Fantasy Baseball Today - 2023 Shortstop Recap! Top Performers & Early 2024 Rankings (11/20 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Bobby Witt finished as the top shortstop and third baseman (3:25)! Francisco Lindor was one of just four players to go 30-30. ... Is Trea Turner all the way back (11:25)? ... CJ Abrams had a breakout 2023 but is tough to evaluate (23:15). ... Bo Bichette is another shortstop that is tough to evaluate for 2024 (35:00). ... Let's dive into 2024 shortstop rankings, starting with the top-10 (44:40). ... How high does top prospect Jackson Holliday rank among shortstops (54:20)? Fantasy Baseball Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Get awesome Fantasy Baseball Today merch here: http://bit.ly/3y8dUqi Follow FBT on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@fbtpod?_t=8WyMkPdKOJ1&_r=1 Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @FBTPod, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday Sign up for the FBT Newsletter at https://www.cbssports.com/newsletters/fantasy-baseball-today/ For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/FantasyBaseballToday You can listen to Fantasy Baseball Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your lead. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, and Chris. Is Tray Turner all the way back? Who is the real C.J. Abrams?

We'll attempt to answer those questions and many more on our shortstop recap. Welcome in Tough Fantasy Baseball today on Monday. November 20th, I am Frank Stamford, joined by Scott White. Today on the show, we'll take a look back at the top 10-ish short stops from this past season and take a look at Scott's way too early, 2024 rankings. And here we are, Scott. Welcome to Thanksgiving week, the best holiday of all. Do you have any big plans?

Do you have any traditions? What's going on in the White household? Sure, we have traditions and plans. I think most people do. I don't know that our traditions are that, a typical, a typical Thanksgiving traditions, you know.

We have the meal, the traditional Thanksgiving meal, on Thanksgiving, and the next day we start decorating the place for Christmas. But I think that's pretty typical. Yeah, right? I think so.

You get the extra long weekend to deck the halls, enjoy that for a month. Oh, yes. And, I mean, Christmas is my personal favorite holiday. Thanksgiving, you know,

kind of feels like a warm up because I always feel like you get Thanksgiving with Christmas too. I mean, maybe not everybody celebrates Christmas the same way. Some people don't celebrate Christmas at all. Some people don't celebrate Thanksgiving at all. But if you do celebrate both, that's what it feels like, a little warm up. Yeah, no, I can see that. I love both holidays, but just family, football all day long, obviously great food on Thanksgiving. Most people have Friday off.

so you get to just kind of relax and kick back. You got the four-day weekend going on. Yeah, I love Thanksgiving, and I'm looking forward to it later on this week. I also love shortstop, Scott. So let's break down the position. Great transition. I know.

There's nothing better than that. You are masterful. We'll start up top the number one shortstop this past season. We also mentioned his name at the top of our third base recap. It's Bobby Witt, Jr. He finished sixth overall in Roto this past season. The number two shortstop in Head to Head Points League. does not turn 24 until June of next year.

So already accomplishing a lot. That's what you get from one of the former top prospects in the game. This past season hit 276 with 30 homers, 97 runs, 96 RBI, 49 steals. He has 79 steals since the start of 2022. That is second in baseball behind only Ronald Ocuna. No surprise there. The big story, improved the quality of contact across the board here. the expecting numbers are amazing, drop the strikeout rate.

Everything is there, Scott, for a legit five category producer here in Bobby Witt. And yeah, I think he's totally worthy of a top five pick this year. Bobby Witt is amazing. I think we all have egg on our face because we were scoffing at people drafting him as early as seventh overall this year. And, you know, it's one of those things where like I think that my reasoning, the reasoning for my skepticism, at the time was sound. And so if I had to go back and reason that out again, I would come to the same conclusion.

But ultimately, the people who gambled on him taking a big step forward prevailed. Because now, you know, making out my rankings for next year, Bobby Witt is my number two overall player, at least in Roto leagues behind Ronald de Kuna. He's lower in points leagues, given that he doesn't walk much at all. And that stolen bases aren't quite as valuable in that format.

But number two overall in Roto leagues, number one at shortstop, while Ronald de Kuna became the third player in history to join the 30-Homer 50 Steel Club, well exceeded it, right? He got to 40 and 70. Bobby Witt almost became the fourth player to do it in the same year. He finished a stolen base shy of joining the 30-Homer 50 Steel Club. So it was a pretty historic season that just got overshadowed by the more historic season for Ronald de Cunia,

and that's why I think it's perfectly defensible to take Bobby Witt second overall. What's also amazing, I mean, for as good as he was, he was one of the biggest underachievers, according to Stackcast, well underperformed his expected batting average, well underperformed his expected slug. And he closed the gap quite a bit in the second half,

hit 301 in the second half. But I think there's good reason to believe just looking at those stack cast numbers that that may be the truer form of Bobby Wood. He may be somebody who you can hope will hit 290, 300 next year, as opposed to the, what did he actually finish with? He had 301 in the second half, 276 overall.

Yeah, expected batting average was 297, expected slug 535. Those were 96th and 95th, percentile respectively. Oh, yes. Lots to love with Bobby Witt. I agree with you. He does drop down a little bit in a points league.

Do you still have him in the first round in head to 10? Yes. Okay. Yes. I mean, you get to 50 steals. Again, he had 49. But in a head to head points league where there were two points a piece, that does, that makes up for a lot of shortcomings, including the poor plate discipline that Bobby Witt has.

All right. Let's move over to our number two shortcomings. stop this past season. Francisco Lindor he finished 10th overall in Roto. He was the number three shortstop in head-to-head points leagues and he hit 254 with 31 homers, 108 runs scored 98

RBI, 31 steals which was a career high and really ran wild over the final three months. He had seven or more steals in each of the final three months for Francisco Lindor. One of four players to go 30-30 this past

season, 30 homers, 30 steals. along with Acuna, Witt, Julio Rodriguez, of course, Francisco Lindor is the fourth. He's finished as a top 12 player in Roto back-to-back years, yet the ADP, the early 80ps got 24.9. Everything that I looked into with Francisco Lindor, I just fell in love. And we just did our first mock draft of the off season. We'll talk about it on an upcoming podcast, but I took him in the middle of the second round. I paired him with Freddie Freeman. You know, I know Lynn Dor is not going to give you the batting average, but the guy is going to give you every single thing else. Well, he doesn't kill you, right?

