| | | | Monday, February 12, 2024 | | The Super Bowl is over, and you know what that means: It's Fantasy Baseball's time in the spotlight! | | If you're subscribed to this newsletter, of course, I'm going to assume you're not waiting until after the Super Bowl to get back into Fantasy Baseball, but we know how it works. Interest in the upcoming baseball season always picks up once football is out of the way, and we're happy to have you here, no matter when you're dialing in. | | If you are new here, you missed the start of our position preview series last week, but that's okay, because you can catch up with the links below, with everything from Scott White and myself that you need to know about to get ready to draft for the catcher, first base, second base, and third base positions: | | Position Strategies: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SSPosition Previews: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS Position Tiers: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | | | | Today, we're moving on to what I think is the deepest position in the game in 2024: Shortstop. But, I should note that you're going to get a bit of a different perspective from Scott, who thinks the shortstop position runs out of viable starting options before some of the other infield positions. | | And I can sort of see the case for it, though I think that the case ironically kind of rests on the strength of the position: There are 12 shortstops being drafted inside of the top 100 in NFBC drafts right now, but five of them are multi-eligible, and you're probably going to start Gunnar Henderson at third base or Matt McLain at second base. | | Which means, that, while shortstop does have a lot more high-end options than the other positions, it can end up a little thinner than you think because of those multi-eligible names. However, in talking through the position in our Shortstop Preview episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast, I think Scott and I also disagree about the position because we disagree about the viability of some of the lower-end options at the position. For instance, I'm perfectly fine rolling into the season with Xander Bogaerts as my top option at SS, while I think the very thought of that might give Scott at least mild indigestion. | | We'll get into more of that with the rest of today's newsletter, but you should start your SS prep with the FBT Podcast episode about it from Sunday, where we went all the way through every player being drafted inside of the top 400 in ADP to get you started. After that, we're going to be using Scott White's Shortstop Strategies column and my Shortstop Preview piece on CBSSports.com as our guide for what could be another of whiplash at third base. | | Here's what shortstop looks like for 2024 drafts. | | | | 2024 Shortstop Preview | | "For a multi-year stretch mostly coinciding with the juiced ball era, shortstop stood alone among infield positions as the most high-end and star-studded of all. | | But now? Well, it still has its stars, but it's just not that special anymore. Some of the players who contributed to its star-studdedness have slipped back into something more ordinary, and the new guard hasn't firmly taken hold yet. If anything, shortstop stands out most for having more questions than answers. | | And what talent it does have is mostly concentrated at the top, which means you could totally botch the thing if you're not careful. Again, I'm not claiming it's shallow -- no infield position is, really -- but the way you approach it should be the most intentional of all the infield positions. | | By that, I mean you really have to draft one of the top 14 to feel "settled" at the position. You don't want to go into the season already on the lookout for an upgrade, whether it's because you're dissatisfied with the player's upside or fearful of his downside. Maybe 14 doesn't sound like a small number to you, particularly if you play in a league with 12 teams or fewer, but of those 14, five are eligible at some other position that isn't noticeably deeper at the point in the draft where they're taken. So if you're not careful, you may get stuck hoping for a Carlos Correa or Trevor Story rebound. And if you play in a Rotisserie league, you still have a middle infield position to fill beyond that. | | Indeed, the fallback options -- which I'll loosely define as the 20-30 range in the rankings -- just aren't as bankable at shortstop as at other positions. I'd rather not stake my season to them, so if I'm liable to reach at any position, it's ... well, OK, it's the outfield. But after that, it's shortstop." | | -From Scott White's 'Shortstop Strategies' column | | Offseason Recap | | Tim Anderson remains a free agent | | It was an incredibly quiet offseason at the shortstop position, as Tim Anderson was the only player at the position to even make CBS Sports' ranking of the top 50 free agents this offseason. I still think Anderson has some juice left in the tank, as I wrote in my Sleepers 1.0 column: "With Anderson, I think we do have an obvious explanation for why 2023 was such a disaster: He just wasn't ever healthy. That's not technically true, of course, because Anderson was hitting .318/.348/.432 through the first 10 games of the season, with five steals before suffering a sprained left knee. He came back after just over three weeks and was just a disaster, hitting .240 with one homer and only eight steals over his final 112 games." Anderson still has to sign somewhere for this to matter, but assuming he does, I'll be throwing a late-round dart at him in more than a few leagues this season. | | | | Consensus