Which players are we avoiding this year, and why?  Are they over-valued, playing in a difficult environment, or on the precipice of a steep decline?  Whatever the reason, the Dynasty Guru writers have identified a few players whom we are avoiding.

All of Them, on Every Team

Go back and look at the shortstop list.  Take it in.  Maybe get your face real close to the computer and smell that.  Do you know what that smells like?  Like all the shortstops in baseball are good to elite.

Look at that top 20!  It includes five of the top ten prospects in baseball.  Mookie Betts, a likely Hall of Famer, who just anchored a World Series Champion is ranked 12th.  Willy Adames, who hit 30 homeruns and stole 12 bases, is ranked 18th.

There were forty-three players who hit at least 15 homeruns and stole at least 15 bases last year.  Nearly a third—thirteen of them—were shortstops (Bobby Witt, Jr., Elly De La Cruz, Trea Turner, Trevor Story, Francisco Lindor, CJ Abrams, Gunnar Henderson, Geraldo Perdomo, Zach Neto, Dansby Swanson, Jeremy Peña, Anthony Volpe, and Otto Lopez) In a few leagues, Maikel Garcia (seventeen games played, nine games started), Jackson Holliday (eight games played, six games started), Matt McLain (six games played, four games started) might be eligible.  And another, Oneil Cruz, was eligible at shortstop last year.

And it goes even beyond that.  José Caballero, who led the major league in stolen bases, as a part-time regular and who has backed into Yankees shortstop job while Volpe heals is ranked 45th.  Eli Willits, who has gone round 1, pick 1 in the real draft and has a shot at going round 1, pick 1 in a number of fantasy FYPDs is ranked 39th—directly behind 2012’s round 1, pick 1, Carlos Correa.  It’s riches everywhere.

Some people will say, “Well, you always put your best athlete and shortstop.  This is not new.  Ever since A-Rod and Jeter, ever since Cal Ripken” and so on.

And I say to you, this is new.  There is one thing has inarguably improved in the past decade.  Look at the 2016 list of shortstops, sorted by WAR, and you see a couple of superstars followed by a list of really weird fluky years and guys held together by defense and BABIP.  The fifth-best shortstop was the underrated Brandon Crawford with a painful-for-fantasy purposes twelve home runs and seven stolen bases.  Addison Russell, the best-forgotten member of the Cubs dynasty, is the eighth-best shortstop.  Aledmys Diaz is twelfth.  Purported major league baseball player Jordy Mercer is sixteenth.  Do you know who was sixteenth last year?  CJ Abrams.  CJ Abrams, who was the number one return in a Juan Soto trade.  CJ Abrams, who was hitting .287/.353/.483 with 12 home runs and twenty stolen bases in 82 first-half games.  CJ Abrams, who is currently the 46th drafted player in NFBC’s redraft ADP.  CJ Abrams, who turned 25 last season.

Fantasy baseball is a game about finding inefficiencies in your local player market.  And when every shortstop is super, no one is.  Take your time.  Get an outfielder.  Wait for everyone to draft prospects and then take Corey Seager or, in points leagues, J.P. Crawford.  Or, wait for everyone to take Corey Seager and then take Bryce Rainer, who was in a conversation with Konnor Griffin until his shoulder relocated.  Every shortstop is magical.

But I guess you want a real fade.  I guess someone has to underperform.  I do not think Bo Bichette will be able to replace the value of his BABIP heavy 2025 now that he’s stopped stealing bases and will have the weight of a new contract. If you are playing deeper than that, I would not trust some of the lesser tier of prospects like Cole Young or Marcelo Mayer until they show they can be above-average major league hitters.   And Denzer Guzman will have trouble in most league formats.  One of the worst roster squeezes is when a prospect is called up, taking up critical bench slots, before he is ready.  But they’re not called the Angels because they practice empiricism.

(Bob Kelly)