He's going to hit like 250, 260. I just think he's a rock solid second round pick. He is. You took him over some players that I think are better, including Matt Olson. Matt Olson really slipped in that first mock draft that we did. You'll find there was the full results for that on that. Well, I mean, by the time you're listening to this, they've been up for a while now. but yeah

Lindor had maybe the quietest 30 30 season in history because other guys were doing 4070 and 30 50 and so 30 30 just kind of got overshadowed I do think it's worth pointing out his combined steel total

from the previous three seasons was 32 now I mean obviously the stolen base environment changed the year he had the career high 31 so maybe that can be the new normal for for instance Lindoor, but it is kind of a leap to assume it's going to be the new normal for a guy who's been around that long and is now 30 years old that he's just going, that you could just pencil him in for 30 steals year after year. It may be closer to 15.

I would say 20 to 25 is my expectation for Francisco Lendor next year. And then there is the batting average issue where it's, we kind of talked about this in the, what was it, the third base pre-year? view where like batting average is one of those categories you have to address early. And it can be hard, it can be hard to catch up in it if you don't give it enough emphasis with your first couple picks. And so Lendor, you're taking a hit there. You're taking a hit in batting average if you decide to make him your second round pick. I still have them in the second round, but it's more like a late second rounder for me.

Yeah, no, I think those are all fair points. I took Lindor over Austin Riley, Bryce, Harper, Matt Olson in that mock draft. And, you know, I was kind of on the fence with all those. The problem that I ran into is I took Freeman in the first. And I was like, do I really want to double up on first baseman this early in the draft? Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense.

I didn't think about that. And I think I'd take Lindor over Riley as well. Harper, though. In a vacuum. That's another first baseman. Gosh. In a vacuum, I think I would take Harper and Olson over Francisco Lindor. But yeah, it was just like the first.

first base issue. Yeah. That is a complication with taking Freeman, isn't it? I mean, I think Freeman, just on the merits, deserves... When did you take him? Seventh overall. Seventh overall? Yeah, I have him ranked sixth, I believe.

You did take him over Corbyn Carroll, because Corbyn Carroll slid to eighth in that one. So that would have solved your issue right there. I know you have concerns about Corbyn Carroll's shoulder. Yeah. But yeah, that is, that's interesting to think about. We can get into that more later on shows other than the shortstop preview. Yeah, that might be a little lesson learned, a little early lesson learned. Yeah.

I will say also for Lindor, even though he finished second to wit in 2023, there are a couple of short stops that I rank higher than him for 2024. So Lindor's only number four for me going into next year. All right. But again, I haven't missed a late second rounder. One of those short stops, I believe you do have. ranked ahead of Francisco Lindor is Trey Turner, who finished number three at shortstop this past season, 17th overall in Roto, the number four shortstop in head-to-head points

leagues. He hit 266, which was a career low, 26 homers, 102 runs scored 76 RBI, 30 steals for Trey Turner. And by now we know what the issue was, or at least what we think the issue was the first four months of the season, Trey Turner was pressing a lot. And we saw it in the plate discipline. He was chasing pitches. The strikeout rate was up. If you look at his first 107 games played, Trey Turner hit 235 with 10 homers, 21 steals, a 657 OPS. I keep referencing this one day. It was like a Friday night in August where all Philadelphia decided to rally around Trey Turner. They gave him a standing ovation. And from that day on, final 48 games, he hit 337, 16 homers, nine steals, an OPS.

over a thousand, carried that into the postseason where he looked amazing once again. So one of the questions I led with, Scott, is Trey Turner all the way back? What do you think? You know, as that was happening, as his August and September was playing out with those redemptive numbers for Trey Turner, I was skeptical because it, you know, it had been, it had been so long, two-thirds of a season, basically, where he looked diminutive. finished as a hitter and the plate discipline numbers. I'm not even just talking about straight out the walk ratio,

but the plate discipline numbers were worse. It was pretty thorough. And at an age where you could see decline setting in possibly for, you know, an athletic guy once he reaches age 30, that's a possibility. We've seen, we've seen Hall of Fame caliber players their career just take a nose dive at age 30. So I worried, not that Trey Turner was taking a nose.

nose dive necessarily, but that his hot streak might fool people into thinking, everything is fine heading into next year. Well, if that's the case, I'm one of those who is fooled because it lasted the full two months he was back on track. It continued into the playoffs. He looked every bit like the guy, the first round caliber player we've always known Trey Turner to be. And the plate discipline itself improved.

Specifically, the chase rate when he was struggling was much higher than we've seen in the past. And it normalized once he started to get back on track, which tells me, I mean, it kind of backs up the narrative he was pressing to meet the pressure of the big deal he signed with Philadelphia, you know, trying to make things happen that weren't there, kind of getting out of his usual approach. And then once he settled in, he was fine. He was Trey Turner again.

So that is now my working theory. And so, I mean, you could, you could probably. justify taking Trey Turner as early as like fifth or sixth. I don't have him that early. But I do have him back in the first round for for Roto League's lower in points. He's a second rounder for me in points. But I do have him back in round one. In Roto League, chance to lock up some power and speed with a good batting average

in all likelihood. That's the main thing that separates Trey Turner from somebody like Francisco Lendor. Yeah. And I tend to agree with the theme, the idea that he was pressing first year. in Philadelphia. You could even see it in his defense too. Tray Turner led all short stops with 23 errors this past season, which was a career high. So I think it was just both of those things playing off each other, maybe taking the offense onto the field while he was playing defense.

Same thing, the defense affecting his offense, whatever it might be. It was a rough first half and then Trey Turner obviously turned it on over the final two months of the year. The number four shortstop was Corey Seeger. He finished 19th overall in Roto, 4.1 fantasy points per game was tied for fourth among all hitters, not just short stops. Corey Seeger was amazing. He finally put it together, 327, 33 homers, 88 runs, 96 RBI. He did all of that over just 119 games. His 150 game pace, 41 homers, 121 RBI for Corey Seeger. Plate discipline remains amazing. The quality of contact was otherworldly, Scott. it just can Corey Seeger stay healthy for,

it doesn't even have to be a full season. Can we get 140 plus games? Can we get 150? Because it seems like we kind of have to bake in at least one I-L stint per year for Corey Seeger. Yeah. I think that is a fair concern, just looking at his history.