rankings | | For breakdowns of each of the top 12 and more, head here. | | Bobby Witt, Royals Trea Turner, Nationals (The First-Rounders Tier) Francisco Lindor, Mets Corey Seager, Rangers Gunnar Henderson, Orioles (The Also-Elite Tier) Bo Bichette, Blue Jays Elly De La Cruz, Reds Nico Hoerner, CubsC.J. Abrams , NationalsMatt McLain, Reds Oneil Cruz, PiratesXander Bogaerts, Padres (The Near-Elite Tier) | | In a Roto league, Witt is a candidate for the No. 2 pick, while Turner is probably a first-round pick after how he bounced back over the final couple of months -- he hit .292/.348/.554 after the All-Star break, and then added a .347 average with three homers and four steals in 13 postseason games. But both are a bit lower in H2H points leagues, with Witt more like a fringe first-rounder and Turner dropping toward the 2-3 turn, closer to Lindor. De La Cruz, Hoerner, Abrams, and Cruz are all probably a bit lower in H2H points than in Roto as well; Bogaerts probably deserves to get moved up in points, but I think he's probably just going to be written off and overlooked (unfairly!) in every format. | | FBT Shortstop Superlatives | | Sleepers | | Scott: Jackson Holliday, Orioles Chris : Tim Anderson, FAFrank: Trevor Story, Red Sox | | "it's been a rocky one for Story and the Red Sox. I do think there are built-in excuses for Story, however. He didn't have a normal offseason with the Red Sox until this one! If you remember, Story signed with Boston in late March, 2022. That was a result of the lockout, which delayed signings and, as we all know, the start of the regular season. Then in January 2023, Story underwent an internal bracing procedure on his right ulnar collateral ligament. He returned in August but was a shell of himself, admitting he was just trying to survive up at the plate. | | I'll fully admit Story is a bit of a wild card this upcoming season. In 137 games since joining the Red Sox, he's batting just .227 with a 31% strikeout rate. What helps in category leagues is that he still hit 19 home runs with 23 steals during that span. And while he was a shell of himself in 2023, Story still managed 10 steals in 43 games. If nothing else, I'd expect the speed element of his game to be there in 2024. He's also projected to bat cleanup and, as you're about to learn, I'm pretty excited about this Red Sox lineup. I think it's filled with upside but also includes high-floor options like Rafael Devers and Masataka Yoshida. Story has a wide range of outcomes but I think a 20-20 season or even 25-25 is possible following his first normal offseason since joining the Red Sox." -Frank | | Breakouts | | Chris: Oneil Cruz, Pirates Scott: Oneil Cruz, Pirates Frank: Oneil Cruz, Pirates | | "It was effectively a lost season for Cruz, who ended up playing just nine games before suffering a season-ending fractured fibula. He's been playing in game action at the Pirates academy in the Dominican Republic and is fully recovered from the injury, so now the question is whether there will be any lingering effects. Cruz lost a key year of development time, adding uncertainty into what was already a highly volatile profile. However, Cruz has also played 98 games at the MLB level and put up 162-game splits of 31 homers and 21 steals, plus 89 runs and 101 RBI, despite very much not being a finished product. He has top of the scale tools - including the hardest-hit ball in the history of the Statcast tracking system at 122.4 mph - and we got a tantalizing glimpse of his upside if he can cut his strikeout rate, when he hit .288/.359/.525 in September of 2022 while striking out 29.8% of the time. That's still a huge strikeout rate, of course, but it hints at how little improvement Cruz might need in that regard to be a superstar." -Chris | | Busts | | Scott: Ha-Seong Kim, Padres Chris - Anthony Volpe, YankeesFrank - CJ Abrams, Nationals | | "At this time a year ago, Kim was known mostly as the defensive standout responsible for bumping Jake Cronenworth to first base and, in a less direct way, Fernando Tatis to the outfield. But he had turned himself into an instrumental Fantasy player by season's end, mostly by way of his new stolen base prowess. That has as much to do with the stolen base environment improving (through limited pickoff attempts, bigger bases, etc.) as anything, which means it may be here to stay. But even so, he's unlikely to improve upon the 38 steals he had last year. | | And that's basically my entire objection to Kim for 2024. It just seems like he did everything as well as he could possibly do it in 2023. A clearer example of this is his power hitting. His 17 homers represent a nice, healthy total, particularly for a base-stealer, but he didn't impact the ball in a way that would suggest 17-homer power. His max exit velocity was only 39th percentile. His average exit velocity was only 7th percentile. And his hard-hit rate? Well, that was 3rd percentile. We're nearly at the bottom of the barrel. Granted, the shape of the contact also makes a difference. Kim elevated well to his pull side and may be able to repeat the feat. But that's working in opposition to his batting average, which Statcast suggests should have been .245 rather than his actual .260 mark. | | It wouldn't take much for Kim to slip to just 12 homers and 30 steals -- in which case he's Tommy Edman, who's going half a draft later. And I suspect there's even more downside risk from there." -Scott | | Favorite to draft (based on ADP) | | Chris: Oneil Cruz, Pirates; Francisco Lindor, Mets; Xander Bogaerts, PadresScott: Francisco Lindor, MetsFrank: Francisco Lindor, Mets; Trevor Story, Red Sox | | | | | | | | |
|
|
