Top 10 N.L. Shortstops 2007
| Rank | Player | $ | AP Proj. | Proj. Rank | 2006 |
| 1 | Hanley Ramirez | $50 | $29 | 2 | $37 |
| 2 | Jose Reyes | $43 | $43 | 1 | $48 |
| 3 | Jimmy Rollins | $42 | $28 | 3 | $34 |
| 4 | Troy Tulowitzki | $25 | R2 | NR | $1 |
| 5 | Edgar Renteria | $23 | $17 | 7 | $23 |
| 6 | J.J. Hardy | $19 | $3 | 16 | $2 |
| 7 | Khalil Greene | $17 | $9 | 10 | $10 |
| 8 | Rafael Furcal | $17 | $27 | 4 | $33 |
| 9 | Jack Wilson | $14 | $7 | 12 | $8 |
| 10 | David Eckstein | $13 | $7 | 11 | $9 |
| Average | $26 | $17 | $21 |
David Wright ($45) and Matt Holliday ($44) crash the party, but so what; this is an amazing feat. Three out of five National League shortstops are not only in the top five in earnings, but all crack the $40 barrier. I can't even remember when the A.L.'s "big three" ever broke the $40 barrier as a group, and I don't think they ever did.
We're all used to bandying about the term position scarcity when it comes to catchers and middle infielders, but sometimes the reality is quite the opposite. It's quite a drop from Rollins to Tulowitzki, but even so, having five $20+ earners at the position will change the way you look at it. You're not just paying for stats at a position here, you're paying for great stats and, if you bought Ramirez or Rollins, you turned a major profit. Even in a freeze league, you probably turned a modest profit. Profiting on a $30 or near-$30 investment is one sure-fire way to put yourself on track for a winning season; $40+ worth of stats for a $30 price tag allows you to cover up mistakes elsewhere, and additional profits turned at other positions means you're probably building yourself a winner.
The key, though, is identifying the right players who will pull in those $20 or more worth of stats.
Top 10 Predicted N.L. Shortstops 2007
| Rank | Player | AP$ | AP Proj. | Actual Rank | 2006 |
| 1 | Jose Reyes | $43 | $43 | 2 | $48 |
| 2 | Hanley Ramirez | $50 | $29 | 1 | $37 |
| 3 | Jimmy Rollins | $42 | $28 | 3 | $34 |
| 4 | Rafael Furcal | $17 | $27 | 8 | $33 |
| 5 | Bill Hall | $10 | $25 | N/A | $24 |
| 6 | Felipe Lopez | $13 | $23 | 11 | $28 |
| 7 | Edgar Renteria | $23 | $17 | 5 | $23 |
| 8 | Stephen Drew | $8 | $17 | 15 | $8 |
| 9 | Omar Vizquel | $8 | $14 | 16 | $22 |
| 10 | Khalil Greene | $17 | $9 | 7 | $10 |
| Average | $23 | $23 | $27 |
Patton was even more bullish about the top-tier SS than the market was, predicting that six players would crack $20 worth of earnings last year. Furcal, Hall and Lopez lost in double-digits, and Bill Hall killed anyone who went all the way to $25 for him. The reality, as I've said in many posts in this series, is that players like Hall are typically frozen in carryover leagues, and do a different kind of damage, as a $15 profit expectation allows you to spend more liberally elsewhere to fill other positions or buy other types of stats. If you froze Hall at $10 and knew he was only going to earn $10, you suddenly have a very different opinion of your team.
The power of the Big Three is even more evident when you look at this list. If you spent $17 on Stephen Drew and your opponent spent $43 on Jose Reyes, you have to get $35 worth of stats with $26 worth of auction money just to break even. Easier said than done, especially if you don't have hindsight on your side like I do at the moment.
All of the touts were bullish on Reyes, and they were more optimistic about Rollins than Patton was.
