FanPost

Making the Case for Starlin Castro

Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

Shortstop is arguably the trickiest position to fill in fantasy baseball. It is the most top-heavy position in fantasy. Troy Tulowitzki hands down tops the list based on his ability, but can he stay healthy for a full season? Better yet, 3/4 of a season? Ian Desmond, Hanley Ramirez, and Jose Reyes round out the top 4 at SS in all experts rankings. But, after that, there seems to be a pretty steep drop-off amongst talent, and different opinions on who grabs the spot as the 5th best SS. I look no further than Starlin Castro who had a very solid bounce back season in 2014 sporting a .292/.339/.438 and was on track for a career year, before a high ankle sprain cut his season short after only 134 games.

Let's take a look at where Castro ranked among qualifying shortstops in 2014.

Hits: 154- 6th among qualifying shortstops.

HR: 14- 6th among qualifying shortstops.

RBI: 65- 7th among qualifying shortstops.

AVG: .292- 1st among qualifying shortstops.

OBP: .339- 2nd among qualifying shortstops.

SLG. 438- 3rd among qualifying shortstops.

SB: 4- 25th among qualifying shortstops.

Let's take a look at the sabermetrics on Castro for the 2014 season, and how he compared to Jose Reyes and Ian Desmond.

Player

OBP

OPS

wRAA

wOBA

wRC+

Castro

.339

.777

13.5

.341

115

Desmond

.313

.743

9.2

.329

108

Reyes

.328

.726

5.5

.321

102

From a sabermetrics standpoint, you can make a case for Castro having a better offensive season at the plate than both Desmond and Reyes. However, in fantasy terms, Castro does lack Desmond's power and Reyes' speed. That is why I rank him 5th entering the 2015 season behind Tulowitzki, Ramirez, Desmond, and Reyes.

Offensively, Castro put together a tremendous season. He finally showed the talent that everyone saw from him back in 2011. The only thing lacking from his performance was his ability to create havoc on the base paths, as he ended 2014 with only 4 SB. We have seen flashes of Castro's ability to swipe bags at the big league level. In 2011 he had 22 SB and in 2012 he had 25 SB. With the hiring of Joe Maddon, who's Tampa Bay Rays lead all of baseball in stolen bases from 2008-2010 and finished second in 2011, there should be plenty of opportunities for Castro to get his stolen base numbers back up.

Should Castro stay healthy in 2015, I anticipate he's somewhere around .290, 15 HR, 73 RBI, 10 SB, and with talent the Cubs have coming into this season with the likes of Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, and Kris Bryant, Castro's run total should also see a rise.


All data courtesy of FanGraphs and MLB Individual Stats.