In baseball, middle infielders generally aren’t regarded as offensive powerhouses being that they get by on their defense. Thus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that 2B and SS are both rather weak fantasy positions. Coming into 2012, two of the former elite options have been steadily declining (Jimmy Rollins, Derek Jeter) and even Hanley Ramirez has had a slow decent away from fantasy dominance. While youngsters like Starlin Castro have emerged, this position remains more devoid of fantasy talent than ever.
In the chart above, we see the draft trends for SS in 2012. Each SS is represented by a grey dot and the projected draft round going from left to right with the projected roto value going vertically. Troy Tulowitzki sits out in his own world while the rest of the SS struggle to stay relevant for the next 10 rounds or so. Up until Round 12, there are some options that give at least average fantasy value but then the rug gets pulled out and there’s another drop in talent.
Looking at the trend above, we don’t really get a sense of how that compares to other positions. So, let’s make that comparison now!
The red line shows the SS trend and the other positions are shown by the grey lines. Shortstop starts towards at the lower end of value but doesn’t drop quite as far as other positions. Even with that fact, it still ends up with lower value than other positions through all rounds in the draft.
This year, there’s pretty much Troy Tulowitzki and then everyone else. He delivers great value in Round 1 and then there are a couple of decent options in Round 2 with Hanley and Reyes but they aren’t projected to give much more value then the guys drafted over the next few rounds after them (Starlin Castro or Elvis Andrus).
After Round 7, shortstops disappear from draft boards until Round 10 when the next tier of guys start to appear. But, there are a couple of decent options at that point with the ageless Derek Jeter and Alexei Ramirez projected to give good value.
At the tail end of the draft, there aren’t many great options but Jhonny Peralta and Yunel Escobar are at least projected to give decent value as possible backups for you.
With this position, if you don’t get Tulowitzki in Round 1 then you probably either want one of the guys from the next tier or you should wait on Jeter or Ramirez as very good later round options. There are only 9 shortstops projected to give close to league average value so you have to make sure to end up with one of those because the rest of the options here are extremely weak.
Shortstop Average Draft Position and Projected Value in 12-Team League
|
Name
|
ADP Rd
|
Werth Total
|
|
Troy Tulowitzki
|
1.4
|
5.4
|
|
Hanley Ramirez
|
2.5
|
2.5
|
|
Jose Reyes
|
2.6
|
1.4
|
|
Starlin Castro
|
4.7
|
1.7
|
|
Elvis Andrus
|
5.4
|
1
|
|
Asdrubal Cabrera
|
6.5
|
0.7
|
|
Jimmy Rollins
|
7
|
0
|
|
Derek Jeter
|
10.2
|
-0.3
|
|
J.J. Hardy
|
11.4
|
-2.9
|
|
Dee Gordon
|
11.7
|
-2.8
|
|
Alexei Ramirez
|
11.7
|
0.3
|
|
Erick Aybar
|
12.5
|
-1.8
|
|
Emilio Bonifacio
|
12.8
|
-2.7
|
|
Jhonny Peralta
|
13.5
|
-1.3
|
|
Stephen Drew
|
16.6
|
-3.2
|
|
Yunel Escobar
|
17.3
|
-2.1
|
|
Marco Scutaro
|
18.5
|
-3
|
|
Cliff Pennington
|
19.3
|
-3.9
|
|
Ian Desmond
|
19.6
|
-2.5
|
|
Jed Lowrie
|
19.8
|
-7.4
|
|
Sean Rodriguez
|
19.9
|
-5.6
|
|
Zack Cozart
|
19.9
|
-5
|
|
Alex Gonzalez
|
20.1
|
-5.1
|
|
Rafael Furcal
|
20.2
|
-5
|
|
Alexi Casilla
|
20.7
|
-6.5
|
|
Alcides Escobar
|
20.8
|
-3.7
|
|
Eduardo Nunez
|
21.4
|
-5.2
|
|
Yuniesky Betancourt
|
22.1
|
-5.8
|
|
Ryan Theriot
|
22.7
|
-6.2
|
|
Jason Bartlett
|
24.4
|
-3.5
|
|
Miguel Tejada
|
24.8
|
-7.7
|
|
Tsuyoshi Nishioka
|
28
|
-8.6
|
|
Clint Barmes
|
33.9
|
-6.3
|
|
Brendan Ryan
|
35.3
|
-6.5
|
