Tiered Shortstop Rankings: July
An even-thinner-than-normal shortstop position got some reinforcements in June with Carlos Correa and Francisco Lindor getting the call. If you’re not convinced that shortstop is as shallow as ever, consider the following, which shows that a steadily declining position has seen a big decline this season.
Tier One
Hanley Ramirez
Troy Tulowitzki
Carlos Correa
Ramirez and Tulo rank third and fourth among qualified shortstops in wRC+, so they’re still the top options at the position even though the Steamer and ZiPS projections upon which these rankings are based are a little more optimistic than the author. But the champ(s) keep(s) the belt unless beaten decisively. We’ll get to the top shortstops according to wRC+ shortly, but their supremacy this season is far from decisive.
The star of this tier is obviously Correa. I wrote up Correa’s fantasy value when he got the call, and to say I undershot it is a bit of an understatement. I had him pegged to hit .260, he’s hitting .287. I had him hitting seven home runs in 350 PA, he already has five in just 97 PA. I had him finishing with about 70 R+RBI, he’s on pace to top 100 R+RBI. I’m an Astros fan and a total homer. I tweaked his Steamer/ZiPS projections a month ago to be more optimistic about the kid. And I still wasn’t close to having the right read on him.
All that said, Correa is due to slow down a bit, mainly in the power department. He’s carrying a home run per fly ball rate of 20 percent, which is unlikely to continue. But he clearly has raw power, and a HR/FB safely north of the 10.8 percent league average should be expected. The most encouraging thing about his power is that about a third of his batted balls have been fly balls after about a quarter of his batted balls in the minors were fly balls. If he can keep elevating at that level, he’ll keep hitting them out fairly regularly.
Tier Two
Jhonny Peralta
Xander Bogaerts
Brandon Crawford
Let me be very clear, I’m not a Crawford believer despite the fact that he and Peralta lead all qualified shortstops in wRC+. I understand that he may have made changes to his swing to give him more pop, but I’m dubious unless the numbers show me a reason for an improvement. You could make the argument that his plate discipline numbers show that he’s selling out for more power. His swing percentage is up and his contact rate is down, something that could be an indication of a guy trying to trade some contact for some power. But if Crawford is consciously trying to hit for more power, it’s odd that his fly ball rate is down about 10 percent from last year and, conversely, his ground ball rate is up about 10 percent.
Fewer fly balls can help a batter’s batting average, but when accompanied by an increase in a hitter’s swinging strike rate, you’d think the average would come out as a wash at best. That’s what Crawford has done this year and yet his batting average is 25 points higher than his career average and what it was last year. The projection systems have his average being around his career average from here on out, and I see no reason to disagree with them. If he hits .246 with 5-6 homers from here on out, his ranking here will look quite foolish. But I couldn’t bring myself to rank any of the guys in the next tier over a guy with a 131 wRC+.
Tier Three
Jose Reyes
Ian Desmond
Marcus Semien
Elvis Andrus
Starlin Castro
Alcides Escobar
Wilmer Flores
Brad Miller
Alexei Ramirez
Erick Aybar
Yunel Escobar
I’ve written thousands upon thousands of words on fantasy baseball, and I don’t know how to differentiate that group. When you run their rest-of-season projections through the z-score method, their projected fantasy values are effectively indistinguishable. Reyes and Desmond top the list simply for upside’s sake. Desmond has been brutally bad, and I don’t trust Reyes to play 50 more games, much less 80 or so. But the other options are all very low-ceiling players. And really, there’s no point in ranking these guys. All this group is really good for is potentially helping you in the specific categories where they’re above average and you need help.
Tier Four
Jimmy Rollins
Asdrubal Cabrera
J.J. Hardy
Andrelton Simmons
Jung-Ho Kang
Jean Segura
Chris Owings
Jose Iglesias
Francisco Lindor
Tier four is just the deep league version of tier three. The difference between all of these players in negligible, and their only real utility is to help owners in the categories where the players don’t provide negative value.
