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Potential stars at shortstop

by Matt Smith

The ‘Friday Farce’ would be a good way to describe 31 January.

Sky Sports News revels in the way they’ve, largely single-handed, turned the football transfer deadline into a crazy soap opera, in which kids crowd around reporters that talk excitedly about the vague possibility of transfers involving mostly average players.

It doesn’t matter who the player is nor what impact they have on the team they join – and often the impact would be found to be minimal were Sky Sports News to investigate that side of the event, which for obvious reasons they do not – all that matters is that the thirst for player signings is quenched.

Even leaving aside comparisons with the bizarre freak show that is the football deadline day, we’re in a lull for MLB news with the top free agents off the market, a dearth of exciting trade rumours and Spring Training camps still waiting to open for another couple of weeks.

Thankfully the space has been filled by turning attention to the best young talent heading towards a Major League field either this coming season or a few years down the line.

MLB.com published their 2014 Prospect List on 23 January, Baseball Prospectus published theirs for free, alongside a separate breakdown page, four days later, whilst ESPN.com has been publicising Keith Law’s  prospect coverage that is available with an ESPN Insider subscription.

Two other main sources of prospect information, Baseball America and John Sickels’ Minor League Ball, will be adding their lists to the group in the coming weeks, although Sickels’ list will be later than usual this year.

All three of the published lists so far have placed outfielder Byron Buxton as the best prospect in baseball. Buxton is a part of the Minnesota Twins’ farm system and his ranking provides an excellent example of how the amateur draft is designed to allow teams currently not competing the chance to restock.

The Twins had the second overall selection in the 2012 draft due to their 2011 MLB season struggles. They used that pick, and a $6m bonus, to sign Buxton and in doing so have acquired an exciting talent who hopefully will be dazzling Twins fans for years to come.

Buxton has been invited to the Twins’ 2014 Major League Spring Training camp and whilst it’s more likely that he’ll begin his Major League career in 2015 (he’s just turned 20 and 2013 was his first year of professional baseball), his skills and rapid development mean that there’s a chance he could be playing at Target Field by the end of this coming season.

One thing that leaps out from the two freely available lists, MLB.com and Baseball Prospectus, is the number of shortstops that are high in the rankings.

  • Xander Bogaerts – Boston Red Sox. BP rank: 2, MLB.com: 2
  • Javier Baez – Chicago Cubs. BP: 4, MLB.com: 7
  • Carlos Correa – Houston Astros. BP: 5, MLB.com: 8
  • Francisco Lindor – Cleveland Indians. BP: 6, MLB.com: 10
  • Addison Russell – Oakland Athletics. BP: 7, MLB.com: 12.

Bogaerts made his Major League debut last August and became the youngest player to take the field for the Red Sox in a playoff game later that season. He’s a good bet to win AL Rookie of the Year honours this season and whilst the others are a bit further away from the Big Leagues, there’s clearly some promising shortstops on their way.

Shortstops tend to be the best athletes and, especially in the Minor Leagues, teams will give those players every chance to stay at the position until they reach a point where it’s felt they will struggle too much there defensively in the Majors.  Reports suggest all of the five prospects mentioned above have a good chance at staying at the position, but it’s not simply their own talent level that will be the determining factor.

The Texas Rangers’ Jurickson Profar was the consensus pick as the best prospect in MLB a year ago. He played at shortstop in the Minors but the Rangers prefer Elvis Andrus at that position and therefore Profar has switched to second base at the Major League level. Similarly, the Baltimore Orioles’ Manny Machado is now thought of as an elite third baseman, yet he was an outstanding shortstop prospect who moved across to the hot corner as the Orioles already had J.J. Hardy playing at short.

Bogaerts switched between third base and shortstop with the Red Sox at the end of last season, although he is expected to be the full-time shortstop this season with Stephen Drew being a free agent and unlikely to return. Among the other prospects, Baez is the only one with an obvious blocker at shortstop in the shape of Starling Castro so a move to third base could be on the cards for him.

The point about prospects is that for now they are all about potential. Plenty of highly-regarded youngsters don’t live up to the lofty expectations placed on them, even if those expectations were justified at the time. We shouldn’t be too ready to proclaim a return to the days when the likes of Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra and Miguel Tejada were creating shortstop superstar stories, yet there’s a chance another golden crop of shortstops is just around the corner.

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