DEPT OF CORRECTIONS
On Tuesday I wrote about Justin Turner:
But clearly, he wants to play, and the Blue Jays needed a lefty bat. I still think you have to be skeptical of a 39 year old (using the July 1 cutoff, not the more sensible Current Year minus Year of Birth age), but it is certainly possible he has another year in him.
The Blue Jays needed a lefty bat, but Turner, who they signed, is a righty hitter. So the Jays decided to go for a guy with a career OPS of .826 versus lefties, not too dissimilar to his career OPS versus righties of .830. I’m terrible when I don’t double-check, so I usually double-check. But I didn’t that time. Sorry.
Thanks to my buddy Mark for pointing out the slip. Please help him out if you catch other ones.
DON’T WORRY ABOUT SHORTSTOPS
When you play Little League the best player on most teams is the shortstop. Plus, the shortstop often pitches, as well. That didn’t used to be the case in the major leagues, back in the beginning of the Rotisserie Era, but for much of this century, it has been.
Photo: Minda Haas Kuhlmann | 2021
This is how you end up with an All-World shortstop and World Series MVP Corey Seager ranking fifth.
Speaking of Seager, he won that Series MVP while playing with a sports hernia. He tried to rehab it in the offseason but it was still bothering him in January and he had surgery to fix it on January 30th. He won’t be ready to go at the start of Spring Training, but the Rangers hope he’ll be ready for the start of the season. It doesn’t sound like he’ll miss much time even if that hope isn’t fulfilled.
Seager earned $36 last year because he hit .327, bouncing back from a .245 BA in 2022. The difference was 11 more hits in 127 fewer plate appearances, caused by a .098 increase in BABIP. After his weak BA in 2022, a lot of analysts said the shift ban would help him, and maybe it did. He also hit the ball harder, much as he did in 2020, another year in which he was more productive against the shift, now called the shade, than he was in 2021 and 2022. Sometimes you make your own luck.
Do you prefer Bo Bichette or Gunnar Henderson? I have Bichette a smidge ahead of Henderson, while the NFBC has Henderson a little ahead of Bichette. Pick ‘em!
The sharp tacks at the NFBC think I’ve overrated Xander Bogaerts and underrated Elly De La Cruz. Bogaerts had a pretty typical year for himself last year, with a meh first half being rescued by a strong September. It ended up being worth $26, which makes my bid seem pretty sensible. De La Cruz, you may recall, was called up in June and got off to a blistering start, but in the second half he struck out 105 times in 292 plate appearances and had a .626 OPS. The NFBC is drafting him as if he’s a $30 player, loading up on power and speed and ignoring his deficient hit tool. If he plays and hits .200 he might be worth owning even if he doesn’t earn the $23 I’ve got on him, but the bust potential this year, meaning he ends up back in Triple-A for a chunk of the season, is high.
Dansby Swanson didn’t have a great year in 2023, but he did have a great year in 2022. Part of the falloff was probably a BABIP-driven drop in batting average, but the other part was a dropoff in his stolen base attempts. He wasn’t running much before he hit the IL in July with a bruised heel, so let’s not use that as an excuse. If he doesn’t run much this year the NFBC price is a better one than mine.
The NFBC sees a big drop in productivity at this point, shifting Willy Adames, Trevor Story, Ezequiel Tovar, and Tommy Edman, behind Thairo Estrada and Anthony Volpe. Estrada earned $18 last year and looks like he could do that again, so I probably have him a click or two too low, but I don’t see a lot of upside in his profile. A solid contributor. Volpe had a solid rookie season but earned only $8 because he hit .209 at the bottom of the order, which crushed his countables. I don’t see a reason to bet that is going to change so dramatically that paying him $16 is an underbid, but the power and speed combo and his youth make him a shiny object. And the potential for even more improvement is there.
Adames had a batting average crash last summer, some of it perhaps BABIP-related, but he also had a significant dropoff in hard-hit balls, which didn’t help. I expect a rebound, but have him a couple of bucks too expensive on this list.
Story is coming off a season that started late with him coming back from elbow surgery, and then he struggled to make contact once he was back on the field. He did run, which seems to be a safe bet again this year. But will he regain his power stroke and cut his strikeouts? I think so, but I have to admit there is risk here.
Tovar earned $16 last year, twice as much as Volpe, but he had 325 of his plate appearances batting first or second. Volpe had 123. Tovar fell off in the second half, so did Volpe, but his glove and youth should keep him in the lineup absent a disaster. I don’t expect better than last year, but don’t see why he shouldn’t be able to at least hold steady.
Carlos Correa and Jeremy Pena, former and current Astros shortstops, are maligned in the NFBC, which is drafting them at the equivalent of $9 and $11 respectively. Part of Correa’s problem is the plantar fasciitis that plagued him last year. He says he’s past it, but he’s had enough problems with injuries over the years that it’s reasonable to be worried about that. Still, he earned $6 last year and $26 the year before. The NFBC is worrying about him too much.
Pena looked like a rising star in 2022, but slowed down a little last year. He hit the ball just as hard but hit a lot more on the ground. Still, he earned $16 last year, so discounting him behind that seems like giving money to your opponents.
Jackson Holliday is likely to start the season in Triple-A, where he has only 91 plate appearances so far. How long he stays down will depend on how much he shows there how quickly. It’s cool that teams are no longer incentivized to hold players back, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good reasons to pursue an orderly development process. The NFBC and I agree about the risk and reward at this point, but the potential swings here wide.
Part of the problem here is the sheer depth at the position. In a 15-team league you need about 25 shortstops to fill SS and MI. Players like J.P. Crawford and Javier Baez are $1 players in that format, and there’s plenty of potential behind them. We’ll tackle the potential next time.
HOUSEKEEPING
After the signature, below, you’ll find behind the paywall links to the Position X Position lists, which are seeing small adjustments as I go through them.
We’ll look at the rest of the shortstops soon.
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