To Draft or Not to Draft?

Over the past few baseball seasons one of the biggest positional drop-offs has been that of the shortstop. With the dwindling amount of talent at shortstop, this can become the headache of every fantasy player’s draft. Should you take a top tier shortstop and sacrifice production from a more productive position such as a first baseman or an outfielder? Or should you go ahead and draft a Troy Tulowitzki in hopes of getting a .300/30/100 season out of him instead of drafting Albert Pujols who can guarantee you to have a monster season year in and year out and a lower level shortstop such as Stephen Drew in the later rounds?

The truth is, shortstops are at a premium and unless you have a solid draft strategy that you are going to stick with throughout the entire draft, then you should go ahead and draft the best shortstop that you can especially if you are in a league with 10 or more teams.

While there are many prospects at short this year, there are also many others that are going to be busts or declining in production. Elvis Andrus is one of the bright young faces of the Rangers organization and while he cannot guarantee you the power numbers that a typical fantasy owner would like to see show up in his box score every week, he is capable of providing a tremendous batting average, OBP, and will swipe more bases than your average shortstop. On the other hand, the growing age and declining numbers of Derek Jeter concern many. Also the loss of a top tier player in Miami this season can put a strain on the positional depth. With no DH slot available in the National League, this will force either Jose Reyes or Hanley Ramirez to field their position at third base this season.


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