Now, a lot of it was pretty significant things that required surgical intervention. There was a Tommy John surgery. there was a hip surgery, there was, I believe you missed a lot of time with a broken bone one year. I mean, that's the kind of stuff where it's just a series of unfortunate events as opposed to you having a, I don't know how to put it, like a fragile, muscular skeletal structure, you know. He does have a history of hamstring injuries, whatever it's worth. He went on the IL with a hamstring this year. I noticed he went on the IL, I think a few other times with a hamstring in his career as well.

So just something that stood up. Fair enough. But in a world without Shohei Otani, who does, of course, things that no other player can do, Corey Seeger would have been the AL MVP this year, even with the time lost to that hamstring injury. And in terms of, let me see if I can get it pulled up. My computer is not very cooperative today. It's moving very slowly. But if we're looking at head-to-head points per game,

Corey Seeger, I believe, trailed Akunia, of course, but not many others. Was he second? He was tied for fourth. 4.1 fantasy points per game is what I had. Okay, behind who else? The only, the three names ahead of him, Akunia, Shohayotani.

and mooky bets. Yeah, that makes sense. That tracks. And then, of course, great batting average, the power production that's going to be tops at the position in all likelihood unless L.A. Dela Cruz or O'Neill Cruz

take a big step forward. And then he's going to have the huge run in RBI production batting in the Rangers lineup. So there are no stolen bases here with Corey Seeger, and that in Roto leagues at least makes it hard to justify a first round pick in him.

I do think he's more like an early second rounder. I've kind of flipped him and Trey Turner, at least in that scoring format, from where I originally had them. So now that Trey Turner is the late first rounder, Corey Seeger's the early second rounder. But I'm very excited to draft him there. And in fact, that's who I took 16th overall

in that mock draft we just did was Corey Seeger. Yeah, and I love who you paired him with too, Kyle Tucker in the first round, who you're expecting at least 25 steals. You might get 30 out of him. I think there's a chance. Man, if there's any way, Corbyn Carroll almost fell to you at 9.

If you could start your team with Corbyn Carroll and Corey Seeger, my gosh, that is A plus. That is thick. You know, if I'd gotten Corbin Carroll, though, maybe I would have been the one to take Matt Olson. Oof, yeah, that's a fun team. I think in a lot of drafts, like Jose Ramirez will be a late first.

That could be a pairing that makes, sense. Jose Ramirez, you get your 20, 25 steals, Corey Seeger. Not going to give you any speed, but obviously, man, elite four category contributor. And yeah, I think even better enough points. I mean, leaving Luis Arise out of it, because, you know, obviously he's kind of a one-trick pony. But I would say the safest bets for batting average in the entire draft, apart from Luis Arise or Freddie Freeman, of course, and then probably Corey Seeger. It's probably those two. And as we were just talking about with Francisco Lindor, banking batting average early should be a priority for you in a Roto League.

And so I think that's even more justification to take Corey Seeger. By the way, he is my number one shortstop in points leagues. And I believe he's a top five overall player for me in points leagues is Seeger, where obviously steals are less of a priority in that format. Yeah, I think that makes sense. You know, projection systems are starting to slowly roll out. If you go to Fangraphs.com, you could see early steamer projections. Not every player is projected yet, but there are only six players projected with a better

batting average in Corey Seeger so far. Ronald de Cunia, Luis Arise, Freddie Freeman, Yordon Alvarez, Michael Brantley, and Yanddi Diaz. Michael Brantley. Yeah. I'm going to say no to that. Just no. it's not going to happen. Steamer.

But yeah, I mean, to your point, he's looking like a top five or six contributor in batting average. Again, that is Corey Sear. Yeah, and I would, yeah, I would put him higher than some of those others on the list too. The number five.

I think he might be dragged down. His batting average projection might be dragged down by that uncharacteristic 2022 where he hit what, 249 or something like that. Was it that? you might be right. I don't remember exactly what it was,

but it was completely out of character for Corey Seeger. He suffered more from the infield shift that year than any other player. And obviously, the infield shift has been eliminated or at least greatly reduced now. 245 was the batting average in 2022. 306 in 2021, 327 this year. 292 for his career projected for a 292 batting average by Steamers so far. The number five shortstop eligible player was, Nico Horner. We spoke about him on the second base recap. He does have shortstop eligibility.

Just got there, got the 20 games in. But if you want to go back and listen, you can do that on our second base recap. Let's take our first break because I've got a lot of thoughts on C.J. Abrams. So I want to make sure we have enough time to get through all of it. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in. Let's continue recapping the shortstop position. Number six this past season was C.J. Abrams. He finished 33 overall in Roto. He was the number seven shortstop in head-to-head points leagues. He just turned 23 years old in October, and he hit 245. He had 18 home runs, 83 runs scored 47 stolen bases.

That was the fifth most in all of baseball. We know that C.J. Abrams does not walk very much at all, a 5% walk rate. But does make a good amount of contact. Strikeout rate just 19%, excuse me. but he is a tough one to figure out Scott his season basically changed once C.J. Abrams was moved to the leadoff spot that happened early in July.

Up until that point, he was batting 233 with seven homers and 11 steals. After moving to leadoff, C.J. Abrams played 73 games. He had 256 with 11 home runs. 36 steals over the final 73 games played. Just crazy stuff. was running wild.

It's really backloaded by a monster July. And then he wasn't so great from August 1st on. My mind is like spinning. My head is spinning. Scott trying to figure out CJ Abrams. He's terrible against lefties. His on base percentage is not good. But he was a former top prospect.

