Fantasy Baseball: 2015 Consensus Shortstop Rankings - Part 2

We published part 1 of our Consensus Shortstop rankings for 2015 on Monday. Today, we bring you part 2 of our rankings. We used a points system for each of the 30 shortstops ranked by each of the Fake Teams writers who participated in the consensus rankings series.

The writers who participated in this series are:

Ray Guilfoyle

Jason Hunt

Rob Parker

Brian Creagh

Timmy Kennedy

Daniel Kelley

Jack Cecil

Nick Doran

Alex Kantecki

Timothy Finnegan

We feel that providing you our consensus position rankings, you get an average ranking from the Fake Teams writers, rather than one writers' opinion, which inherently includes some biases. You will see some players ranked higher by one Fake Teams writer than the others, so this helps the reader see both sides of the argument for/against a certain player who might be getting too much love this offseason.

Each of the position rankings will be split into two parts, rankings and player profiles for shortstops ranked 1 - 15 in part 1, and rankings and player profiles for shortstops  ranked 16 - 30 in part 2 to be published on Wednesday morning. Consensus rankings should bring about discussion amongst you, our readers, and the Fake Teams writers who participated in this series.

Now onto our Consensus Shortstop Rankings for 2015.

Consensus Fantasy Shortstop Rankings for 2015

Rank	Player	Team	Ranking Points	Ray	Jason	Rob	Brian	Timmy	Daniel	Jack	Alex	Nick	Timothy
16	Chris Owings	ARI	138	14	17	16	12	25	14	23	16	20	15
17	Jean Segura	MIL	126	19	19	18	24	21	16	15	22	12	18
18	Danny Santana	MIN	125	16	20	10	13		25	19	21	13	17
19	Jed Lowrie	HOU	118	25	14	24	26	18	12	17	14	22	20
20	Andrelton Simmons	ATL	106	27	22	27	11	15	17	18	20	21	26
21	Asdrubal Cabrera	TBR	92	28	24	20	21	26	18	21	19	19	22
22	Marcus Semien	OAK	77	15	18	19	27		26		15	30	21
23	Jung-Ho Kang	PIT	75	17	29	13			30	20	24	17	23
24	Brandon Crawford	SFG	62	24	26	29	25	10	28	26	26	27	27
25	Brad Miller	SEA	55	22	21	21		29		22	25	23	28
25	Wilmer Flores	NYM	55	23	23	22			19		23	28	24
27	Jordy Mercer	PIT	53	26	28	26	20	17		29	27	24	29
28	Didi Gregorius	NYY	46	29	26		30	24	27	24	29	25	19
29	Yunel Escobar	WAS	38		25	25		20	21		28	29
30	Jose Ramirez	CLE	36		27	23	19	19

	# 16. Chris Owings (ARI)
Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.261	34	6	26	8
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
332	0.300	0.406	4.82%	20.18%

Owings is coming off offseason shoulder surgery, so there is some question whether he will be ready for the start of spring training.  The shoulder injury caused him to miss 71 games last season. When healthy, Owings hit .261-.300-.406 with 6 home runs, 34 runs scored, 26 RBI and 8 stolen bases in 91 games last season.

Throughout his minor league career, Owings never walked much, and that hasn't changed in the big leagues. While he won''t walk much, depressing his value in OBP leagues, he does hit for power and steal bases. I have always thought of him as a 15 home run, 15 stolen base type hitter, but he will have to show he is healthy in spring training for fantasy owners to climb aboard.

	# 17. Jean Segura (MIL)
Photo Credit: Lance Iversen - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.246	61	5	31	20
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
557	0.289	0.326	5.03%	12.57%

We might look back at Segura's breakout 2013 season as his career year, as I don't see him replicating the 12 home runs, or the .294 batting average, he hit that season. But, he does provide owners solid stolen base totals due to his speed tool. Last season, Segura disappointed owners by hitting .246-.289-.326 with 5 home runs, 61 runs scored, 31 RBI and 20 stolen bases. One reason for his down year could be that he lost his 9 month old son mid-season last year, so that had to weigh on him for most of the season. Terrible that he had to go through that, and losing a son at any age is very difficult, let alone 9 months old.

Looking ahead to the 2015 season, I am down on Segura as I think he might be more of a one to two category producer for fantasy owners going forward. Then again, he had off-field distractions last season.

	# 18. Danny Santana (MIN)
Photo Credit: Steve Mitchell - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.319	70	7	40	20
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
430	0.353	0.472	4.42%	22.79%

Who saw this breakout coming from Santana last season. Raise your hand. Not me. Santana had a mini breakout season in 2014, hitting .319-.353-.472 with 7 home runs, 27 doubles, 7 triples, 70 runs scored, 40 RBI and 20 stolen bases in just 430 plate appearances. It seemed that every other day he was collecting 3 hits and a few runs scored, or so it seemed.

