Shortstop isn’t exactly shallow this year, but one thing stands out more than anything else: At-Bats. It’s all about ABs.
In fantasy baseball, plate appearances and walks aren’t counted as primary statistics. The importance of a players batting average has everything to do with his at-bats. After that, we’re dealing with some speedsters that deal with hammy and quad injuries every second week.
At shortstop, more than any other position, there’s uncertainty around a lot of players about their health or role on the club.
Based on stats alone, we’re dealing with 12 mandatory shortstops as well as Aybar slipping into a UTIL position on someone’s squad. With that in mind, here’s the distribution charts:
As you can see with the histogram, there’s some depth at the back end of this. The 13 players we use don’t begin to enter the back-end of the normal distribution curve.
Ryan Theriot, J.J. Hardy, Miguel Tejada Jhonny Peralta, Marco Scutaro and Evereth Cabrera are projected to finish within about 10-15pts away from Aybar.
Quite simply, instead of wasting a draft-pick on the lower tier of shortstops, you might as well wait until the later rounds and grab someone that’s just on the cusp. Maximizing value per pick is important and unless you’re in love with a name — I’d say get your SS early or get him late.
| PLAYER_NAME | POSITION | R | HR | RBI | SB | ESPN_AVERAGE | AB | A_AB | Hits | Tts |
| Hanley Ramirez | SS | 113 | 29 | 91 | 34 | 0.324 | 603 | 562 | 195 | 378.81 |
| Jimmy Rollins | SS | 103 | 19 | 79 | 32 | 0.273 | 630 | 599.5 | 172 | 308.79 |
| Troy Tulowitzki | SS | 100 | 28 | 95 | 14 | 0.293 | 522 | 505 | 153 | 305.8 |
| Derek Jeter | SS | 103 | 16 | 68 | 22 | 0.315 | 583 | 570 | 184 | 295.09 |
| Jose Reyes | SS | 93 | 11 | 54 | 47 | 0.283 | 541 | 430.5 | 153 | 286.13 |
| Stephen Drew | SS | 87 | 19 | 75 | 8 | 0.289 | 550 | 527.5 | 159 | 250.61 |
| Asdrubal Cabrera | SS | 83 | 11 | 76 | 18 | 0.300 | 475 | 470.5 | 142 | 243.84 |
| Elvis Andrus | SS | 79 | 6 | 60 | 40 | 0.280 | 436 | 425.5 | 122 | 242.42 |
| Alexei Ramirez | SS | 79 | 17 | 72 | 13 | 0.282 | 527 | 515 | 149 | 239.67 |
| Yunel Escobar | SS | 89 | 15 | 71 | 6 | 0.303 | 490 | 491.5 | 148 | 236.39 |
| Jason Bartlett | SS | 72 | 11 | 59 | 24 | 0.277 | 493 | 485.5 | 137 | 223.75 |
| Alcides Escobar | SS | 83 | 5 | 53 | 26 | 0.291 | 453 | 347 | 132 | 220.45 |
| Rafael Furcal | SS | 92 | 11 | 48 | 11 | 0.281 | 565 | 532 | 159 | 219.39 |
| Erick Aybar | SS | 72 | 6 | 66 | 22 | 0.303 | 396 | 431.5 | 120 | 213.93 |
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and here are the Z-Scores, comparing them ONLY to their peers at second base:
| PLAYER_NAME | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | TOTAL | AVG | CAT | STD |
| Hanley Ramirez | 1.94 | 1.93 | 1.59 | 0.94 | 2.13 | 8.53 | 89.143 | R | 12.303 |
| Jimmy Rollins | 1.13 | 0.59 | 0.72 | 0.77 | -1.27 | 1.95 | 14.571 | HR | 7.470 |
| Troy Tulowitzki | 0.88 | 1.8 | 1.88 | -0.7 | 0.07 | 3.93 | 69.071 | RBI | 13.787 |
| Derek Jeter | 1.13 | 0.19 | -0.08 | -0.04 | 1.53 | 2.73 | 22.643 | SBI | 12.220 |
| Jose Reyes | 0.31 | -0.48 | -1.09 | 2 | -0.6 | 0.15 | 0.292 | AVG | 0.015 |
| Stephen Drew | -0.17 | 0.59 | 0.43 | -1.19 | -0.2 | -0.54 | |||
| Asdrubal Cabrera | -0.5 | -0.48 | 0.5 | -0.37 | 0.53 | -0.31 | |||
| Elvis Andrus | -0.82 | -1.15 | -0.66 | 1.43 | -0.8 | -2 | |||
| Alexei Ramirez | -0.82 | 0.33 | 0.21 | -0.78 | -0.67 | -1.73 | |||
| Yunel Escobar | -0.01 | 0.06 | 0.14 | -1.35 | 0.73 | -0.43 | |||
| Jason Bartlett | -1.39 | -0.48 | -0.73 | 0.12 | -1 | -3.48 | |||
| Alcides Escobar | -0.5 | -1.28 | -1.17 | 0.28 | -0.07 | -2.73 | |||
| Rafael Furcal | 0.23 | -0.48 | -1.53 | -0.94 | -0.73 | -3.45 | |||
| Erick Aybar | -1.39 | -1.15 | -0.22 | -0.04 | 0.73 | -2.07 |
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The Differences:
Based on ESPN’s predictions, Jimmy Rollins should be a lot higher. I’m not sure that I agree with this, but the man contributes across the board. Rollins, Jeter and Tulo are essentially the same person and unless you’ve got a gut feeling I’d be grabbing the cheapest of the bunch.
Elvis Andrus shouldn’t be that high based on his numbers alone. ESPN went out on a bit of a limb predicting a return to form for Stephen Drew, but if you’re going to do that than put him where he belongs, ahead of Andrus.
Other than that, they do a fairly solid job putting their rankings together. There’s a tonne of mediocrity after the first few tiers and there should be some terrific value if you need a shortstop late.
