Yangervis Solarte or Javier Baez?

Okay, in any sort of keeper or dynasty situation, the titular question is ridiculous of course. The recently promoted Javier Baez has all the pedigree, power and speed, and Yangervis Solarte is a 27-year-old non-prospect with few tools and a total lack of position. Game over.

But in redraft leagues, we’re only interested in what Solarte and Baez will do the rest of the way. And in Yahoo, they’re both shortstops that are available in more than three-quarters of the leagues out there. So… is it still obvious?

Let’s pro-rate their rest-of-season projections on this site to full-season work. Two months, more or less, so let’s give them 180 plate appearances. What would they do with those plate appearances if we just use the numbers?

Given the weights that Jeff Zimmerman found in his SGP method fantasy prep session this past off-season, Baez’s production has more value… barely. A homer is worth about the same as a stolen base, and all things being equal, either a homer or a steal is worth three points of batting average. Baez wins by RBI and a little more than a homer. But if Solarte can beat his rest-of-season projected .275 batting average on balls in play, he’ll tighten it up.

But of course there’s a higher bust rate associated with Baez. Solarte is doing what he’s doing now, and Baez is not.

Chris St. John added isolated slugging percentage to his bust rate work and re-named it JAVIER because of Baez, so let’s look at what JAVIER has to say about this. St. John’s system spit out a 11.8% productive percentage, a 23.5% average percentage, and a 64.7% bust percentage. That’s a super-high bust rate for a prospect with his pedigree, and it includes many years of chances. If we were to talk about the chance that Baez would hit well in these final two months, we’d probably have to push that number higher, perhaps bast 75%.

So now that slim lead that Baez had over the surer thing in Solarte has evaporated, at least for players that need more of a sure thing. If your team is doing okay and you need a stop-gap, the ‘obvious’ answer is already shifted over to Solarte.

Bradley Woodrum did a broad-scope look at translating PCL stats to major league ones today:

So, looking at the #PCL to #MLB transition, we see an average drop of 16 wRC+ points, with a little volatility. pic.twitter.com/EDFhhOfYrn

— Bradley Woodrum (@BradleyWoodrum) August 4, 2014

Of course, this stuff is hard to do and rife with problems, but the line does suggest that Baez will see a wRC+ under 90 this year in the bigs. Here are some guys under 90 wRC+ that fit the general bill:

It’s not a terrible group, but if you’re looking for sexy, it’s not a sexy table either.

I hate to play the role of Debbie Downer too often, but it really looks like Yangervis Solarte is more likely to help your redraft fantasy team over the rest of the year, especially considering he can play all over the diamond for you. Javier Baez is either going to power your team to victory from the shortstop position, or end up back on your wire in two weeks as you keep searching for the solution.