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Sam Chinitz looks at shortstops who fantasy baseball owners may want to avoid or fade during 2020 drafts as their output may not match their current average drafted position (ADP).
Shortstop is a fairly deep fantasy position, with fifteen shortstops going before the 150th pick on average and plenty of value to be found even later in drafts. The top-end of the shortstop group is particularly strong, with three shortstops owning top-10 ADPs.
No other infield position group has had as many different players drafted in the top-10 picks as shortstop has with seven, making the position particularly sensitive to bust candidates. Even so, there’s little reason to chase excessive risk early in drafts with a position group as deep as shortstop.
Below are three shortstops who are being drafted early despite relatively risky profiles, making them likely bust candidates. Fantasy owners will likely be better off avoiding these players in favor of safer options at their ADP.
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Adalberto Mondesi, Kansas City Royals (ADP: 36, SS9)
Some of the hype surrounding Mondesi is understandable, but a likely-to-be low OBP and mediocre power give the 24-year-old a high potential to bust in 2020. With last season’s 42.2% chase rate, 63.4% contact rate, and whopping 21% swinging-strike rate, Mondesi strikes out often (29.8% strikeout rate) and rarely walks (4.3% walk rate). Those strikeout and walk rates are part of the reason why Mondesi posted a .291 OBP last year, which would have been the fifth-worst mark in the league had he qualified.
Mondesi’s unspectacular power doesn’t help him get on base much either. With an 87.9 mph average exit velocity and a 33.4% hard-hit rate last year, Mondesi’s power is not enough to make up for his poor plate approach. Indeed, although Mondesi’s .383 xwOBA on contact was slightly above-average last year, his .282 xwOBA ranked near the bottom of the league.
Mondesi is fast, and he’s probably going to steal at-least 40 bases this year. Unless he sees his contact quality bounce back to 2018 levels (.444 xwOBA on contact) and his plate discipline improves though, Mondesi is unlikely to be more than a one-category contributor in 2020. A top-50 pick is a steep price for a player whose poor plate discipline and middling power make him likely to post an OPS below .780, even with the production on the basepaths. Even more concerning is that if Mondesi’s contact quality doesn’t return to its 2018 form -- a real possibility considering that he had offseason shoulder surgery -- then he may again post an OPS below .720, making him a clear bust for a top-50 pick.
Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres (ADP: 17, SS5)
Tatis had an electric rookie season that saw him slash .317/.379/.590 over 84 games, but fantasy owners should be skeptical of a repeat performance from the 21-year-old in 2020. The first major red flag from Tatis’s performance last season was his unsustainable .410 BABIP.
Only four qualified batters have posted a BABIP north of .380 since 2017, and none have come particularly close to accomplishing the feat in multiple seasons. Tatis’s batted ball profile and speed suggest that his BABIP should sit somewhere around .350 -- still near the top of the league, but a long way from where it was last year. That notion is backed up by the fact that Tatis owned the highest wOBA-xwOBA last year with a .053 difference, a number that is likely to fall significantly in 2020.
Even if all of Tatis’s stats except for his BABIP remain the same in 2020 while his BABIP drops to .360, Tatis would see his batting average drop from .317 to .283. That’s not a bad batting average, but it’s a huge decline in performance from expected luck-based regression alone.
Another concern for Tatis in 2020 is how managers and pitchers will adjust to him. One of those adjustments is likely to be an increase in shifts. Although Tatis performed better with a shift than without one last year, that is unlikely to continue based on his batted ball trends.
Tatis went to the opposite field with ground-balls only 9.6% of the time in 2019, leaving little incentive for managers to maintain a standard defensive alignment against the shortstop. An increase in the usage and effectiveness of shifts against Tatis may further decrease his BABIP and suppress his production. One final risk that Tatis carries is his struggles against offspeed pitches. Tatis posted a paltry .200 xwOBA against offspeed pitches last year, but only saw offspeed offerings 11.4% of the time. By comparison, Jorge Polanco (.280 xwOBA on offspeed pitches) was thrown offspeed pitches 20% of the time. If pitchers attack Tatis with additional offspeed pitches in 2020, his strikeouts will likely rise, and his production should fall.
Tatis has the potential to be a great hitter, but his reliance on luck in 2019 and potential for significant opponent adjustments in 2020 make him a strong bust candidate this year. A reasonable (if slightly pessimistic) projection for Tatis in 2020 is a .270 batting average with a 30% strikeout rate, 20 home runs, and 20 stolen bases. These numbers could get a lot worse if the opponent's adjustments cause Tatis to slump. Be wary of drafting Tatis with a top-20 pick as a result.
Elvis Andrus, Texas Rangers (ADP: 139, SS17)
At this point in his career, Andrus is likely being drafted for his base-stealing and low strikeout rate more than anything else. Fantasy owners should be extremely concerned about Andrus’s stolen-base potential in 2020 though, even after the 31-year-old swiped 31 bags last season.
Andrus has seen his sprint speed decrease in every season since Statcast began tracking the metric in 2015, and last season marked the first time that Andrus posted a below-average sprint speed at just 26.7 ft/sec. Here’s why that’s so concerning for Andrus’s fantasy value:
Andrus was by far the slowest player to steal more than even 20 bases last season. Only two other players (Ryan Braun and Shin-Soo Choo) managed to have double-digit stolen bases with sprint speeds below 27 ft/sec last season, and the two outfielders still combined for only 26 stolen bases.
That Andrus was able to outperform his sprint speed so significantly suggests that he gets good jumps and should be able to continue being an asset on the basepaths. That being said, Andrus’s declining speed and anomalous stolen base total in 2019 make the shortstop an extremely risky pick for fantasy owners relying on him for stolen bases. It seems as though Andrus’s realistic ceiling in 2020 is an OPS of .750 with 25 stolen bases (over 162 games), and if his speed continues to decline, a stolen base total below 20 is well within the realm of possibility. That possibility makes Andrus a bust candidate at his top-150 ADP, and fantasy owners are better off avoiding Andrus at that price.