This isn't the first time he has put up a 7 home run, 20+ stolen base season, as he accomplished the same in Low A in 2011. He has one very good skill and that is his speed, as he has stolen 17 or more bases in each of the last four seasons in the majors and minors. His performance last season was buoyed by an extremely high, and likely not repeatable, .405 batting average of balls in play. His minor league performance indicates he could be a .270-.280 type hitter with the ability to steal 20+ bases in a full season of plate appearances.

	# 19. Jed Lowrie (HOU)
Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.249	59	6	50	0
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
566	0.321	0.355	9.01%	13.96%

Lowrie moves on to Houston where he should be the Astros starting shortstop until top prospect Carlos Correa is ready. That is not to say he will be ready at any point this season, though. The Astros signed the soon-to-be 31 year year old Lowrie for three seasons, so it is likely he will keep shortstop warm until Correa is ready in a few seasons. The Astros hope Lowrie can bounce back after a somewhat disappointing 2014 season, where he hit .249-.321-.355 with 6 home runs, 59 runs scored and 50 RBI. He is two years removed from a 15 home run, 75 RBI season with Oakland.

Lowrie has played 154 and 136 games over the last two seasons, so hopefully he has shed the label that he is injury prone. The move out of Oakland to Houston and Minute Maid Park should help his fantasy value on draft day, so if you miss out on some of the top tier shortstops, play the waiting game and pounce on Lowrie as he is a solid candidate to hit double digit home runs and drive in 60+ runs in 2015.

	# 20. Andrelton Simmons (ATL)
Photo Credit: Kim Klement - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.244	44	7	46	4
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
576	0.286	0.331	5.56%	10.42%

Simmons is one of those guys we can all label as "better in real baseball than in fantasy", as he is a two-time Gold Glove winner, but is coming off a season where he disappointed after showing some power in his rookie year. Last season, he hit .244-.286-.331 with 7 home runs, 44 runs scored and 46 RBI in 576 plate appearances.

The Braves will continue to give him at bats, and maybe the power will return in 2015, but he will have to change his batted ball profile to do so, as his fly ball percentage dropped from 39% in 2013 to 31% last year, and his ground ball rate jumped from 42% to 52%. He is not a fast runner, so the increase in ground balls did not help his batting average.

	# 21. Asdrubal Cabrera (TBR)
Photo Credit: Lance Iversen - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.241	74	14	61	10
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
616	0.307	0.387	7.95%	17.53%

I wrote about Cabrera in part two of our consensus second base rankings last week.

	# 22. Marcus Semien (OAK)
Photo Credit: Joe Camporeale - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.234	30	6	28	3
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
255	0.300	0.372	8.24%	27.45%

I wrote about Semien in part two of our consensus second base rankings last week.

Alex Kantecki wrote a player profile on Semien last week as well.

	# 23. Jung-Ho Kang (PIT)
Photo Credit: Richard Heathcote - Getty Images

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS (KOREA)
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
.356	103	40	117	3
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
501	.459	.739	13.6%	25.4%

I wrote about Kang in my shortstop rankings back in early January. Here is an excerpt from my profile on him in that piece:

Kang is coming off a monster season in Korea, where he hit .356-.459-.739 with 40 home runs, 103 runs scored and 117 RBI in the hitter-friendly Korean baseball league. In seven seasons with Nexen and Woori, he hit .298-.383-.504 with 139 home runs, 470 runs scored and 540 RBI in 3560 plate appearances.

I am not sure how his numbers will translate in major league baseball, but we should learn more about his abilities in spring training. Here is what ESPN's Keith Law wrote about Kang in his post season free agent rankings back in late November:

"Kang seems to have split scouts into two disparate camps: Those who see a power-hitting middle infielder, and those who see an unathletic corner guy whose power won't translate outside of Korea.

I'm closer to the former camp, as I see a swing that will generate legit plus power even once he leaves his hitter-friendly home park in the Yangcheon District of Seoul. Kang has a huge leg kick and gets his lead foot down late, which could create timing issues, but the swing is rotational, and I don't think the power surge he has had the past three years is strictly a function of the rising level of offense in the KBO. It's a power swing more than a hitting-for-average swing, which makes it somewhat more important that he stay in the middle infield."

Based on that scouting report from Law, I am going to take an optimistic view and rank Kang pretty high, ranking him as my #12 fantasy shortstop in 2015, due to the power potential. PNC Park may limit that to some degree, but I am willing to take a chance and rank him at 12 rather than my initial ranking of around the 20 range.

	# 24. Brandon Crawford (SFG)
Photo Credit: Joe Camporeale - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.246	54	10	69	5
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
564	0.324	0.389	10.46%	22.87%

Crawford had a mini-breakout season of his own in 2014, hitting 10 home runs, scoring 54 runs, driving in 69 and even stealing 5 bases. He ranked in the top 10, among fantasy shortstops, in home runs, RBI and on base percentage last season, so he quietly fell under the fantasy radar last season.