Tier Five
Jed Lowrie
Eugenio Suarez
Freddy Galvis
Adeiny Hechavarria
Didi Gregorius
Stephen Drew
Jordy Mercer
Nick Ahmed
You can find more of Brett's work on TheFantasyFix.com or follow him on Twitter @TheRealTAL.
where would justin turner fit?
Turner is a stud, and fangraphs continues to ignore that. Top 5 in SLG and wOBA in the MAJORS. Stud, will be a top pick next year cause he’s not slowing down.
UM, no they don’t.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jabo-justin-turner-has-earned-a-starting-job/
Troll.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/justin-turner-marlon-byrd-and-an-education-in-hitting/
That’s a feature article 2 months in a row, with a Rotographs nod the month before (http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/an-ode-to-the-lightly-owned-super-utility-player/) and Dave saying in the preseason the Dodgers should trade Guerrero for garbage and keep Turner instead.
Shhhhh, Mario. Like too many commenters on here, Mike has made up his mind that Fangraphs has an agenda and he’s not going to let mere facts interfere with the narrative in his head. (This is not unlike people who don’t want to look at the numbers when it comes to performance, because “they watch the games”)
A “top pick” that can’t hit lefties? Ok bro. He’s slashing .146/.271/.171 against lefties this year. He’s on the good side of a platoon, but let’s not get crazy here.
Actually, I should have been more specific. The midseason ranks ignored him, and the tiered rankings have ignored him. If you look back at comments of those articles, which are easy enough to find on the right of your page, I mentioned him multiple times and authors honestly said that they weren’t buying it, despite the obvious skills visible in the peripherals.
Not trolling, Ive read those same articles you pointed out, and I noticed him largely because of one of those articles. But their colleagues ignored him for the most part, that is not for dispute. Just look at the rankings yourself.
While ppl fawn over Correa, no one likes the unsexy, late 20s, non prospect, former utility man, ginger who’s been playing out of his mind. THATS what I complain about, ignoring the stats because the player himself isn’t sexy. At the position that he’s playing, he was ignored by too many. This site should be about the facts more than others, and it amazes me how often the authors here ignore whats looking them right in the face with guys that may not have the pedigree (like Turner). Its a legit complaint, not trolling
Turner’s not the first, he won’t be the last. Enjoy knowing that he’s a lot better than he gets credit for. On the flipside, you can trade guys with name values for much more than you would ever get for turner(ie. Kinsler)
What tier would you slot Justin Turner and Sano in? they still carries SS eligibility in Yahoo
Sano? Sano??? A SS?
Yeah, I don’t get it either, but I will take it in a Yahoo league.
Yeah, Sano somehow has SS eligibility in Yahoo leagues.
I guess Yahoo bases position eligibility on where guys played when they were 16.
I also have Turner and Zobrist with SS eligibility, otherwise I have nobody on this list. I’m thinking between tier 2 and tier 3.
wow, can’t believe turner gets SS in Yahoo. Russell is eligible in ESPN — where would he slot in?
somehow ended up with a MIF/3b logjam of Correa, Rendon, Wright, Bogaerts, Turner, and Russell (and that’s after dropping Alex Guerrero)…who can I squeeze the most value out of, and who should I hold on to?
What about BROCK HOLT?!?!?!!!! !!!!!!!!!!?
Addision Russell, Brock Holt, Miguel Sano and Matt Duffy all have SS-eligibility in various leagues between ESPN and Yahoo. Where do they slot in here? They seem like some of the best upside guys of the bunch.
Part of me doubts XB ever finds that awesome power people expected, but I do like the monthly trend of Bogaerts’ OPS.
Does anyone see the power coming? Or will he max out as a high average gap hitter?
Really! Is Hanley Ramirez going back to shortstop? Boston sure is lucky to have both a tier 1 and an tier 2 shortstop on the same team. It looks like Fangraph’s depth charts for Boston need some updating.
Are you retarded?
