Fantasy Shortstop Rankings: Steamer Projections for 2015

Projecting player stats for the upcoming season, for me, has always been a gut feel. I usually look at other project systems like ZiPS, Steamer, Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster, but I usually look at what the player has done in the past and come up with my own projection. No formulas or spreadsheets,

Sometimes I have been on target, while other times, I have been way off. Attempting to predict how a player is going to perform is not an easy task. Projecting anything for which you have no control over is very hard. Just ask the weather forecasters after the failed "snowmageddon" here on the east coast a week ago.

One of the more well known projection systems out there is ZiPS, which is created by Dan Szymborski, and published over at FanGraphs. Another projection system which FanGraphs publishes for all to see is the Steamer projections. I am going to publish the Steamer projections here for each position we cover in our Consensus Rankings Series to help you prepare for your drafts and keeper league decisions in the coming weeks and months.

Here is more on Steamer from both the Steamer Projections website and from FanGraphs:

Steamer Projections is a projection system for baseball player statistics. The system was created and is maintained and operated by Jared Cross, Dash Davidson, and Peter Rosenbloom. Dash and Peter just graduated from college and are both former students of Jared - a high school science and statistics teacher. The three creators share a deep passion and interest for baseball and the statistics that are intrinsic to the game.

The project began in the Fall of 2008 at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, New York. Saint Ann's offers its students an independent research program where they may embark on collaborative projects motivated by personal interest together with a teacher. The Steamer Projections system is the result of this program.

What began as an explorative academic pursuit soon became a passionate and time-consuming endeavor as we quickly began to expand and improve our system - and increase the requisite amount of work - as our skill and knowledge of the intricate process of statistical projection improved.

Now we are in the midst of working on the seventh iteration of our system, which has released a full set of projections for MLB players for each of the past five seasons by the end of March. We are still constantly tinkering on and tweaking Steamer Projections in the hope of making it ever more accurate and efficient. We are also investigating possible business partnerships with fantasy sports websites and MLB teams to leverage the predicative power of our system.  You can find our full pre-season and daily projections at www.fangraphs.com and at www.razzball.com.

Steamer - This uses the playing time projection from our (FanGraphs) depth charts. These are temporarily using playoff rosters, so there may be the occasional weird playing time allocation. Playing time may be updated on a nightly basis.

So let's take a look what the Steamer projections have in store for the shortstops we ranked earlier this week.

Onto the Steamer projections for 2015:

Quick Thoughts

Javier Baez, Cubs

Steamer projects 589 plate appearances for Baez, which might seem high if you assume he starts the season in AAA, which I think is looking more and more likely. It makes a ton of sense to start him in AAA, even if he has a good spring, to build his confidence and ensure he has changed his approach at the plate. The Cubs will work with him in the spring to fix the holes in his swing and his approach in an attempt to limit the strikeouts. Once that occurs, he could be a top 5 fantasy shortstop, or second baseman.

Troy Tulowitzki, Rockies

Last season, Tulo went 71-21-52-.340 in just 375 plate appearances, so if he is able to stay healthy and reach 600 plate appearances, the Steamer projection could look low at the end of the season. Many owners are not willing to draft Tulowitzki in the late first or early second round of drafts, but when he is on the field, he is one of the top 5 fantasy hitters in the game.

Starlin Castro, Cubs

I think you know by now that I am high on Castro this season. That said, I think the Steamer projection is low across the board, as he could easily outperform this projection in 2015. Actually, he bettered most of his projected slash line last season in fewer plate appearances.

Jimmy Rollins, Dodgers

I think Rollin's fantasy owners would be very happy to see him put up a 13 home run, 20 stolen base season in 2015. I think he can exceed the stolen base total in a full season of plate appearances.

Jung-Ho Kang, Pirates

Steamer doesn't provide a projection for Kang, but I think he might be one of my top "sleepers" for 2015. I was high on him when i read how much Keith Law liked him in his 2014 Free Agent rankings. t might be higher on Kang than most, but I was sold on him after reading this piece on Kang from Dan Farnsworth over at FanGraphs. In that piece, Farnworth breaks down his swing with a multitude of gifs, and offers this nugget:

Taking the detestable jump into the predictive, with how hard he hits the ball and assuming only average contact and strikeout rates, I could easily see him hitting .280 with 25 homers, and that might be conservative.

Buy!!! Buy!!! Buy!!

Fantasy Rundown

If you are looking for fantasy football, baseball or basketball rankings, make sure you check out Fantasy Rundown, your one stop on the internet for all things fantasy.