Top 10 A.L. Shortstops 2007
| Rank | Player | AP$ | AP Proj. | Proj. Rank | 2006 |
| 1 | Carlos Guillen | $28 | $24 | 4 | $31 |
| 2 | Derek Jeter | $28 | $30 | 2 | $41 |
| 3 | Michael Young | $27 | $25 | 3 | $25 |
| 4 | Orlando Cabrera | $26 | $16 | 6 | $23 |
| 5 | Miguel Tejada | $20 | $31 | 1 | $31 |
| 6 | Julio Lugo | $18 | $16 | 5 | $19 |
| 7 | Jhonny Peralta | $17 | $11 | 8 | $7 |
| 8 | Yuniesky Betancourt | $15 | $8 | 10 | $14 |
| 9 | Jason Bartlett | $15 | $12 | 7 | $11 |
| 10 | Brendan Harris | $14 | $1 | N/A | $0 |
| Average | $21 | $17 | $20 |
Both the dollar values and the order have changed, but the names are all the same. Only Harris breaks into this group from out of virtually nowhere; everyone else is a familiar face. Looking at the broader picture, only Alex Gonzalez left the league while Royce Clayton was the only import.
Top 10 Predicted A.L. Shortstops 2007
| Rank | Player | AP$ | AP Proj. | Actual Rank | 2006 |
| 1 | Miguel Tejada | $20 | $31 | 5 | $31 |
| 2 | Derek Jeter | $28 | $30 | 2 | $41 |
| 3 | Michael Young | $27 | $25 | 3 | $25 |
| 4 | Carlos Guillen | $28 | $24 | 1 | $31 |
| 5 | Julio Lugo | $18 | $16 | 6 | $19 |
| 6 | Orlando Cabrera | $26 | $16 | 4 | $23 |
| 7 | Jason Bartlett | $15 | $12 | 9 | $11 |
| 8 | Jhonny Peralta | $17 | $11 | 7 | $7 |
| 9 | Bobby Crosby | $5 | $9 | 14 | $5 |
| 10 | Yuniesky Betancourt | $15 | $8 | 8 | $14 |
| Average | $20 | $18 | $21 |
Crosby replaces Harris in the predicted Top 10, so the average dollar values all are very similar. It's a profitable group even with Crosby, but that's because two significant bargains (Cabrera and Betancourt) outweigh one bust (Tejada).
A.L. 2007 Prediction Grid: Shortstop
| Name | AP | PK | LABR | Tout Wars | SW | '07$ |
| Derek Jeter | $30 | $29 | $32 | $28 | $31 | $28 |
| Miguel Tejada | $31 | $30 | $27 | $28 | $30 | $20 |
| Michael Young | $25 | $25 | $28 | $27 | $28 | $27 |
| Carlos Guillen | $24 | $25 | $23 | $22 | $20 | $28 |
| Julio Lugo | $16 | $20 | $22 | $19 | $21 | $18 |
| Orlando Cabrera | $16 | $16 | $19 | $20 | $17 | $26 |
| Jhonny Peralta | $11 | $13 | $14 | $14 | $13 | $17 |
| Jason Bartlett | $12 | $12 | $12 | $11 | $12 | $15 |
| Bobby Crosby | $9 | $10 | $12 | $13 | $12 | $5 |
| Yuniesky Betancourt | $8 | $8 | $10 | $14 | $10 | $15 |
| Nick Punto | $5 | $7 | $10 | $19 | $7 | $1 |
| Juan Uribe | $5 | $7 | $7 | $11 | $11 | $9 |
| Royce Clayton | $3 | $6 | $4 | $2 | $3 | $1 |
| Alex Cintron | $3 | $6 | $2 | $3 | $1 | $2 |
| Ben Zobrist | $2 | $1 | $3 | $3 | $5 | ($2) |
| Angel Berroa | R3 | R3 | $2 | $1 | $7 | ($1) |
| Erick Aybar | $2 | $1 | $6 | $2 | ||
| Brandon Wood | R1 | R2 | $4 | $3 | ($1) | |
| Marco Scutaro | $1 | $1 | $3 | $1 | $6 | |
| Reid Brignac | R5 | R2 | $1 | |||
| Tony Pena | R3 | $1 | $7 |
I know, I know, it's a lot to look at.