And he just stole 47 bases. So who's to say that he just doesn't continue to get better? I don't know. What do you think? Well, I hear you on that. And I keep, the more I draft, the more I see other people's drafts, the more I think, gosh, I have C.J. Abrams too low. Because, I mean, the thing is, I do think this transformation we saw from him as a base dealer where he, you know, from, you gave the numbers. But basically, he was, he was on a 70 steel pace, basically, for the, the, the,

last three months of the season. And I do think that is closer to what we should expect from C.J. Abrams going forward. I mean, that was what he was billed as coming up through the miners. That was supposed to be his carrying tool. That and the hit tool was considered really good. And we haven't seen that play up to maximum effect yet. But he was supposed to be a huge base dealer. And it just wasn't there for the first year and a half of his big league career.

And then suddenly the light went on. and he began to make full use of it, and I think that's legit. I think part of the disconnect here is how valuable are stolen bases. I think we're still trying to figure that out because they are so much, they're more plentiful now.

And in the past, we'd see a guy with 60 to 70 steel potential and that could carry you in the category. not the case anymore, you're going to accidentally wind up with enough other steals that it could potentially be overkill if you invest a fourth round pick in a guy who's primarily providing you speed. And it just ends up being more than you needed. And you could have used that very premium pick on something a little scarcer. I'm not saying there are a lot of 60 steel guys out there, but I'm saying, I'm saying unless you're going to be committed to avoiding steals for the rest of your

draft, it may end up you may end up paying an up charge for something that's not actually going to be that useful for you. If you get what I mean. Because, okay, he's not a total zero for power, C.J. Abrams, he hit the 18 home runs, but the batting average

is an issue. He's not a great on-base guy, even batting high in the Nationals lineup. It's unlikely he scores 100 runs because he walks so infrequently. And he's, you know, he got on base at a 300 clip exactly this past year. Any Coat continued to develop as a hitter.

Like I said, the hit tool was supposed to be a major part of C.J. Abrams profile. We haven't seen it fully come through yet. But I don't know. There's a lot of really good short stops we haven't talked about yet. And I feel like C.J. Abrams is pretty limited compared to them. He has one amazing skill. But again, like, if you don't optimize that skill correctly in the team you're building, it's going to be kind of a waste.

I do think specifically in a Roto Categories League, C.J. Abrams has to be drafted with the right team. And so far I've seen him go in the fourth round of the two drafts that I've done. I was one of the people to take them in the fourth round. And I think on a team where you take like a Jordon Alvarez or a Cooley Seeger, a Matt Olson, or dare I say two of those guys, right?

If you start your team with Judge and Seeger, or Judge and Soto, or any of the two I just mentioned, and then you want to grab Abrams in the fourth round, I think something like that makes sense. You also have to realize you are depending on CJ Abrams to get you a huge chunk of your steals, and if he gets hurt, all those go away, right? Like, you're putting your eggs in one really big basket here with CJ Abrams.

So he is a fascinating player to figure out. And to further the point you were making about, who should be taking him in round four. The guy who took him in round four in this mock we just did, it's our buddy the Welsh actually. He took Trey Turner in round one. He did.

So, I mean, that seems like overkill for stolen bases to me, not to mention overkill at shortstop, because you got a base stealing shortstop, but base stealing shortstop with two of your first four picks. That's a lot of other categories you're neglecting. And, uh,

I don't know. I, I didn't, I didn't feel like that was the most optimal choice he could have made in round four, even if there's certainly justification for taking C.J. Abrams in round four in that scoring format. Yeah, he's going to be a fun one to talk about this all season. Again, it's CJ Abrams we're talking about. I know you mentioned the hit tool was one of his carrying tools through the miners. And Fangraphs had his upside as a 70 grade hit tool. They

currently have him at a 50 out of 70. That's where he's currently at in his progression. So again, there is a chance he gets better. Maybe he hits 260, 270, 20 homers, 50, 60 steals. I mean, that is a really, really awesome player. But, you know, you do have to pay a premium as of now if you do want to get CJ Abrams on your team. Let's continue on with some other players. The number seven shortstop was Hassan Kim.

We spoke about him on the second base podcast. He has second, third base shortstop eligibility. Gunner Henderson was number eight. We just talked about him last week on our third base podcast. He has third base and shortstop eligibility. The number nine shortstop was Zander Bogartz. He finished 61st overall in Roto, the number nine shortstop in head-to-head points leagues, and wound up hitting 285 with 19 homerers, 83 runs, almost unfathomable.

58 RBIs. He had less RBI, Zander Bogartz, than C.J. Abrams, who we were just talking about. I mean, that is almost impossible for what he just did. Conceivable. Yeah. He did have 19 steals, which was a career high. All of that was obviously helped out by this monster September where he hit 417, four homers, six steals, and 1122 OPS. He also had a great April, if you remember, Zander Bogartz got off to this awesome start. The four months in between, he hit 244 with a 666 OPS. He was not a useful player for fantasy at all. With all that being said, was playing through a wrist injury, had a cortisone inject. around the All-Star break. So I think that's kind of the excuse that's built in there, Scott. I think Zander Bogartz is fun.

I don't know. I'm not really excited to draft him. I don't even know what the ADP is going to be, but I don't think I'm going to be very excited to draft him. Yeah. Well, I mean, you mentioned that that ridiculous September went a long way to salvaging Zander Bogart's season made his final numbers look a lot better

than I think anyone who had him, their perception of his season was. I mean, he was, he practically had a 2020 season. It was 1919, right? That would have been his first ever 2020 season, a guy who, of course, has been a fantasy mainstay. So that's pretty impressive, all things considered. He did suffer from that run-in-R-BI misfortune.

That really was a problem for most of the Padres lineup. And we expect the Padres lineup's going to get worse. I mean, if they trade Juan Soto away. So I don't really know what to make of that. Like it seems inconceivable that it could happen again to Bogarts. But realistically, what's the Padre's lineup going to look like? You have to factor that in. He's kind of become just a boring, a safe boring player at a position

where there are a lot of exciting players. And so I see him as kind of a fallback guy. Like, he's not really going to hurt you in anything, particularly if you see the correction and runs in RBI. The batting average should be respectable, home runs respectable, steals respectable. None of them amazing necessarily. But he's just kind of, he's going to keep you afloat if you do decide to go cheap at shortstop, because he will not be drafted as the number nine shortstop, even though that's where he finished. Yeah, the early ADP has him as the 13th shortstop off the board.

