tied for seventh in baseball in homers with 20. TWENTY! He’s now on pace for about 44 homers. Heading into the season, he had only hit 22 throughout his entire career, and that came over 1,402 at-bats! His HR/FB rate stood at a measly 6.7%. Measly no longer describes Marte’s power.

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Corey Seager was a polarizing fantasy player heading into the 2019 season. Baseball’s fifth most valuable player in 2016-17 (12.9 WAR) spent most of 2018 on the disabled list recovering from Tommy John surgery. While Seager’s overall contributions to the Dodgers are obvious, his fantasy value has been up for debate given the increasingly high replacement level at the shortstop position and Seager’s somewhat limited power output.

Entering the 2019 season, Seager had slugged .494 with 54 home runs in 355 career games played. No one would confuse him with Billy Hamilton, but he also wasn’t hitting for the elite power that many other top tier shortstops were.

So far in 2019, Seager has struggled, hitting .235/.329/.356 with just two home runs. But his batted ball profile suggests that he might be trying to do something that his fantasy critics were riding him about heading into the season. Read the rest of this entry »

Shortstop is the deepest I can ever remember it and the deepest position on the diamond. There are 3 first rounders, 9 Top-50s, and 13 Top-100s at the position according to the NFBC ADP. You will almost certainly want your middle infielder from this pool, too.

Garrett Hampson has incredible SB upside. Jorge Polanco and Marcus Semien are solid power-speed combos. Paul DeJong and Eduardo Escobar are tied for the 6th-most HRs at the position over the last two years with 44. Amed Rosario capped off 2018 brilliantly. Asdrubal Cabrera is a boringly solid power option and Ketel Marte has some burgeoning pop (and some latent speed). Plus several others who have intriguing upside.

I POSTED THE WRONG LIST INITIALLY. I MADE SEVERAL UPDATES THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO BE INCLUDED AND I POSTED THE OLD LIST INSTEAD. THE NEW ONE IS UP AS OF 5:40 PM CENTRAL ON MARCH 1ST!

Podcast on SS: Link

• What’s your strategy at SS in shallower mixed leagues (10-12 teams)?
• What about 15-team NFBC-type leagues?
• Who’s your favorite gamble outside of my top 20?

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1/26/19

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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• @sporer – Host
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Notable transactions

• A.J. Pollock to LAD (4:40)
• Drew Pomeranz to SF (14:52)
• Brad Brach to CHC (23:00)

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It’s been a week of big trades for the Mariners as they gut their club. On Monday, the team traded away starting shortstop Jean Segura after two solid fantasy seasons in Seattle. He joins the Phillies, where he’ll have ample opportunity to try the many famed cheesesteaks the city is known for. Hopefully, all that cheesesteak eatin’ won’t hamper his speed. Let’s dive into the park factors to see how the switch might affect his offense.

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Have you guys heard of Adalberto Mondesi? No one’s been talking about him the last few months, so I figured it was my duty to discuss him. He’s obviously been surging up early draft boards after a remarkable close to the season. He went 73rd on average in the #2EarlyMocks and then Top 50 in both my AFL draft the PitchersList Mock.

It’s not hard to see why everyone is excited. The 23-year old former prospect had 14 HR and 32 SB in just 75 games and no matter how many times we suggest not taking brilliant numbers like that and extrapolating, we all do it. Even if it’s just to get drunk on the insane numbers for a little bit. Just for the record, his 162-game pace was 31 HR and 70 SB… annnddd now I’m wasted.

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I think there are not one, but many, questions because there are not one, but many, ways Adalberto Mondesi and Byron Buxton are similar.

Here’s one answer to one possible question:

who has the best fantasy season in 2019?

— Alex "Oxlade" Chamberlain (@DolphHauldhagen) August 29, 2018

I can’t say I’m surprised, but I’m kind of surprised. I asked this question very deliberately, its design not remotely accidental, the response options dripping with subtext. Mondesi, with his elite speed, decent power for a speedster, and very questionable contact skills, in 2018 is almost a dead ringer for Buxton in 2017. Mondesi doesn’t quite have Buxton’s baggage — he doesn’t carry the weight of expectations of a No. 1 prospect — but he has his own, continuing a familial legacy. But they do have a lot in common, as aforementioned, which can be summarily boiled down to this great quip from our Eric Longenhagen: “wholly untamed physical abilities.”

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The All-Star game has come and gone, but the festivities are ongoing here at RotoGraphs. It’s time to rank the first half’s “All-Sell-High Team.” These are players who had big first halves, but who aren’t necessarily the best bets to repeat that performance in the second half. Without further ado, let’s get right to the list: Read the rest of this entry »

Contrary to popular belief, the secret to rebuilding (and winning) your fantasy league is not hoarding prospects. This season, you could be waiting patiently for the arrivals of Michael Kopech, Willie Calhoun, and Luis Urias to save your team, or you could have jumped on pop-up producers like Max Muncy, Jesus Aguilar, and Ross Stripling. Last year, Aaron Judge, Luis Severino, and Charlie Morton were universally available if your timing was right.

The thing about prospects is that sometimes they pan out, and sometimes they don’t. Even a “successful” one like Ronald Acuña has just a 114 wRC+, with a rest-of-season projection slightly below that. In real life, that’s fantastic for a 20-year-old and Acuña is a likely future star. But in the meantime his production is nothing special.

And again: Acuña is a success story. Owners might wait years for the likes of Byron Buxton, Dansby Swanson, and Alex Reyes to carry their teams to relevancy. All the while, players like the following four who are owned in less than 40 percent (well, actually, 43 percent) of Ottoneu leagues have been quietly carrying contenders: Read the rest of this entry »