clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Early 2013 Prospect Rankings: Shortstop

Jurickson Profar leads our early look at my top 10 fantasy shortstop prospects for 2013.

By Jason Hunt
J. Meric - Getty Images

Craig and I will be working our way through each of the 30 minor league systems in the coming months, looking at some of the top prospects in each of them. After we finish those, Fake Teams will be releasing our consensus position by position prospect rankings, including a fantasy-specific top 100 prospects list.

To start the discussion, I will be posting VERY RAW positional rankings. Note the emphasis on VERY RAW. I have begun to do my research for these upcoming projects, but it is very possible I could miss a prospect or have them ranked entirely too low or high. These are more aimed at general discussion amongst the community here, so if you've read or seen something that could be interesting to how a prospect is viewed, feel free to share it in the comments.

With that in mind, here is the criteria we will be using to determine whether a player is eligible for our prospect lists:

Hitters must have less than 130 AB in the Majors.

Pitchers must have thrown less than 50 IP in the Majors.

Graduates in 2012: Manny Machado (BAL), Zack Cozart (CIN), Josh Rutledge (COL),

Early Top 10 Shortstop Prospects
Rank Name Org.
1 Jurickson Profar TEX
2 Xander Bogaerts BOS
3 Javier Baez CHC
4 Nick Franklin SEA
5 Francisco Lindor CLE
6 Trevor Story COL
7 Carlos Correa HOU
8 Addison Russell OAK
9 Brad Miller SEA
10 Alen Hanson PIT

You can find notes on some of the prospects after the jump:

  • Billy Hamilton is in the process of being converted from shortstop to center field, and will be playing CF primarily in the AFL this year. If he were staying at shortstop, he would be my #2 shortstop prospect.
  • Franklin's future may end up being at second base long term, but his skill set combined with his having reached AAA last year already leads me to move him up some.
  • It remains to be seen at this point whether or not Story's numbers in Asheville are park-effected, but it sounds like the reports on him are all very positive regardless of the park.
  • Part of it is probably me being a homer, but I really like that Addison Russell was able to get all the way to full season Low-A in his draft season.
  • Other names that were up for consideration included Indians' SS Dorssys Paulino, Dodgers top draft pick Corey Seager, and Rays' SS Hak-Ju Lee.
  • With Lee, I wonder honestly whether he will be particularly useful for fantasy owners.