1.15.7 is the ADP. So it's, you know, it's not a bad cost for Bogars. And if the Padres lineup could bounce back, you know, maybe there is some appeal there based on the cost. But yeah, I think I want to see what happens with his offseason and how he's feeling entering spring training. There was a report that the Padres could ask him to move off of shortstop too, which seemed kind of weird to me.

His outs above average was still in the 80th percentile or something like that. But, yeah, I saw most. multiple outlets reporting the same story. So we shall see. Where would they move them to? Got Machado at third, I guess second. It was either second or first base. Apparently their best defensive alignment is Hassan Kim at shortstop,

Jake Cronownaworth at second, Mani Machado at third. The only place that leaves his first base, but I kind of thought part of the appeal of signing Bogarts was that he was a really good defensive shortstop. So that was, I mean, seems weird. That was the crazy. easiest contract handed out this offseason.

It was like a 13-year contract, right? And then if you're going to move them to first base in year two, a right-handed hitting questionable power first baseman, signed to that kind of contract. Like that does seem, that does seem like you're hamstringing yourself there. Though I get it, I mean, just from a, okay, you're out of the GM's office now and in the dugout setting a lineup.

Hassan Kim's an amazing shortstop. It's kind of a waste to have him at second base. So I get it, but like, I don't know. That seems like a poor use of resources if you're then sending Bogarts over to first base. It wasn't a 13-year deal. Let's not, you know, let's not kill AJ Preller just yet. There's only 12.

11 years. 11. It's still a really long time. The number 10 shortstop this past season was Bobish. He finished 80th overall. Average 2.9 fantasy points per game. He turns 26 years old in March. Wound up hitting 306, 20 homers, 73 RBI.

Only five steals. Was kind of derailed by injury. He played 135 games. The second half there, he went on the aisle twice, once with a Pateller tendonitis in his right knee, and then once with a strange right quad. So it sounds like those two things were related in some way. and he doesn't really steal anymore.

The stolen bases have gone from 25 to 13 to 5 over the past three years. Brent speed's gone down with it. Yeah, I'm not expecting much in the way there, maybe 8 to 10 steals, but the other four categories should still be pretty valuable, Scott. What are your thoughts on Boba Shet? So this to me is the most confounding shortstop to rank.

I think Boba Shett is a really good hitter. I mean, just this past year, his expected batting average, 98th percentile 308. actually hit 306. But he is up there among safe sources of batting average. So it really comes down to what he's going to provide for you every other way. I mean, the power has gone.

You mentioned the decline in stolen bases, which is more precipitous. But the power, just the home run out put the last three years, 29, 2420, you know, we missed some time with injury this year. So, you know, maybe we don't hold that against bashed. so much. But still, if you're a 25 homer guy as opposed to a 30 homer guy

who is also not providing double-digit steals at a time when double-digit steals are everywhere, I don't know. And then his play discipline has never been very good.

So if we're talking about Boba-Bchett in points leagues, it gets even worse. His point-per-game average this year was 2.90, which was worse than Ellie de la Cruz, C.J. Abrams,

it was pretty much the same as Xander Bogart's it was kind of middling for a for a shallow league from a shallow league context it was it was kind of middling there point per game average for Bo Bichette and so is he is that how should we we should approach him a guy who we were drafting were we drafting him in we weren't drafting him around one still this past year right but round two yeah I think it's second rounder and the the previous year we were like the sixth overall pick

guy who's still only a guy who's still in his mid-20s, 25 years old. I mean, he's got his whole career ahead of him. And have we soured on him this much? I don't know. Like, I feel like just from an evaluation standpoint, I've been kind of negative on Bo Bichette for a while now

compared to the average person. And yet, I have a hard time justifying C.J. Abrams over him, just given Bichette's history and where he is in his career trajectory. That's a tough one. It's a tough one. We'll get into Bichette more in a second, I guess. But that's kind of my overall take of the shortstop position.

My overall outlook here is, okay, there's still a lot of talent here. I can understand calling it a deep position. But everybody seems a lot more questionable. All the talent there is more questionable than it seemed like in past years. I mean, between Trey Turner's season, Boba Chet's season, Alexander Bogart's season, CJ Abrams and Hassan Kim,

a lot of stolen base potential there, but their actual hitting profiles aren't that impressive yet. O'Neill Cruz, Ellie De La Cruz, Matt McLean, there's a lot of potential pitfalls there, and I feel like if you step in the wrong,

if you take a wrong step at shortstop, you could step on a landmine and kind of be out of luck at the position, particularly in deeper leagues. Yeah, Bobauchette is an interesting one for sure. I don't know that I would depend on the power bouncing back too far either. He just hits so many line drives, so many ground balls that, you know, it kind of limits his power upside too. And much like Vlad, Bichet did not play very well at home in these new dimensions in Roger Center. So I don't know if they're going to do anything with that, but yeah. It was a combined

100 142. Combined 142 runs an RBI for him. Yeah, he missed some time with Andrew. He still played 135 games. So that's doing as much to hold Boba

Shep back as anything. And, you know, we think of the Blue Jays as having a good lineup, but a lot of players have had trouble hitting at Rogers Center at the past couple years. And I don't know that it's going to improve. I feel like both him, both Bichette and Vlad are kind of tied together, right? Like, they're only going to reach their upside if they both kind of click together at the same time. And, you know, we've kind of seen inconsistencies from both of those guys over the past couple years. So we'll see. The differences, and I think

there are two key differences, the raw data for Vladimir Guerrero is much more impressive than Bichette. Yes, he had the high XBA, Bichette did, but the exit velocities are kind of meh, 60th to 70th percentile, while Vladimir Grewerow's top of the scales as far as that goes. And then the other is that at his best, Bo Bichet relied on a big stolen base total, and Vladimir Gereau didn't. And I'm just not counting on that bouncing back. His sprint speed this year was 42nd percentile. So I don't know. I feel like I'm a downer on Bichette, but I feel like I'm a downer on Bichette, but I feel like I, I feel like I'm hesitant. I also feel like I'm hesitant to drop him in the rankings as much as everybody else is. Maybe I just need to get over it

and say Bichette. Bichette is not who we thought he was. Get over it, Scotty. Bye-bye, Bo Bichette. Is that your take with him? Like, are you just like, is he, are you treating

him more like Xander Bogart's? Like, he's a fogback option who's pretty good for batting average, but you can't count on him being a huge contributor and anything else. No, I think he's better than Bobachette. Better than Zander Bogarts. But will I invest a third round pick in him?

