Fantasy Baseball Shuffle Up: How much should you bid on corner infielders in drafts?
Baseball might be in limbo, but the fantasy analysis game drives along. Hopefully, we have real transactions and spring news to analyze soon.
The Shuffle Up series is a collection of theoretical offers if I were entering a Salary Cap (or Auction) Draft today. The prices are unscientific in nature and used as tools to show where the talent is clustered. Assume a 12-team mixer, a 5x5 scoring system, and players at the same salary are considered even.
We’ll work our way through all the different positions in the next few weeks. Today it’s the corner infielders, everyone who qualifies at first base or third base in the Yahoo game. I trimmed catcher-eligible players from this list because no one is using J.T. Realmuto at first base, say. But if you’re hungry for catcher salaries, come back in 24 hours.
To the board.
The Big Tickets
$44 Jose Ramirez
$42 Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
$40 Freddie Freeman
$40 Rafael Devers
$39 Matt Olson
$38 Manny Machado
$37 Pete Alonso
$36 Austin Riley
$33 Paul Goldschmidt
$31 Jose Abreu
$31 Nolan Arenado
$31 Wander Franco
I recognize the ongoing meme and joke of “best shape of his life,” but let’s consider what Guerrero Jr. did last year. Trimmed down, for starters, and then he started getting the ball in the air. It led to a breakout year at the tender age of 22, and the arrow is obviously pointed up. Loaded lineup, decent park — heck, he even stole four bases. You can take him anywhere in the first round and I will not argue with you . . . Devers in the second round is my kind of target, a player who offers both ceiling and floor. He’s merely entering his age-25 season and has the buoyancy of a deep lineup and a friendly park. His game takes a mild step back against lefties, but .278/.345/.405 isn’t a kill shot . . .
The Mondesi pick isn’t for everyone, but the Royals are going to let their lineup run pretty much whenever it wants, and Mondesi in a full season would be the likely MLB steals leader while still getting into double-digits in homers. If you’re not afraid to play to win, you have to consider Mondesi as a foundational, building-block pick around the third or fourth round . . . If you take 90 percent of Goldy’s 2021, I can bid around that, other than the 12 steals. Into age 34, I can’t bet on that repeating . . . It looks like Abreu fell off significantly from his MVP season, but that 2020 line was just a 60-game outlier anyway. His rate stats from last year line up with what he did in 2018 and 2019. If some bat speed is slipping away, it might be partially offset by the depth of that loaded Chicago lineup. You want some pieces on the South Side. I think they might lay waste to the AL Central.
[Batter up: Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Baseball league for free today]
Primary Options
$27 Alex Bregman
$24 Kris Bryant
$22 Jared Walsh
$22 Yoan Moncada
$21 DJ LeMahieu
$20 Anthony Rendon
$19 Max Muncy
$18 Ryan Mountcastle
$17 Chris Taylor
$17 Jake Cronenworth
$17 Kyle Schwarber
$17 Rhys Hoskins
$16 C.J. Cron
$15 Josh Bell
$15 Ke'Bryan Hayes
$15 Ty France
$15 Ryan McMahon
$14 Justin Turner
$13 Josh Donaldson
$13 Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
$12 Joey Votto
$12 Matt Chapman
Bregman’s situation is a little like Jacob deGrom’s — he’s either salaried comically low or $10 too high. It all comes down to the wrist. Not long ago, he was considered the best infielder in the American League. He turns 28 at the end of the month, and the delay to the season might help his rehab schedule. I’ve been drafting him proactively . . . We don’t know where Bryant is going to end up, but I’ll admit he’s got me spooked. Catch his comps on Baseball Reference? A lot of players who came out hot and didn’t age well — Richard Hidalgo, Hank Black, Yoenis Cespedes. Bryant slugged .351 in the truncated season and was a modest .262/.344/.444 man after the deal to San Francisco last year. He turns 30 this season, but it almost feels like his skill set is 3-4 years older. I’ve been afraid to draft him . . . Walsh won’t hit lefties much, but he’s likely to slot behind Ohtani and Trout in the Anaheim lineup, and ahead of Rendon. He’s going to be around 30-100 again, with a plus average. And this year he doesn’t have to worry about Albert Pujols stealing his playing time . . .
Schwarber becomes more interesting in the FA market now that every team presumably has a DH spot to work with. The Red Sox were criticized for their lack of deadline moves, but the addition of Schwarber almost drove them to a pennant. Last year’s total haul was an underreported delight — an OPS+ of 148 (average is 100), 32 homers in 399 at-bats. He’d be welcome on any of my teams . . .
[Fantasy Baseball Draft Rankings: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP]
Cronenworth gets a little extra value from the positional grabs, and he batted second, third, or fourth most of last season. The Padres offense has latent upside . . . Chapman is too young to simply have lost it, right? He’s into his age-29 season. I’ll assume something around his .243 career average, probably another 25-30 homers. Too bad the park remains the same — all that darn foul territory — and too bad you get nothing for his angelic defense.
Talk them up, talk them down
$11 Anthony Rizzo
$11 Eduardo Escobar
$10 Eugenio Suarez
$9 Brandon Belt
$9 Jeimer Candelario
$9 Yuli Gurriel
$8 Alex Kirilloff
$8 Josh Rojas
$8 Luis Urias
$8 Trey Mancini
$7 Jonathan Schoop
$7 Alec Bohm
$7 Bobby Dalbec
$7 Frank Schwindel
$7 Jesus Aguilar
$7 Luke Voit
$6 Gio Urshela
$6 Nathaniel Lowe
$5 Cavan Biggio
$5 Andrew Vaughn
$5 Connor Joe
$5 Jonathan Villar
$5 Miguel Sano
$5 Mike Moustakas
$5 Spencer Torkelson
Belt will be useful for 100-120 games, but you can't bid on anything greater, given his track record . . . Escobar is insulated by a Mets lineup that’s strong on paper and could become stronger when the transaction windows reopen . . . Kirilloff is one of my favorite sleepers, coming off a busted wrist. Most of the Minnesota hitters present buying opportunities, be it for injury excuses or boring-but-effective profiles . . . Biggio is too passive at the plate and probably stuck in a bad slot again, but now that he’s almost free at the tables, we can’t forget that 2020 was a winning season for him . . . Moustakas could have had his cliff season, but if we’re into Round 20 or later (or at an offer that approximates the same), I’m willing to throw a bid out and hope he can rediscover his 30-homer bat . . . Aguilar has been screened nicely by Miami. There’s talk of him moving, but if he ships out, surely it’s to a better park and lineup.
Bargain Bin
$4 Eric Hosmer
$4 Evan Longoria
$4 Joey Wendle
$4 Rowdy Tellez
$3 Dylan Moore
$3 Patrick Wisdom
$3 Wilmer Flores
$2 Abraham Toro
$2 Bobby Bradley
$2 Brian Anderson
$2 Christian Walker
$2 Hunter Dozier
$2 J.D. Davis
$2 LaMonte Wade Jr.
$2 Luis Arraez
$2 Yoshi Tsutsugo
$1 Dominic Smith
$1 Josh Harrison
$1 Kyle Farmer
$1 Yandy Diaz