The question for owners this season is whether he can repeat his 2014 performance, and possibly show further growth at the plate, in 2015. Looking at his batted ball profile indicates he made a conscious effort to hit more fly balls last season, but his HR/FB% stayed relatively the same. He will need that number to jump into the 10% range to build on his mini-power breakout. In addition to the improved power, Crawford improved his walk rate to over 10%, so he offers some value in OBP leagues as well.

	# 25. Brad Miller (SEA)
Photo Credit: Casey Sapio - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.221	47	10	36	4
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
411	0.288	0.365	8.27%	23.11%

One of Miller or Chris Taylor will win the starting shortstop job in Seattle out of spring training, but we won't know that on draft day unless your draft is in late March, or the Mariners decide who the winner of the shortstop battle is in mid-March.

Miller had a disappointing season in 2014, hitting just .221-.288-.365, but contributed 10 home runs, scored 47 runs and drove in 36 runs in 123 games, but lost playing time to Taylor in the second half. If he loses the shortstop battle, there is some talk that he could start the season in AAA, rather than on the bench. Or, he could be traded. I think he is a better hitter than he showed us last season, so he is a decent late round gamble in mixed leagues.

	# 25. Wilmer Flores (NYM)
Photo Credit: Brad Barr - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.251	28	6	29	1
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
274	0.286	0.378	4.38%	11.31%

Speaking of teams that need a shortstop, the Mets need a "true" shortstop, but will go with Wilmer Flores at the position to start the 2015 seasons. Flores is probably a better fantasy shortstop than real life shortstop, as many don't think he can handle the position on a full-time basis. Last season, he hit .251-.286-.378 with 6 home runs, 28 runs scored and 29 RBI in 274 plate appearances. If you combine his AAA and big league stats, he hit 19 home runs and drove in 86 runs.

I doubt he can hit for that kind of power in the big leagues, but it shows that he can be a productive fantasy shortstop who can help you in those categories in 2015.

	# 27. Jordy Mercer (PIT)
Photo Credit: Kim Klement - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.255	56	12	55	4
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
555	0.305	0.387	6.31%	16.04%

Mercer was pretty productive for the Pirates last season, hitting .255-.305-.387 with 12 home runs, 56 runs scored and 56 RBI in 555 plate appearances. But, the Pirates invested some money in Korean shortstop Jung Ho Kang this offseason, so it remains to be seen who will be the Pirates starting shortstop on Opening Day this season.

My bets are on Kang, but Mercer has a solid glove in the infield, so he may have the upper hand for the defensive-minded Pirates.

	# 28. Didi Gregorius (NYY)
Photo Credit: Mark J. Rebilas - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.226	35	6	27	3
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
299	0.290	0.363	7.36%	17.39%

Gregorius was traded to the Yankees in the three team offseason trade involving the Diamondbacks and the Tigers. The trade to New York improves Gregorius' fantasy value, as he goes from being a back up in Arizona to the starting shortstop in New York. That is assuming that Stephen Drew will move over the second base after signing with the Yankees this offseason.

In his 299 plate appearances last season, Didi hit just .226-.290-.363 with 6 home runs, 35 runs scored, 27 RBI and 3 stolen bases. Nothing to write home about, but I think he has more to offer fantasy owners in 2015. We could see double digit home runs from Gregorius playing every day in Yankee Stadium.

	# 29. Yunel Escobar (WAS)
Photo Credit: Kim Klement - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.258	33	7	39	1
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
529	0.324	0.340	8.13%	11.34%

Escobar also switches teams in 2015, after he was traded twice within a few days earlier this offseason. He lands in Washington where he will be their starting second baseman this season, and will replace Ian Desmond at shortstop in 2016, assuming Desmond leaves via free agency as expected.

Escobar doesn't offer owners much in the way of power or speed, so all of his limited fantasy value lies in his batting average. It's surprising to me that a shortstop that stands 6'2' and weights over 200 pounds hits for so little power. He is nothing more than a waiver wire pick up in shallower leagues, and should be rostered only in the deepest of mixed or NL-only leagues.

	# 30. Jose Ramirez (CLE)
Photo Credit: Lance Iversen - USA Today Sports

2014 FANTASY STATISTICS
AVG	R	HR	RBI	SB
0.262	27	2	17	10
2014 SECONDARY STATISTICS
PA	OBP%	SLG%	BB%	K%
266	0.300	0.346	4.89%	13.16%

I didn't rank Ramirez in my top 30 shortstop rankings and that was an oversight on my part. If I had to do it over again, I would probably rank him as my 27th ranked fantasy shortstop ahead of Andrelton Simmons. Last season, Ramirez was a decent waiver wire grab, as he hit .262-.300-.346 with 2 home runs, 27 runs scored, 17 RBI and 10 stolen bases in 266 plate appearances.

Ramirez will start the season as the Indians starting shortstop, and will hold it until the Indians front office deem shortstop prospect Francisco Lindor ready for the big leagues. Like Escobar and Gregorius, ranked above him, Ramirez is a deep mixed league and mono league option for 2015 drafts.

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