N.L. 2007 Prediction Grid: Shortstop
| Name | AP | PK | LABR | Tout Wars | SW | '07$ |
| Jose Reyes | $43 | $41 | $40 | $42 | $40 | $43 |
| Jimmy Rollins | $28 | $31 | $34 | $33 | $30 | $42 |
| Hanley Ramirez | $29 | $27 | $30 | $33 | $29 | $50 |
| Rafael Furcal | $27 | $22 | $30 | $28 | $27 | $17 |
| Bill Hall | $25 | $22 | $22 | $22 | $21 | $10 |
| Felipe Lopez | $23 | $22 | $24 | $21 | $22 | $13 |
| Edgar Renteria | $17 | $19 | $20 | $21 | $19 | $23 |
| Stephen Drew | $17 | $18 | $18 | $17 | $15 | $8 |
| Omar Vizquel | $14 | $12 | $15 | $19 | $12 | $8 |
| Rich Aurilia | $14 | $9 | $12 | $14 | $9 | $3 |
| Khalil Greene | $9 | $11 | $14 | $12 | $10 | $17 |
| David Eckstein | $7 | $9 | $11 | $8 | $9 | $13 |
| Troy Tulowitzki | R2 | $6 | $14 | $13 | $8 | $25 |
| J.J. Hardy | $3 | $7 | $12 | $12 | $5 | $19 |
| Jack Wilson | $7 | $6 | $9 | $6 | $6 | $14 |
| Adam Everett | $5 | $7 | $5 | $7 | $6 | $1 |
| Cesar Izturis | $3 | $5 | $4 | $5 | $4 | $1 |
| Craig Counsell | $4 | $3 | $1 | $7 | $2 | $0 |
| Alex Gonzalez | $3 | $2 | $4 | $2 | $5 | $11 |
| Cristian Guzman | $2 | $1 | $1 | $1 | $3 | $6 |
| Alberto Callaspo | $1 | $1 | $1 | $1 | ($2) | |
| Clint Barmes | $2 | R3 | ($1) | |||
| Geoff Blum | $1 | $1 | $3 | |||
| Juan Castro | R3 | $1 | ($2) | |||
| Damion Easley | $1 | $7 |
Previously, the larger differences between Touts had been on some of the cheaper players. But now we start to see some wider gaps on a guy like Rollins; a $6 difference between Patton and LABR is no small beer. Neither is the $6 difference on Ramirez between Rotoman and the Tout Wars crowd. This is the opposite of what you'd expect.
I believe that the gap has more to do with a philosophical difference than a difference in expectations. Part of it is the value of a stolen base. Patton values it (in his bids) less than most, partially because a 10-15 SB drop cuts out a lot of a player's value, especially in 4x4. In an auction like LABR/Tout Wars, someone is going to pay for those steals, even if it means paying exactly the $34 that Rollins earned in 2006. An overall loss on Rollins is meaningless, as long as the buyer makes sure he gets those 35 SB.
There is a difference between setting a bid limit versus paying for stats. Setting your bid limit for Jimmy Rollins at $28 even though he earned $30, $34 and $34 from 2004-2006 isn't necessarily a cut on Rollins. It's more of an admission that the league budget is $3320, there are only so many dollars to go around, and Alex would rather pay $43 for Reyes in the hopes of another $48 season than pay $34 for Rollins and possibly get stuck with a $25 season.
For the guys like Stephen Drew, all everyone is doing is setting a bid limit. I don't think anyone is looking at him and saying "he'll earn $15" or "he'll earn $18." Instead, the conventional wisdom believes that there's a $13-23 range of earning possibilities and setting a bid somewhere in the middle. The fact that Drew only earned $8 is obviously discouraging, but letting someone get him for $10 and seeing him earn $20 would have been even more disheartening.
Notice that this attitude exists even more in the auction leagues than it does amongst the touts. LABR goes to $14 on Tulowitzki, while Tout Wars doesn't shy away at $13. It's easy to look back at Tulo's $25 season now and say that these were safe bets, but Tulo was hardly on his way to a $25 season on May 31, when he had a 2/22/1/.272 line in 206 AB. These experts aren't stupid; they know that Tulo could very well have finished with an $8 season, or wound up back in the minors by July. But they can't afford to let Tulo slip to someone for $5 and turn a $20 profit. They'd rather take a moderate loss and be wrong then let someone else make a huge profit and be very, very wrong.
You see even more of this in freeze leagues. The rare rookie who slips through into an auction since he isn't on someone's farm system gets pretty expensive in a hurry. Hank Blalock went for $25-30 in a lot of carryover auctions in his rookie year. I'm not recommending paying $25-30 for the next Blalock or Tulowitzki. What I am saying is that you do want to price enforce these guys. In freeze leagues this is doubly important. Not only are you allowing your opponent to hit the lottery if you let a rookie slip through, but you're also giving him a significant chip to dump to a non-competitor. Freeze leagues in Stage Three tend to self-police this, so keep that in mind when looking at published or expert prices for rookies. This element of pricing isn't factored in by any tout, since they don't know your leagues as well as you do.
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