Shortstop Profile: Troy Tulowitzki

When it comes to shortstops, there is certainly no one that is more productive on a per-game basis than Troy Tulowitzki. He is miles ahead of his nearest competitor. If he could stay healthy for an entire season, he would probably be worth the first overall draft pick. But, as everyone on the planet knows, he can't stay healthy. The table below shows his plate appearances for each season he has been in the league and Steamer's projected 2015 number.

Steamer is uncharacteristically bullish on Tulo's playing time this year, especially considering he hasn't had over 600 plate appearances since 2011. I don't think he will get there, personally. I would expect more in the 400-450 range.

What we can take away from this table is that he has been mostly healthy just three seasons out of the past eight, which is not inspiring any confidence in him. Sometimes, taking Tulo in a draft is like being a Cubs fan: maybe this is the year. Maybe this is the year he finally stays healthy and is the MVP. I'm going to tell you today that he doesn't have to stay healthy all year to be the top shortstop in fantasy baseball and I'll show you why in a minute. But first, I thought I should show you a table of all his injuries to give you an idea of the types of injuries he has experienced.

So, he has injured his: right groin, right quad, left quad tendon, right hand, elbow, left hand, back, right quad again, groin again, left wrist, groin again, right quad again, hip, left groin, shoulder, leg, ribs, oblique, leg again, right quad again, groin again, left thigh, and left hip flexor. Whew!

The only body parts he hasn't injured are his head, knees, feet and maybe one of his elbows. Last season was ended by hip surgery. You will notice that a hip injury ended his 2011 season as well. Maybe this surgery finally fixed his hips. I'm no doctor, but perhaps his bad hips were putting more pressure on his groin and quads, leading to injuries there, since all those muscles interact with one another.

For what it's worth, he says he's feeling much better.

''Honestly, I can say I feel as good as new,'' Tulowitzki said Saturday at Rockiesfest, an event in which fans mingled with players at Coors Field. ''But at the same time, no one is going to believe me until they see me go out and see me play. Come to spring training, watch me play and then make your opinion.''

''It's been a battle for me. No doubt,'' he said. ''Hopefully, all these things are passed me and I can move on and go out there and play 140, 160 (games), however many games it is. I'd love to do that. I have every intention to. We'll see how it goes.''

I agree with him that no one is going to believe him until he does play a full season and prove that he can stay healthy. But, back to my point earlier, what if he doesn't stay healthy again this year? How should we value him in fantasy baseball?

I'm going to reference Rotographs' end-of-season 5x5 rankings (based on the FVARz scoring method) here, so here's their list of the top 12 shortstops from 2014:

I cut it off at 13 because I am assuming a 12-team league and that would be a replacement-level (waiver wire) shortstop in 2014. First off, we see that Tulo finished fourth despite playing in only 91 games! That shows just how awful the position was in 2014 and how great he was at the same time. Let me now show you how Tulo was actually the number one shortstop last year for many fantasy owners (including myself). If you had a backup plan (drafted or waiver wire), you could survive Tulo's injury and benefit from all of his early season awesomeness. Let's now compare a full season combo of Tulo and Crawford (the replacement level shortstop you would have to draft or pick up to replace him when he went down) to the top shortstops. I used Crawford's stats from 7/19 on, since that is when Tulo went down. This table shows the combo of these two guys and their combined stat line.

Now, I don't have access to the dollar-value generator Zach Sanders at Rotographs used, so I can't translate this into dollars, but I can use my own standings-gain-points (SGP) calculator. Using SGP, this Tulo-Crawford combo comes in at 12.83 points. That slots solidly as the number two shortstop, with Desmond at 13.22 points the only one in front. Reyes is next at 12.47. Now, if you were lucky enough to get a better backup like Peralta (who I snagged) or anyone else above Crawford on the list above, or even Danny Santana, who came on strong at the end of the season, you would have finished with the number one shortstop in fantasy. That is how you can finish with the best shortstop even with Tulo missing more than a third of the season. He is good enough to carry a replacement level shortstop's stats for that much time and still finish on top.

So, sure, this strategy does require you to use a roster spot on a backup shortstop and potentially a draft pick, but finishing with the best player at the shallowest position is a huge advantage and helped me win my league last year. Don't shy away from Tulo because of his injury history, he is still worth a late first or early second round pick because of his insane hitting ability at a very shallow position, just make sure you have a good backup plan and you'll be fine. Tschus!