Probably not. So my early take is... I wouldn't either. I probably won't have a lot of Boba Chet. His early ADP is 34.8. So, you know, he's a late third round. Maybe I'm not... Okay. Maybe other people aren't downgrading him as much as...

I know we went late in this mock draft we just did later than... I had it ranked. He went 29th overall, so. Oh, I don't know anything then. Never mind. All right. I just wasted a lot of time talking, saying things about Boba Chet that, or the perceptions surrounding Boba Chet that aren't even true.

Everybody still loves Boba Chet except me and you. Yeah, that might be right. Let's fine. Let's take our final break. When we return, we'll get into Scott's early top 20 at Shortstop. Entry 2024. We'll do that right after this. Welcome back in. No news and notes because we are recording this a few days in advance for Thanksgiving week.

So instead, we'll just jump right into the top 20, way too early, 24 shortstop rankings. And we'll just start up top here. The top five includes Bobby Witt, followed by Trey Turner, Corey Seeger, Francisco Lindor, and Gunner Henderson. I think that mostly sounds right to me. So did we mention Gunner Henderson? Did we mention where he ranked this past year? Yeah, I mentioned him. He was ranked as the number eight shortstop.

And obviously, we went more in depth on the third base podcast. Yeah, we did. But that's that's kind of incredible. I mean, he placed lower than Hassan Kim for as good as Gunner Henderson season was, for as high as everybody seems to be drafting him. I think everybody's drafting him ahead of. Bobeschette, right? As a pretty clear third rounder.

And, you know, I think there's the expectation of some growth there, as we talked about in the third base preview. But that kind of speaks to how much talent there still is at this position, shortstop, and how hard it can be to rank because the players contribute in different ways. You've got the huge base Steelers, and then you've got the more well-rounded types, and then you've got the bigger power bats like Henderson. I guess Henderson would be, we have some hope he increases the stull of bases,

but right now it's mostly power. Yep. Six through 10 in the early rankings, we have Bo Bichette, followed by Ellie De La Cruz, Matt McLean, Niko Horner, and O'Neill Cruz.

We did talk about Ellie De LaGruz on the third base preview, recap rather. We spoke about Matt McLean and Nico Horner on the second base recaps, but O'Neill Cruz is a name, we haven't talked about yet, Scott, and obviously nothing to take away from this season. He only played nine games due to a fractured ankle

that he suffered back in April. Early reports are that he'll be 100% ready for spring training. O'Neill Cruz has played 98 games at the Major League level. He's only batting 237, but he's got 19 homers, 13 steals, over 150 games. That is a 29 homer, 19 steel pace. And I think based on what we've seen in terms of speed, we would expect him to steal more than 19 bases,

but he still kind of remains a mystery just because we haven't seen enough from O'Neill Cruz. Yeah, so it's easy to downgrade him, but the long-term outlook, I don't think, has changed. I mean, he still has first-round caliber upside, does O'Neill Cruz. Will he maximize his speed output coming back from such a significant leg injury? It's hard to say he could, but I could see him favoring it too.

I think that would be reasonable of him to do. So that just adds to the confusion. I think the most encouraging thing we saw, though, for as little as he played, he cut way down on the strikeouts. He did the thing. That's what's disappointing about it. O'Neill Cruz was doing exactly the thing he needed to do to take this huge step forward. It was only nine games, but he struck. out just eight times in those nine games.

And he had seven walks. Yeah. No, it was looking great. And I think, let me double check the math here. If I can open up the calculator quickly enough. But I think it started in spring training, too. Like, there were signs of it even then.

I know it's weird to. I looked at the spring training numbers because I felt like I remembered the same thing that you're talking about. But then when I looked, it was like two walks to 14 strikeouts in spring training. Not so much the walks, but the strikeouts. I think it was like 14 and 54 at bats, which sounds like a lot.

Yeah, so it was a 25% rate. That's pretty good, yeah. Yeah, that's, you know, we're looking for him to avoid the 30 to 35% rate. 25% for O'Neo Cruz would be amazing and would allow him to tap into that massive power potential. So, yeah, there were very good signs in a very small sample, and now he's coming off an injury that caused him most of the season. Hard to know exactly where to rank him, which fits in with the theme at shortstop. So I'll go ahead and reveal that I have CJ Abrams right behind him at 11th.

And so let's have the CJ Abrams conversation again. So I have CJ Abrams behind O'Neill Cruz, behind Nico Horner, kind of going backwards through the rankings now. So O'Neill Cruz 10th, Nico Horner, 9th, Matt McLean, 8th. And then L.A. DeL. De La Cruz, 7th, Bobachette, 6th. I got to move C.J. Abrams up a few spots, don't I? I mean, if you want to be closer to EDP, yeah, but... I got to move him ahead of Nico Horner, right?

That's the one that stands out. How can you have Nico Horner 9th and Abrams 11th? Horner's a safer bet for batting average. But Abrams might have 20 more steals than him, and probably you'll double them up at homers at least. I think Horner has the dual eligibility. base in addition to shortstop, but yeah, I think I got to make that

change. I mean, part of it's like, I don't I don't like Abrams behind, I don't like, I like Abrams ahead of Horner more than I like Abrams ahead of Cruz, who I rank behind Horner. You know? Because I think Cruz's upside is much higher. So there you go. Go Cruz at 9, Abrams

at 10, and Horner at 11. But then it gets tricky with what to do about second base. because McLean and Horner are both eligible at second base. Just trust me on this, it gets tricky. I think I'm going to leave Cruz where he is.

All right. So that people can take advantage of what I think is going to be a discount, given the uncertainty. So I'll leave him at 10th. Actually, he'll drop to 11th because I'm going to move C.J. Abrams up ahead of him to probably 8th. So Boba Schett 6th, L.A. De La Cruz 7th, C.J. Abrams 8th. Matt McLean, 9th, Nico Horner, 10th,

Tonyo Cruz 11th. Okay. How does that sound? In Roto specifically. Yeah, I think it's fine. I think it's fine. I think having Abrams closer to L.E. Dela Cruz, obviously they do it in, like,

they're different size human beings. They look completely different. But like, the path that they take might not be, you know, what they wind up with might not be that dissimilar, right? lower batting average. Ellie De La Cruz. He should have a lot more power.