This is the predicted list when you take the average price of Patton, Rotoman (PK), the LABR and Tout Wars auctions and Sports Weekly and sort it descending. The accuracy of the touts can be crudely ascertained by looking at the last column - the actual 2007 earnings - and seeing how closely it adheres to a descending sort. And it comes pretty close.
I ran through this same exercise for American League second basemen, and the results here are similar. Generally, there is greater consensus on the top players than there is on the bottom ones. This is surprising if you only consider projections, but not surprising when you realize that the touts aren't making projections, they're placing bets. If he stays healthy and gets 600 AB, Carlos Guillen could easily top the $31 he earned in 2006 and earn $35. If he gets hurt like he did in 2005 and misses significant time, he might only earn $10. The bids take this into account and fall in the $20-25 range. Rotoman is the most bullish on Guillen while Sports Weekly is bearish. Nevertheless, no one is bold enough to recommend bidding $30 on Guillen while no one is conservative enough to suggest bidding $15. The market has its limits in both directions.
It's more striking, though, that the market has virtually an identical opinion on someone like Jason Bartlett. Here was a 27-year-old shortstop with 569 major league AB entering the 2007. If he got 550-600 AB, there was a good chance he'd improve on his $11, 306 AB season in 2006. An $18-20 season was possible.
The negatives were that Bartlett wasn't young for such an inexperienced hitter, and a little bit of a drop-off for a hitter like Barlett could have put him at .250-.260 without power. If he stopped running or didn't run as much, he could have feasibly only earned $8-10. Furthermore, if Ron Gardenhire decided to continue his inexplicable love affair with Luis Rodriguez, Barlett could have feasibly wound up on the bench.
The Patton projection (450 AB, 4 HR, 39 RBI, 13 SB, 62 runs, .278 BA) varies from the Sports Weekly projection (519 AB, 8 HR, 68 RBI, 15 SB, 62 runs, .285 BA). But both sides are hedging their bets...in different directions. The Patton value for the Patton stats is $11. Alex is saying that you should actually bid higher than what those stats are worth; he might not like Bartlett, but at the same time recognizes his upside. The Sports Weekly projection would be worth $17, but the folks at Sports Weekly are recognizing the risks surrounding a player without significant power who has not spent a full year in the bigs yet.
As a result, the bids all fall right into the middle. For those of you not familiar with the terminology, this is what Stage 3 is. We're not only all armed with mostly the same information, we're all coming to the same conclusion on what to pay a player like Jason Barlett, even if our opinions on what he's actually worth vary.
I talked previously about Alex's biases. You can see some of the other bid biases here if you know what to look for:
Rotoman: He's shaving a little money off the high end players to make sure that guys like Clayton and Cintron get paid. The philosophy of making sure you get a regular - even a bottom of the barrel guy like Clayton - makes sense. The problem is that if Royce Clayton falls on his face and then disappears, you wind up losing money on a $6 investment. You can afford to lose $4 or $5 on a $30 player because you're still getting $25 or $26 worth of stats. You can't afford to lose $4 on a Royce Clayton.
Sports Weekly: Remember that Sports Weekly's prices are produced sometime in early to mid-March. Angel Berroa for $7 looks silly in late October, but I'm sure that SW would have taken him down to $1 if they had had the opportunity to produce this list again in early April.
LABR/Tout Wars: Auction prices are always going to vary from bid limits. I wasn't there, but I can tell you that Nick Punto at $19 isn't because Ron Shandler thought that Nick Punto was going to have a $19 season; it's because Shandler didn't spend his money and Nick Punto was the best player left on the board, or the last guy with 20 SB potential.
Nevertheless, it is the similarities in values, not the differences, that you wind up noticing when you look at these data. It's worth remembering that the differences typically fall in as players fall into the $0-10 range, and adding a little money to your bids for the top-tier players you really want to own. The greater degree of variance at the bottom increases your chances of getting a player you like in the crapshoot, at least in non-freeze leagues.
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