As you prepare for your drafts, it is important to figure out who you want to target in drafts and who you want to avoid. Culling your draft list is an important process to make it go seamlessly. Shortstop is one of the deepest positions in fantasy, but it has clear cliffs that drop off drastically. Here are my picks for shortstops to target and avoid at the first base position in 2023.
- ADP Target & Avoid: Catchers | First Base | Second Base
- Fitz’s Positional Primers
- Justin Mason’s Draft Day Cheat Sheet
- Players the Experts Draft
- Latest Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft
Shortstops to Target or Avoid
Targets
Bo Bichette (TOR) ADP 13.4
In what was a “down” season for Bichette, he still hit .290/.333/.469 with 24 home runs and stole 13 bases. He made a swing change midseason and was even better than the first half and has said he plans to run more with the new rules. Bichette should be going in the mid-first round.
Willy Adames (MIL) ADP 89.89
Adames is an underrated stud. In his first full season in Milwaukee, he hit 31 home runs and stole eight bases with a .238 average. His average should come up some, as he had a pretty low BABIP. He could even run some more, given the new base running rules. He is one of the last shortstops you feel great about before a decent drop-off.
Nico Hoerner (CHC) ADP 138.83
Hoerner is a pretty divisive guy in the fantasy industry. Some see him as a boring accumulator, and others see him as a great hit-tool guy with speed that can be a difference-maker in multiple categories. I am in the latter group. He was top five in the Major Leagues in zone contact and stole 20 bases in just 135 games. He will be a full-time player this year at second base, so he will gain that eligibility at a terrible position. Love him this year.
CJ Abrams (WAS) ADP 224.66
The fantasy community buries prospects that struggle in their first go around. Abrams struggled last season, but he was rushed by the Padres and then was traded in the Soto deal. He should play every day in Washington and offers a ton of stolen base potential, but I think the hit tool is very good, and I think there is enough power to get over double digits in Nationals Park. He’s efinitely a good fallback option if you miss out on shortstops or need speed late.
Avoids
Fernando Tatis Jr. (SD) ADP 19.3
Listen, I love Tatis from a skills perspective, but the track record for guys coming back from shoulder surgeries as he had is not very good. Add in the fact that he is suspended for the first part of the season, and I just can’t rationalize him as a first or second-round pick. If you have a lot of IL spots in a shallow league, I understand taking the gamble, but any 12-team leagues or deeper should be very careful about rostering him.
Tommy Edman (STL) ADP 77.62
Edman makes a lot of sense if you need stolen bases after the elite hitters are gone, but I am worried that he gets moved down the lineup, which would limit his plate appearances and stolen bases. I think you can just get guys that will end up putting up similar numbers much later. Is Edman 80 picks better than Hoerner or 150 picks better than Abrams? I don’t think he is.
Xander Bogaerts (SD) ADP 90.71
I love Bogaerts as a player, but I don’t love the move to San Diego. Petco is a really tough place to hit for power and average, and that lineup is so loaded that Bogaerts likely doesn’t bat near the top of the order once Tatis is back. At best, he is a good accumulator, but you need to be hitting atop the lineup to make it really work well.
Jeremy Pena (HOU) ADP 114.60
There is nothing wrong with Pena in general, but at his current price, you need him to keep getting better. He definitely could, but I don’t think there is a ton of growth in terms of skills right now. I think what we saw last year is what he is, which is fine, but he should be going 30-50 picks later.
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