Either that, or he doesn’t play fantasy or doesn’t understand how eligibility works.
Did you look at the depth charts? Cause these aren’t depth charts.
Jose Reyes is performing like a Tier One Shortstop. Playing at a 90/15/90/32/.320 pace over full season and he’s healthy now. ROS he belongs at least atop Tier 2.
It’s not just Astros homers but we’re all homers on Correa right now (and every shiny new toy!). But I’m curious as to why the note about his FB% in MLB being more favorable than his minors track record isn’t met with more skeptical analysis? Is it normal for a guy to become a different profile the second he’s called up? Would be interesting to see if Correa is just unique, or some kind of analysis for future minors evaluation since how are we really supposed to evaluate prospects if their profile is just going to change? Maybe this just isn’t the space to do that and it’s already written, but somehow I think it’s jumping the gun a bit.
He’s got a 43% FB% v. lefties with an abnormally high amount of PA v. lefties so far that could be throwing off any conclusions on his true FB%. It’s probably more likely he returns more towards his minors profile as the season goes? But then again the bigger HR/FB% vRH might offset it keeping the power numbers up, so who cares.
Who knows yet I guess is the point. I liked your original analysis and don’t think it’s time to revise him to top tier just yet.
Could be due to the fact he was raking at AA, hitting a lot of liners skewing his batted ball profile. Per Minor League Central, he had a 31.5% ld rate in AA. Some of those liners becoming FB in the pros possibly?
Probably as good as explanation as any. But see Jorge Soler, did the exact opposite thing happen? I think Soler had the same initial HR outburst then his FB% returned more closely to his minor league levels? Then of course the FB% dropped off a cliff this year to 19%…
We need to know data instead of just assuming a FB% profile is now different and Correa will be the Correa everyone wants and not the Soler everyone got. Article here at the bottom is interesting: http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/in-memoriam-solers-2015-roy-hopes/
Seems that the interplay between FB%-LD% is very random in the short run, so not sure I trust Correa’s FB% to just stay over 30% instead of fall back to his minors level. Certainly a great sign so far though.
Where would sano fit in.. he has ss in yahoo
Corey Seager, where would he fit, if he plays rest of season?
Convince me not to give up on Starlin Castro. I’m not buying him even that high, I own him in a bunch of leagues and I am getting to the point of just flat out dropping him. He continues to trend downward career wise and isnt even hitting doubles this year.
I dropped him for Sano in a Y! league. I just don’t see anything to get optimistic over.
I’ve been dying to drop Semien, but the other SS on my team is Rollins. The only decent SS on the FA pool is Castro. All of these choices feel like deciding which dog crap to pick up first/last.
Which should I carry ROS?
I would pick up Castro and drop Rollins. I have sold all my shares of Castro, but he has been and should continue to be better than Rollins who looks to have fallen off the “old baseball player cliff”.
What about Cesar Hernandez PHI – ss 2b and OF elig stealing bases like mad
PHI said he would continue to get AB’s even when Chutley comes back.
This is the most half assed article I’ve ever read on this site. Missing Russel, Sano, Turner, and Zobrist. Barely a grunt after the top two tiers. If you’ve got a top tier SS, you’re doing fine. If you don’t, you have some decisions to make and this article doesn’t help at all.
Yeah, seriously. It’s like the author got half way through and gave up.
We all know who is obviously good. The only reason to read fantasy articles is to get some insight about guys who aren’t obviously good.
I can understand why Nick Ahmed is underrated since his overall line is still depressed from his terrible 1st month of the season (11 wRC+) but since then he has had monthly wRC+ over 100. He is a deep league guy only, but he probably should be in low Tier 4.
No way I’d consider moving Reyes for Xander.
Nick Ahmed has been hitting quite nicely for almost 2 months now: .296/.351/.479 with 27 K and 12 BB, 6 HR and 4 SB in 142 AB in 39 starts. Small sample size and all that, but it’s just as large as what came before it in 2014 and 2015.