Early ADP Tiers: Shortstop
A quick look at shortstop using early ADP data and projections
Other positions covered so far:
I have left the best two offensive positions for last. Most of the fantasy studs in recent years have been either outfielders or shortstops. It seems like all of the most talented young players begin at shortstop. That’s almost become the default top prospect position. So there’s a lot of juice at the position for us to go over. Let’s get into it.
Tier One
Bobby Witt Jr.
Elly De La Cruz
It felt like both of these guys had down years in 2025. And in some ways, they did. Bobby Witt hit only 23 homers after two straight years getting to 30.
He lost more than 30 points in batting average and nine homers. For most guys, those kinds of losses would mean they weren’t a very good fantasy player. But Witt Jr. still returned #5 overall hitter value in standard roto.
KC is a tough place for power hitters. Only eight Royals hitters have hit 30+ homers in the last ten years. Witt’s done that twice; the only other right-handed hitters to do so were 2019 Jorge Soler and then Salvador Perez a couple of times.
Witt probably doesn’t have the 40+ homer ceiling that some of the other first-rounders do. But that’s about as harsh as we can be about the guy. He’s a first ballot Hall of Famer type talent.
And he’s the clear #3 overall pick this season. So there’s not much use analyzing him to death.
As for Elly De La Cruz, he finished outside of the top ten on the player rater. He was pretty mediocre in homers (22) and batting average (.260). But he stole 37 more bags, scored 102 runs, and drove in 86.
We’re all pretty certain at this point that EDLC was playing hurt last season. We can see that even on the SRV Trend Plot on the web app:
He was the #4 roto player before June 15th, slashing .273/.352/.498 with 16 bombs and 20 steals in about half of a season.
But he played through a partially torn quad (yikes) in the latter part of the season, and that would be a pretty tough thing to do! From June 16th on, he hit .257/.324/.395 with six homers and 17 bombs. So the power was zapped. It’s very good to have a good explanation for it. And now we can start to wonder what kind of numbers he would have put up if not for that injury. He was on a 30+ homer, 40+ steal pace with the best batitng average of his career by far before that. He still did land at a career-best .264 batting average.
The stolen base attempt rate fell from 51% to 26%. From 2023-2024, he was almost the only guy you needed to be competitive in steals.
2023-2024 SB Leaders
Elly De La Cruz 102
Ronald Acuna Jr. 89
Corbin Carroll 89
Bobby Witt Jr. 80
Shohei Ohtani 78
CJ Abrams 78
Last year, he finished seventh. The thing to note is that his attempt rate was way down even befor the injury. Elly had a 29.5% attempt rate from March through June. So he was not going to be a 50+ steal guy again.
But he can absolutely grab 40 steals again, and there’s 30-homer upside with a potentially very solid batting average. His K% was cut to 26% last season, a very good sign. There’s absolutely #1 overall player upside with Elly. So he’s justified as a middle of the first round pick this year.
Tier Two
Francisco Lindor
Gunnar Henderson
Two more five-category studs who go in the second round. As we mentioned above, most of the best athletes end up at shortstop or in center field, so a disproportionate number of the five-category guys end up at one of these two fantasy baseball positions.
These guys are very good across the board, but they both lack the off-the-page upside that Witt and Elly possess.
The Gunnar analysis is already done here. I like his bounce-back potential, but that 2025 season makes you wonder if there’s true 35-homer, 25-steal potential. As for Lindor, he’s 32 now. He was one steal in 2024 short of giving us three consecutive 30-30 seasons.
He’s never been a batting average stud, though. His xBA last year was .265. He hit .235 against lefties last season and has a career .292 BABIP. The worst he’s done in the last four years is still above .250, which is fine for fantasy leagues these days. But without the 40-homer or 40-steal upside in addition to a capped batting average, he’s shy of a first-round player, and he’s the oldest of these first two tiers by a good margin.
Tier Three
Trea Turner
Zach Neto
Mookie Betts
Speaking of age, we have two more old farts here. Trea Turner is 32, and Mookie Betts is all the way up there at 33. These guys can almost run for President. And both have very questionable home run returns recently.
Betts was a legitimately bad fantasy player for large portions of 2025. He got sick and lost 20 pounds or whatever it was in March, and people can make some excuses based on that. And maybe there’s something here. He couldn’t have had the same amount of strength as usual. He was never a guy lighting up the exit velocity board; he was almost more reliant on pulled fly balls and elite contact to rack up dingers.
I’m pretty concerned we could be looking at like a 25 HR+SB guy. If he doesn’t hit for a high batting average and go crazy with counting stats, that’s not worth the top 40 pick he costs. But it’s Mookie Betts and the Dodgers, it’s a good bet we’ll get a bounce-back and a valuable fantasy player for at least a couple more years.