There's no doubt about it. In his prime, I see him hitting 30 to 40 homers a year. Right. But as soon as this season, Abrams could hit, you know, 20 and 60. I could see Ellie going like 2550, right? Right. It might not happen. The power breakthrough might not happen for De La Cruz yet.

Right. Yeah. I think that's fine, though. Yeah. I think getting Abrams inside the top 10, just, again, realizing, his upside and I guess what he did over the final three months, right? But I'm still irked by Boba Chet being ahead of both.

Yeah, that's kind of like a respect ranking, you know? Mm-hmm. And I don't even like Boba-Shett that much. Yeah, I haven't ranked players yet, so I can't really offer you too much wisdom on that one. But look, we spoke about this on one of our recent podcasts. It comes down to how you want to build your teams, right? Like Boba Shett, he's not going to give you speed, but I mean, it could be three, we could, he could hit 320, you know, based on line drives and he makes contact.

The counting stats could be very good. Maybe it's only 25 home runs, but like. He could get up, he could get back up to 30 homers. It's not that big of a stretch. If he hits 320 with 30 homers, he's not far off from being Corey Seeger. Exactly. So, I mean, there are, there are easily ways that you could talk yourself into Boba Shet. Yeah.

being well worth a third round pick. I'm not going to take them in round three. Me neither, as of now. But you can talk yourself in round three. But do I take him ahead of C.J. Abrams? That's really what it comes down to in a roto league. I'm hoping, like realistically, I'm probably not going to take either, given where they're going. Right.

So it may be a moot point. But, you know, people follow my rankings. And I'm telling them that they should take Bichette ahead of Abrams based on that. So I don't know. But this is this is kind of what I've noticing for a lot of the player pool certainly around the infield

and we talked about the globbiness at starting pitcher where there is just there are so many not exactly redundancies but there's a lack of clarity there's a lack of clarity. The infield positions feel overloaded right now

in the starting pitcher position. just feel flattened, tearless, to a certain degree. And so I think, and our first in-house mock draft revealed this, that it's just there might be more personal opinion at play than in years past. Like, it might be harder to predict how any draft is going to play out. Maybe it's just because we're drafting in November, and so nobody's opinions are, you know, there hasn't been time to build consensus yet.

but given how much I've struggled to rank these players, I think there's more to it than that. All right, 11 through 15 in the shortstop rankings. Abrams is still here at 11, but it sounds like that's going to be Nico Horner, right? Mm-hmm. Okay, so again, Abrams will be inside the top 10. It'll be Horner at 11, followed by Hassan Kim,

Zander Bogart's Jackson Holiday. O'Neill Cruz at 11, sorry. Horner 10, Cruz, 11. Hassan Kim 12, Xander Bogart's 13. Jackson Holiday 14. We see a clear tier delineation here. Yeah, and Danesby Swanson is down at 15 as well. Jackson Holiday, the crown jewel, the apple of everybody's eye.

The Orioles just keep popping out prospects, left and right top prospects, I might add. Jackson Holiday, arguably the number one prospect entering 2024. Number one overall pick in 2022. He is the son of former Major Leagueer Matt Holiday, so he comes with that pedigree. He grew up around the game. Obviously, his dad was a great hitter as well. This past season, Jackson Holiday hit 323, 12 homers,

24 steals, a 941 OPS, nearly as many walks his strikeouts, and he did that across four different levels, reaching AAA as a 19-year-old. So I don't know if he's going to be up on opening day, Scott. I feel comfortable saying we will see. Jackson Holiday at some point in 2024. Not sure when that will be. Obviously not going to be, I don't think he's going to be a huge difference maker right

away. I think eventually he will be a five category contributor, but there's lots of like, obviously. Yeah, if I was sure he was going to be a five category contributor right away and really six categories. I know, you know, we talk about five categories because that's normally what we're scoring in fantasy. But like the best thing, the best trade. holiday has of all is the plate discipline.

The fact he walked 101 times in his first professional, his first full professional season is just unbelievable, especially when you factor in all the other tools he has. But he is very young. He moved very fast. We've seen in recent years, even the highest in prospects have a harder time breaking in, you know, transitioning to the majors than maybe we saw in like the heyday of

Ronald Ducunia and Juan Soto. So, you know, I want to be a little cautious in my ranking. And as you point out, it's no guarantee he makes the opening day roster. My feeling right now is that he will because it's pretty obvious he's going to be up at some point next year, given that he already surged to AAA. It's probably going to be sooner than later. It's hard to imagine they're going to let him spend half a year at AAA, slow him down that much. If he's going to be up sooner than later, given him,

The fact, you know, given how high end of a prospect he is, he would very much be in the rookie of the year race, you would think. And if he's going to be in the rookie of the year race, he's going to be on most of the year anyway. The incentives are just to bring him up at the start of the year, keep them up all years so that you have a chance to score draft picks based on where he finishes in awards voting. He has to be up from start to finish in order to qualify for that.

And so that's why I think my leaning is Jackson Holiday will be on the opening, Day roster for the Orioles. It's going to depend on him looking ready in spring training, obviously. If he goes over 20 with 10 strikeouts, it's probably not happening. But if he does what we think Jackson Holiday can do

in spring training, then I would presume it does happen. And remember last spring training, we had Anthony Volpe and Jordan Walker just flying up draft boards. Jackson Holiday is one of those names where if he is just tearing the cover off

the ball in spring and we get any type of confirmation. He'll probably be going inside the top 100 picks. So his early ADP is 192. I think that's fine for now. But again, that's a number that could skyrocket come spring training. Did want to quickly mention with Danesby Swanson, who you have ranked at 15th, that the more I dug into it, I kind of liked it. I don't think he has massive upside. Obviously, the stolen bases got cut from 18 to 9, from 2022 to 2020. That's a big deal. They could come back, but that's... And that's what I'm thinking.

