RotoGraphs Consensus Rankings: Shortstop

by
March 5, 2013

You know what? I don’t think I have to link back to the positions we’ve done before. Because David Appelman was kind of enough to revamp the RotoGraphs landing page, and now you can easily access all your draft tools — including our consensus ranks, and later our tiered positional ranks — just by scrolling your eyeballs to the right an inch-plus. Scroll those eyeballs! Enjoy one-touch draft tools! Applaud the dark overlord!

Okay, back to shortstops. Given the health and bust/regress concerns of the other shortstops in the top five, maybe it’s not surprising that we have a new number one shortstop this season. Starlin Castro won’t wow you in the speed or power stats, but he is on the right side of his peak, and he has been slowly building his skillset, so it seems that his risk of regression is low, and he should be healthy, too. It’s in interesting that we agreed by not agreeing — only one analyst had Castro first, and yet it seems fine that he is first. It’s not like we can just wipe away those lost Jose Reyes seasons.

The last few shortstops in the top twelve, even the top fifteen — those look like a decent argument for waiting on the position in mixed leagues. Why not get Josh Rutledge and Andrelton Simmons and hope one outperforms their projections b just a little bit? You’ll probably get plenty of exciting players while you’re waiting on that duo.

So maybe Castro or wait this year in most leagues?

RotoG ES JZ MP ZS Name PA AVG R HR RBI SB
1 3 2 3 1 Starlin Castro 678 0.288 82 12 71 15
2 1 1 1 7 Jose Reyes 653 0.294 94 11 61 27
3 2 5 2 2 Troy Tulowitzki 491 0.3 71 23 78 4
4 4 3 4 8 Hanley Ramirez 614 0.269 78 19 74 16
5 5 7 5 4 Ian Desmond 586 0.268 68 16 67 14
6 6 4 6 6 Elvis Andrus 698 0.279 87 6 57 19
7 8 8 7 3 Ben Zobrist 676 0.262 89 19 77 11
8 7 6 9 5 Martin Prado 642 0.294 85 13 66 8
9 9 10 8 9 Jimmy Rollins 630 0.25 81 16 58 20
10 11 9 13 11 Alcides Escobar 665 0.27 74 6 58 22
11 12 12 11 10 Asdrubal Cabrera 603 0.273 73 15 70 8
12 10 11 10 17 Josh Rutledge 556 0.279 74 15 63 14
13 13 16 12 12 Derek Jeter 562 0.288 69 8 50 7
14 15 14 17 15 Alexei Ramirez 591 0.265 61 13 61 10
15 16 17 16 13 Erick Aybar 481 0.276 55 7 48 13
16 14 13 15 20 Andrelton Simmons 554 0.258 60 7 48 16
17 17 19 14 21 Jean Segura 417 0.247 39 5 38 24
18 19 18 18 18 Danny Espinosa 562 0.234 58 17 62 11
19 18 20 24 16 J.J. Hardy 548 0.252 64 19 63 1
20 20 21 20 24 Everth Cabrera 443 0.237 44 3 32 30
21 23 24 22 23 Zack Cozart 463 0.242 44 12 50 6
22 22 23 26 22 Yunel Escobar 528 0.264 58 8 49 3
23 25 15 35 19 Hiroyuk Nakajima NA NA NA NA NA NA
24 21 25 23 25 Jhonny Peralta 484 0.259 53 13 56 1
25 27 30 30 26 Jed Lowrie 406 0.253 48 12 46 2
26 30 27 29 28 Rafael Furcal 401 0.263 48 6 34 7
27 24 32 27 32 Stephen Drew 390 0.245 42 7 39 2
28 34 22 33 29 Ruben Tejada 566 0.257 56 3 39 5
29 26 38 25 34 Maicer Izturis 254 0.263 27 3 24 7
30 32 29 36 30 Jamey Carroll 485 0.275 51 1 37 7
31 38 31 32 27 Cliff Pennington 394 0.253 37 5 37 9
32 29 26 36 38 Billy Hamilton 206 0.22 25 2 15 45
33 31 28 36 37 Jurickson Profar 345 0.232 38 6 34 11
34 37 34 31 31 Adeiny Hechavarria 397 0.235 32 5 34 6
35 33 35 36 33 Luis Cruz 346 0.249 30 6 37 2
36 28 42 28 42 Tyler Greene 225 0.238 24 6 24 7
37 39 36 36 39 Daniel Descalso 380 0.247 34 4 35 3
38 35 37 36 42 Dee Gordon 216 0.242 19 1 17 15
39 41 39 36 35 Brandon Crawford 434 0.24 38 6 40 2
40 36 41 34 40 Clint Barmes 409 0.235 35 8 38 1
41 40 42 36 41 Brendan Ryan 377 0.222 34 3 28 8

Others ranked by one analyst: Sean Rodriguez, Mike Aviles, and Eduardo Nunez.





 

With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.

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scotman144member
11 years ago

Lost seasonS plural is a bit of a myth for Reyes.

Yes, 2009 was a lost year w/ only 36 games played. He had 5 straight seasons of 153+ GP and 700+ PA before that year. His GP/PA totals 2010-2012: 133/603, 126/586, 160/716. Yes, he has missed 20-30 games in 2 of the last three seasons but since he’s a leadoff hitter he’ll still amass more PA than most SS. This comes out in the wash in shallow roto. The timing of his injuries has been absolutely terrible for H2H but once can’t reasonably expect that to be a trend.

I don’t think motivation is an issue if he made it out there 160 times for the depressing 2012 Marlins….if ever there was a time to take a month off w/ a phantom hammy that was it.

Bottom line: Reyes hit .287 w/ 11 HR and 40sb in a down babip year in 2012 and is now moving to a much more potent lineup in a more hitting-friendly division/homepark. I am buying for 2013. #7 is craziness from Mr. Sanders w/ all due respect.

3
tylersnotes
11 years ago
Reply to  scotman144

On the one hand I find myself agreeing with Zach’s rankings generally– it’s conceivable that Reyes and Hanley are at the same level as Rollins/Asdrubal this year and that their actual value is less than their perceived value based on being former first-rounders in what has traditionally been a very shallow position.

On the other hand, I could make the same case for Ian Desmond or Elvis Andrus. It may be the difference between number 1 and number 7 just isn’t that great at SS this year, and we tend to focus on minor differences in top 10 rankings, but Zach’s ranking of Reyes clearly impacted what is now his official RotoGraphs ranking.

-1
Matt Bertellimember
11 years ago
Reply to  scotman144

I agree. With all due respect to Mr. Sanders he must really think Reyes is going to get injuried but he is entitled to his opinion.

I agree that I think most people are making to big a deal about his injuries and the turf in Tor. Turf isn’t as bad as it used to be and Reyes is entering his age 30 season. Plus steamer is the most down on Reyes SB potential just so people looking at that don’t think that Reyes is on likely to only steal 27 bags. Most have him in the mid 30’s after 40 last year.

Tulo’s injuries scare me more and make him one of the biggest gambles in fantasy baseball this year.

0
David
11 years ago
Reply to  Matt Bertelli

Re: Tulo

Yeah, but remember September 2010?

0
Ender
11 years ago
Reply to  scotman144

If Reyes is hitting under .300 and only stealing 40 bases it is hard for me to take him in the 2nd round since batting leadoff means fewer R+RBI than other early picks. SB are also really easy to make up later while power is harder to get in the late rounds without taking big hits in AVG/SB. I wouldn’t rank him #7 or anything but I’ll gladly pass over him to take one of the other total studs that are around where he goes.

0