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Jon Anderson's Early Shortstop Tiers & Rankings for 2023 Fantasy Baseball

Bo Bichette - Fantasy Baseball Rankings, MLB DFS Picks, Betting Picks

Welcome back RotoBallers to my early 2023 fantasy baseball rankings and projections series! Today we are onto the shortstop position in my early positional ranks and tiers posts. Here is what we've done so far:

This may be the deepest position in the game this year. This was true last year, too, but the top couple of tiers have gotten even stronger here. Lots to like in this spot, so let's get to the names!

 

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Tier 1 - Philly Trea

Player Team Rank Tier PA R HR RBI SB AVG
Trea Turner PHI 1 1 629 102 22 70 31 .291

At the end of the year, Trea Turner won't be the #1 shortstop in fantasy, probably. There are just too many other guys that have a legitimate shot at that crown. The reason for me putting him in Tier 1 all by himself is the consistency of fantasy greatness we have seen from him since 2018. Here's a quick look at the numbers from him:

Year R HR RBI SB AVG
2018 103 19 73 43 .271
2019 96 19 57 35 .298
2020 46 12 41 12 .335
2021 107 28 77 32 .328
2022 101 21 100 27 .298

If you would have picked Trea with the #1 overall pick each of these years, you wouldn't have been disappointed a single time. You just can't say that for any other player we'll talk about (probably during this entire series), so that earns Trea the top spot.

 

Tier 2 - More Five Category Contributors

Player Team Rank Tier PA R HR RBI SB AVG
Fernando Tatis Jr. SD 2 2 425 76 33 75 20 .272
Francisco Lindor NYM 3 2 625 76 23 80 16 .243
Bobby Witt Jr. KC 4 2 665 85 21 72 30 .246

These three could all top Trea pretty easily. We would probably rank Tatis above Turner if he weren't set to miss the first few weeks of the season - plus there are some health questions with him at this point. He's perfectly fine to be aggressive on in drafts given how elite he's been for fantasy production when on the field.

I'm a little bit lower on Witt, who has been going in the first round sometimes. I think I'll be letting everybody else chase that - but you can't argue that he's not a legitimate 30/30 threat this year. Lindor goes in above him just because of the counting stats here. He's good at everything and the Mets are going to score a ton of runs this year.

 

Tier 3 - Just Shy of Greatness

Player Team Rank Tier PA R HR RBI SB AVG
Corey Seager TEX 5 3 641 93 29 79 3 .287
Bo Bichette TOR 6 3 616 96 24 82 22 .291
Tim Anderson CWS 7 3 599 83 15 57 24 .297
Xander Bogaerts SD 8 3 670 85 19 99 8 .279

I'm banking on the shift thing really helping Seager, as we have assumed it will here. Giving him a batting average above .280 makes him awful appealing given his R/HR/RBI ability in that Rangers lineup.

There's a discount on Bichette this year after his (mini) sophomore slump. He's still a 20-20 projection here with a good batting average, so you could certainly bubble him up into the second tier or even the first if you believe his rookie year was more truthful than his second year. Tim Anderson and Xander Bogaerts are really cheap in drafts after their disappointing 2022 seasons, but I'm in on both - I don't see a way they disappoint very much if they're healthy, and they both play in good lineups.

 

Tier 4

Player Team Rank Tier PA R HR RBI SB AVG
Oneil Cruz PIT 9 4 554 79 21 54 23 .224
Carlos Correa MIN 10 4 659 92 25 78 1 .276
Dansby Swanson CHC 11 4 636 88 24 75 16 .276

We have an elite upside here with Cruz, as he could be an easy 35-25 player, but the batting average with the awful K% and the Pirates lineup hold down our expectations for him in 2023. Correa and Swanson were just fine last year, but they both lack a lot of that fantasy 5x5 upside. They are fine consolation prizes if you miss out on all of the eight shortstops - as we said, this is a deep position.

 

Tier 5

Player Team Rank Tier PA R HR RBI SB AVG
Tommy Edman STL 12 5 631 93 11 64 38 .263
Willy Adames MIL 13 5 657 94 32 80 8 .251
Wander Franco TB 14 5 613 85 15 72 11 .290
Jeremy Pena HOU 15 5 568 67 21 66 14 .251
Javier Baez DET 16 5 587 68 22 57 17 .243

And now we hit a bit of a cliff. We have more "specialists" at this point. Edman gets most of his value from runs and steals, Adames from homers and RBI, Franco from batting average, etc.

If there's a "breakout" after this point, it could very well be Pena. He had a good rookie year but it wasn't fantastic for fantasy purposes. He's in a great lineup and has all kinds of talent, so he's a nice upside pick later on in the draft. I also really like the Javier Baez bounce-back here, I think this projection is reasonable and it makes him probably a Tier 4 guy, but his history of going on absolutely awful streaks will always downgrade him for me from what the projection is saying.

 

Tier 6

Player Team Rank Tier PA R HR RBI SB AVG
Thairo Estrada SF 17 6 567 71 12 49 20 .258
Amed Rosario CLE 18 6 605 78 12 67 18 .284
Nico Hoerner CHC 19 6 607 82 9 57 28 .287
C.J. Abrams WAS 20 6 572 61 5 52 26 .249
Vaughn Grissom ATL 21 6 433 63 13 55 16 .275
Christopher Morel CHC 22 6 487 54 16 54 15 .232
Luis Garcia WAS 23 6 501 50 16 49 3 .253

More specialists here. You can find a lot of steals at this point, but you're hard-pressed for power. The breakout candidates here are Morel (lower the strikeouts) and Garcia (raise the launch angle and steal some more bases). I wouldn't want to start any of these guys as my primary SS, but we're still in the territory where you're okay with a middle infielder starter from this group.

 

Tier 7

Player Team Rank Tier PA R HR RBI SB AVG
Luis Urias MIL 24 7 567 64 20 63 4 .235
Luis Rengifo LAA 25 7 445 51 10 47 10 .255
Jon Berti MIA 26 7 362 41 7 40 32 .227
Brendan Donovan STL 27 7 547 65 8 72 10 .277
Ha-Seong Kim SD 28 7 511 66 10 45 12 .217
Adalberto Mondesi KC 29 7 396 51 13 57 40 .246

And now we're on to guys you probably don't want to rely on for much of anything. Adalberto Mondesi is of course his own special case. I've limited him to almost half of a season of PAs and the projections still spit out a huge steals year. I'm not sure if he'll do that even if he is healthy, but he has not shown that ability to stay on the field - so let's not count on that to change now.

I like Donovan fine since I think he'll be in the lineup almost every day with his defensive versatility, and he can rack up the base hits, which will bring runs and some steals with it.

 

Tier 8

Player Team Rank Tier PA R HR RBI SB AVG
Jorge Mateo BAL 30 8 318 38 6 34 23 .221
Ezequiel Tovar COL 31 8 504 65 13 57 20 .225
Ramon Urias BAL 32 8 510 56 16 55 3 .258
Bryston Stott PHI 33 8 463 54 8 51 13 .250
David Fletcher LAA 34 8 360 33 0 33 8 .255
Enrique Hernandez BOS 35 8 552 58 12 57 1 .226
Rodolfo Castro PIT 36 8 423 43 11 42 7 .220

There is a lot of playing time concern here, and there's no real power at this point anymore. You can find steals upside (Mateo, Tovar) and some "take a shot on young talent" upside (Tovar, Stott, Castro) - but chances are none of these guys are 5x5 contributors next season.

And that's the shortstop position baby! 36 shortstops ranked, let me know what you think!



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