Howdy, y’all, and happy belated Summer Solstice. Everything in my home city of Milwaukee screams summer right now. Summerfest, one of the world’s largest music festivals, kicked off festivities this weekend; farmers’ markets are back in full swing; street festivals and bike races are closing roads all over the city. When it comes right down to it, it’s damn near impossible to hit up every single thing happening in the city during the summer, which is a bummer! Every festival, market, concert, and parade offers something enjoyable to attendants.
The same can be said for the shortstop market. This pool of players, to my surprise, has been exceptionally deep this year, with 29 shortstops providing a net positive value according to the Razzball Player Rater. Of those 329, 18 of them have provided $10 in value or more, compared to just 13 for second basemen.
What’s the Deal with Bo Bichette?
There have also been some heavy disappointments. Bo Bichette, who I’ve left off this list, is the name that comes to mind. I figured I should address him now since I’m sure I’ll get a question about him.
After a terrible start to the year in March/April, he was looking like he was figuring things out in May, hitting .280 with a few homers. Since then? He’s hit .204 in June, with zero homers. So what gives?
He’s still hitting the ball hard a decent amount of the time, but his barrel rate is just 4.7%, which is less than half the rate of any full season he’s played in the majors so far. Digging a bit deeper (doing a cursory BaseballSavant search) led me to this fun little tidbit: Out of the 95 balls that Bo Bichette has hit in play at 95+ mph this year, 57 of them have been at a launch angle of 9 or below (ground balls).
While these will often sneak through for hits—he’s got a .351 average on them so far this year—every hit on this batted ball type has been a single. Doubles and dingers are what we want from balls hit at these speeds, and Bichette just isn’t lifting the ball often enough.
Long story short? Even if the batting average ticks back up, it seems to me that Bichette has become a boring hitter for fantasy purposes.
Rankings
1a. Gunnar Henderson, 1b. Bobby Witt Jr.
This seems like a cop-out, but I really could not choose between these two. Gunnar would handily be the best fantasy hitter in the AL if not for the existence of those two dudes who play for the Yankees, and I feel like a damned fool for not pushing up my rankings further from the outset. His batted ball data is nutty, and with his exceptional pitch selection and plate discipline strides, he should handily finish with 40+ homers and 25-ish steals.
Despite Bobby being 1b on this list, I still think that he’s the best shortstop in baseball. His batted ball data rivals Gunnar’s, and he should steal 40+ bases and push 30 homers. So why do I put Gunnar ahead of him? Gunnar having 3B eligibility is a massive boon, and I value the added roster flexibility highly.
As I say this, I’m weeping while imagining a scenario where I was able to grab Bobby and Gunnar with my first and second picks in a 12 or 15-team redraft league—something that was feasible based on late draft season ADP data.
3. Elly De La Cruz
Similar to Gunnar, I gave Elly a slight bump over guys like Lindor and Seager just because of the added positional flexibility, along with his singular stolen base upside. No one is touching Elly in the stolen base category.
I had a debate with a good friend about this ranking before I wrote the article, which hinged on Elly being a “one-category contributor.” While there’s some merit, I think his absurd stolen base numbers overshadow just how good he has been at literally everything else. He’s gotten so much more patient at the plate, cutting his chase rates significantly and upping his walk rate to 11.5%. And sure, while he’s likely to damage your batting average slightly, we roster guys like Kyle Schwarber all the time with the expectation that our batting averages will take a hit—because we know that the boons they provide outweigh the harm.
He’s on pace for around 80 stolen bags right now, should chip in double-digit homers the rest of the way, and score ample runs while dinging your batting average ever so slightly.
4. Francisco Lindor
We all watched Lindor bumble his way through the first month and change of the season, and that weighs down his season stat line. But since May 1 he’s been his usual reliable self, with a WRC+ of 126, compiling eight steals and seven homers.
He’s not out here blowing the doors off like Gunnar or Bobby, but he is a super steady source of counting stats based on his playing time security and lineup spot.
5. Corey Seager
After a slow start first coming back from his sports hernia surgery, Seager blew the doors off in May with 11 homers in just 25 games—and subsequently fell back to earth in June, hitting just .220 across 14 contests.
There’s no reason to be concerned about this cold stretch from Seager. He had a light hamstring flare-up a few weeks ago that slowed him down a bit, but he was able to dodge an IL stint and has been back in the field at shortstop for every game since June 15. The batted ball data still looks encouraging, and he’s still working walks. If that offense starts to click like it did in the 2nd half of last season he should be able to compile a ton of runs and RBI over the remainder of the season.
6. Trea Turner
I think if Turner hadn’t just come back from an IL stint I would have pushed him above Seager, but them’s the breaks. He’s hit safely in all five games since his return, including a two-run blast off of Jordan Montgomery. I’m waiting to see how aggressive he is on the basepaths early on. He was 10-for-11 on stolen base attempts in just over a month of play before going on the IL with a hamstring strain, and that’s where a lot of his value will be derived from. Even if he does slow down a bit on the basepaths he should provide a nice batting average floor and accumulate plenty of runs and RBI.
7. Willy Adames
While I expected him to be a solid real-life contributor for my Milwaukee Brewers, I can’t say that I had “career-high in stolen bases” on my Willy Adames bingo card. It’s a nice surprise for fantasy managers this year, and as an added bonus, he’s also on pace for a career-high in RBI.
I always wonder how much stock should be put into the performance of players in a contract year, but so far Willy has been making a great case for getting a fat contract this winter. With a career-high walk rate, solid quality of contact metrics, and stellar defense keeping him on the field, he’s essentially been a cheaper Francisco Lindor at his current valuation.
8. CJ Abrams
I almost put Abrams above Adames on this list, but the higher RBI upside of Adames (and the rampant homerism) pushed him over the top.
After putting up 47 stolen bases last year while showing some improved pop, Abrams’ pace has slowed a bit this year, with only 11 thefts over his first ~300 plate appearances. He did trade that for some additional improvements at the plate, where he now ranks above league average in hard-hit%, leading to a much higher batting average floor. He still has a ton of chase in his game, which is concerning, but he feels like a perennial 20/30 guy in his current form.
9. Brice Turang
I covered Turang in my second base rankings update from a couple of weeks back, and since then he’s nabbed two more bags. The same sentiment stands.
10. Jackson Merrill
This one could very well be recency bias, but Merrill is a fun option as a player who also has OF eligibility. His stat line over the last two weeks is nutty—.370/.408/.848 with 7 HR, 9 R, and 12 RBI. The batted ball data looks better than a good chunk of the folks below him on this list, making me think he’s more likely to stick as a contributor for the remainder of the season.
It’s also worth noting that after batting 7th or lower in the lineup for the majority of the season, he’s managed to work his way into the 5th or 6th lineup slot during this most recent series against the Brewers with Fernando Tatis Jr. battling quad and triceps ailments. He should stick in the 6th spot once Tatis is back full-time.
11. Carlos Correa
12. Anthony Volpe
13. Ezequiel Tovar
14. Bryson Stott
15. Ha-Seong Kim
16. Jeremy Peña
17. Luis Rengifo
18. Willi Castro
19. Ceddanne Rafaela
20. Mookie Betts (Yes, even if he misses two months)
Is there anyone else I missed that I should have included? Any deep league targets you hoped I’d talk about? Lemme know in the comments!