I think they will because he was still 77th percent high on sprint speed. Did go on the I.O. with a bruised heel, so perhaps that kind of slowed him down a little bit. Craig Counsel is now the manager of the Chicago Cubs, and he was very aggressive with people stealing bases with his time in Milwaukee. I think we can get Twonson back to 15, maybe 20 plus deals. Again, with maybe him taking advantage of the rules. Well, the other thing you have to watch out for with Swanson, other than the stolen bases, so the year he had 18, 2022, he hit 277, pretty good. This past year when he dropped to nine stolen bases, 244.

And you go the year-by-year batting averages for Swanson, 244, going back in time now, 244, 277, 248, 274, 251, 238, 232. So, like, he's probably closer to a 250 hitter. than a 270 hitter. Yep. And if you're not much of a base stealer, kind of just a 20 to 25 homer guy who's hitting 250,

that feels more like middle infielder material than starting shortstop material in fantasy, which is why I have him behind Jackson Holiday. Jackson Holiday is kind of the dividing line between the guys I feel good about as a starting shortstop in fantasy and the guys I don't feel so good about as a starting shortstop in fantasy.

Danzby Swanson is now on the wrong. alongside of that divide. All right, let's wrap up 16 through 20. We have Tommy Edmund, who we spoke about on the second base recap, followed by Carlos Correa, Willie Adomis, J.P. Crawford, and good old Trevor Story, who returned in August of last season after undergoing UCL surgery in the previous offseason.

So, you know, he only played 43 games. I don't know how much stock we could put into it. I think very clearly, Scott, this group is, Pretty blah. Don't feel nearly as good about this group as, and that would make sense. Obviously, we're moving further down the rankings, but maybe a quick thought on either each player or a few players that stand out here. Yeah, I mean, like we said about Tommy Edmund at 16, when we did the second base preview, his main asset, the stolen bases just aren't as valuable. They aren't as unique to him as they were in the past. So we lose his value for that reason. his flaws show up a little more

when he's not such a standout and stolen bases though he is still very versatile and can be a pretty handy player in Roto Carlos Correa I think if I'm forced to fill my starting shortstop spot from this range I think Carlos Correa is the one I want because I do still think there is a chance he delivers a high-end outcome

obviously it hasn't happened in two years with the twins and the second year was even worse than the first, but he was playing with a, he was playing through injury most of the year. And still hit the ball very hard. His max exit velocity was 91st percentile. Average exit velocity, 70th percentile. The walk rate was still high. The strikeout rate was not bad.

It was pretty much middle of the road. 22 percent. It was for Carlos Correa. So, like, the underlying numbers are still pretty strong. And if he shows up with a clean bill of health and spring training, not even 30 yet, I think there's, I think that it's realistic to think Carlos Correa could bounce back and become kind of a must-star player in fantasy again. I mean, remember his just last offseason, there was a huge bidding war for him

where he was originally getting contract offers into $300,000. million dollar range. So there's just a lot of talent here for Carlos Correa, as disappointing as this past year was. Willie Adomas, I think very similar to Dan Svonson, kind of a meh batting average, pretty good power production. You have to treat any speed that he's going to provide as a bonus.

J.P. Crawford is a tough one to rank. I will say because he walks so much, J.P. Crawford is much better in points leagues, much easier to rank there. I actually am 15th than points leagues. He averaged more head-to-head points per game. J.P. Crawford did than Hassan Kim

and Bo Bouchet, 2.99 versus 2.90 for each of them. So I think he's a sneaky pick in that format if you just want to grab a shortstop with your last pick in the draft. You know, obviously head-to-head points tend to be shallower overall. So I think that's a viable option there with J.P. Crawford.

But for Roto Leagues, doesn't really stand out at anything. He did hit for a decent amount of power this past year, but it was the first time it ever happened. 19 home runs. His previous high was only nine. And it mostly happened in the second half. J.P. Crawford had this awakening

where he hit 282 with 11 homers in the second half. Actually reached base at a 401 clip after the All-Star break. So he was He was doing some things he's never done before Is it legit? He's going to be 29 in January So it's still young enough that You could see J.P. Crawford taking that kind of leap

But it's It's It's going to like whether or not you actually draft them Ahead of Trevor story is going to depend I think on How Deep Your League is what kind of team you're building Because it's It's limited upside there for Crawford versus very high upside, but very low downside for Trevor Story,

who was just awful coming back from the elbow injury in the middle of this year. Really didn't do anything right other than steel bases. Stoll 10 and 43 games, which is encouraging to see. It's nice to know that's still going to be part of Trevor's story skill set. But the power wasn't there. The strikeouts were ridiculous.

Chalk it up to Rust, maybe, but maybe not. He was showing signs of decline even prior to 2023. So it's hard to know what to make up Trevor's story at this point. He's young enough that I could see him bouncing back, but I don't know that that's the high probability outcome, which is why I rank him only 20th. And in fact, I think I've dropped them behind Anthony Volpe

since these rankings were published. So I think I have Volpe 20th now and Story 21st. Volpe, of course, coming off of 2020 season as a rookie, very impressive as far as that goes. But he hit only 209. And there are some questions about the batted ball profile, puts the ball in the air a lot, which compromises the batting average. It might be what allows him to hit 20 plus homers. But is that tradeoff worth it? It remains to be seen.

It's still very young. Again, coming off a rookie season was only 22 years old. Sometimes we see players going from year one to year two who make the sort of statistical leaps that you couldn't even detect in the data before they happen. So I think if you're just rolling the dice on upside, I've come to believe Anthony Volpe is a better choice for that than Trevor's story is.

I do like Trevor's story where he's going right now. The early ADP is 181.4, more so as a middle infuriq, fielder obviously don't put much stock into this past season, but the prior year, 2022, he was on a 25 homer 20 steel pace over 150 games. He still ran this year. You know, the batting average is going to be a liability, but I think we can get a 2020 season out of Trevor's story. Maybe the same thing from Volpe, but yeah, both are going to have pretty low batting

averages here in 2024. All right, there it is shortstop for Scott. I am Frank. Thanks as always for tuning in to fantasy baseball today. please make sure to follow and leave a five-star rating on Apple or Spotify, and we'll be back again on Wednesday. Bye-bye.