Shortstop Risers and Fallers
It’s been awhile since we’ve done one of these. Let’s get right to it and take a look at some shortstop performances over the past two weeks.
Risers:
He’s actually steadily improved every month, but even his improvements were still far less than we’ve come to expect from Ramirez. His wOBA by month are .245, .312, .324, .516. Needless to say, July has been pretty kind to him. In his 61 plate appearances this month he’s hitting .392/.492/.706 with 4 HR, 17 RBI, and 7 K to 10 BB. The four home runs tie his high for a month this year and the 17 RBI are already eight more than he had back in April. It’s only been 61 plate appearances but it looks like Ramirez may finally be turning the corner we’ve all been waiting for. For all of us who have stuck by him this entire season I sure hope that’s the case.
His month of June was actually pretty amazing. He hit .297 in 105 plate appearances, but only managed a .681 OPS. He was the definition of an empty batting average. So far his July is pretty amazing as well. In his 42 plate appearances he has a 0.0% walk rate and 0.0% strikeout rate. Somehow he’s been able to run into two homers and banged out three doubles, giving him one less extra base hit than he had in June. He’s never hit for much power over his career, but has been able to maintain a decent enough average to retain value in deeper mixed or NL only leagues. He’s currently hitting .314 and is available in 93% of Yahoo! leagues.
Fallers
When Castro isn’t hitting for average he provides very little to your lineup. He doesn’t hit for any power and doesn’t walk enough to pick up any steals. This month he’s hit just .236 with zero steals and zero home runs. His strikeout rate has ballooned to 21.4% in 56 plate appearances. For someone that is owned in 91% of leagues you need better production out of him. If someone like Keppinger is available in your league you may be better off adding him until Castro can get back to his normal self.
They’re having shortstop issues on the south side of Chicago as well. Ramirez has been falling since June, putting up a .265/.311/.343 triple slash line with 1 HR and 11 RBI that month. That was after a hot May in which he posted a .389 wOBA. Unfortunately for him, he seems to have carried over the woes of June into July. He’s hitting .217 in the month, and while he does have two home runs his OBP is a horrible .265. The worst part about his season has been the lack of stolen bases. Ramirez had averaged 13 in his first three seasons but has only three so far, meaning he’s unlikely to reach double digits which severely damages his fantasy worth.
Erik writes for DraysBay and has also written for Bloomberg Sports. Follow him on Twitter @ehahmann.
i have steven drew, but yunel escobar and jj hardy are sitting in the free agent pool. the league has r, 1b, 2b, 3b, hr, rbi, sf, sac bunts… so very diverse. is it worth holding on to him with the hope he comes out of it? or should i put my faith in either of the 2 AL East top of the lineup guys? (and which one)? thank you so much
Join a better league.
Drew has been worthless since the very start of May. He offers no obvious advantage over JJ Hardy. And Drew is losing playing time as well to Mr. Bloomquist. Grab JJ Hardy.
What kind of league are you in where Hardy is a free agent?
so Erik, I guess this is a tacit admission that you deeply regret your illogical ranking of Hanley Ramirez at the bottom of Tier 3 in the recent SS rankings, behind lesser players such as Erick Aybar, Alexei Ramirez, Starlin Castro, any Yunel Escobar?
hey wait, two of those guys show up on the “fallers” list too!
perhaps you can admit you weighted season-to-date performance much too heavily vs. reasonable expectations of future performance, eh?
If the whole world ran on hindsight, nothing would get done. He has no reason to regret any rankings prior to a player coming out of a horrendous slump.
yes, he does. The rankings were called out extensively at the time, go read the comments. It was unreasonable at the time it was written and still is!
Pointing the finger at any one person is just as bad as the mistake the person made, often times it’s worse. Grow up and move past adolescence for your sake.
Keppinger going to get consistent time in SF or back to super utility role? That would make him a huge faller no?
Well they just put Miggy on the DL, so I assume he will get ABs at least for the next two weeks. If he performs he will find a place in the line up, if not platoonsville…population Keppinger
Wouldn’t you consider Zack Cozart to be a riser as well? Perhaps he’s only relevant in deeper leagues, but shortstop is so bleak that he may even merit a pick up in 12 team leagues. He should offer a little of everything sans batting average.
Emilio Bonifacio anyone?
He has been running at every opportunity hes had since McKeon took over a month ago.
-13 steals in 23 games. just 1 all season prior to that.
-Hes also been slapping hits all over the place, and his OBP has shot up over .360
-scoring a ton of runs
And McKeon has stated publicly that he wants Emilio’s bat at the top of the Marlins lineup so his playing time is all but guaranteed.
Id say hes definitely a riser
What about Trevor Plouffe? He’s had good power, with 5 HR in less than 75 AB, also qualifies at OF, and has had solid plate discipline after crushing Triple-A.
The last sentence in Castro’s entry was the dumbest thing said on this site since another author wrote that he’d thought Bartlett would have a better season than Starlin. Nice timing too since he hit a HR the very same night this abortion of an article was posted. Do you try timing the stock market too?