Shortstop Dynasty Rankings for Fantasy Baseball

March 7, 2023

Justin Raffone takes a look at the 2023 fantasy baseball dynasty rankings at shortstop. Where should you take the star players? How big is the gap?

We have now gotten to maybe the most fun list of players in baseball dynasty leagues. Shortstop is usually a heavily drafted position. A lot of that has to do with the fact that some of the players on this list won’t be shortstops for very long.  

Though a shortstop will mostly move to second base or third base, you’ll see them move to the outfield on occasion, and less likely to first base. Moving off the position isn’t a bad thing, it adds depth to other positions, but it does thin out this position on occasion.  

That’s not the case right now, however. Shortstop is a deep position with plenty of great dynasty options to be had now and in the future. The following list of 52 will help you with choosing which of these shortstops you’d like to have on your squad for years to come. 

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Fantasy Baseball Dynasty Rankings for Shortstop

Preseason Thoughts 

Man is this position loaded right now. RotoBaller has 20 shortstops in the top 100 and one more sitting at number 101. Correa is the 13th-ranked shortstop and Adames is the 15th. That should tell you how talented this position is because those are two good fantasy options. People love to hype up prospects in dynasty rankings but it’s so hard to do at this position because of the talent up and down the list. That’s why you see Henderson ninth.  

Franco (five) was thought to be the future number-one player at shortstop just a few years ago. Don’t get me wrong, being number five is nothing to scoff at, but it’s a far cry from what people thought Franco would be right now. He still has the tools and the talent to make it to the top of the list, though Witt will be hard to knock off, and others are on Franco’s heels. If he can stay healthy this season, I’m projecting something close to 20 home runs with a dozen steals and a .285 average. That will help move him up the board and get that arrow of his pointing up again for the future. 

Seager (eight) has had red and dark red all over his statcast chart for most of his career, but especially since 2020. He hits the ball extremely hard and far. He barrels up the ball and doesn’t strike out a ton. All this has led to one of the most productive shortstops. Even in 2022, when he hit .245, his xBA was in the top 4% of the league at .283. In 2020, it was in the top 1%. He’s going into his age-29 season with a lot of baseball to be played at a just-about-neutral park. Look for him to get back some of his average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage this year and be one of the top shortstops in the game yet again. 

Cruz (12) is someone that is hurting himself in the batting average department with his swing and approach. But that has led to some great power and fun-to-see homers already. It’s okay for the average to suffer a little bit, but he must cut down on the 34.9% strikeout rate he had last season if he wants to spend a lengthy career in the big leagues.

If he can hit in the .240s, that will help him bring out the immense power and not be such a detriment to fantasy owners. He was shifted on in 53.3% of his at-bats last season, so his low batting average isn’t from pulling into a shift all the time, and might not benefit much from the rule changes this season. It’s mostly the strikeouts that must be fixed for Cruz to excel.

Volpe (16) is having a heck of a Spring training right now, as he tries to make the New York Yankees team as the starting shortstop this season. After only playing in 22 games at Triple-A last season, the cards may be stacked against him, but he has the tools to succeed in the majors soon. He was the first minor league player since AnDruw Jones to hit 20 homers and steal 50 bases last season. Though he may never be a .300 hitter, he has enough contact skills and power to be one of the best at the position for years to come.  

Other Options 

Holliday (26) could be the first pick in a lot of dynasty leagues that aren’t startups this offseason. Just like he was the first pick in this past year’s MLB First-Year Player Draft. He’s already the 12th-best prospect in baseball, according to MLB.com, and has all the tools of a future star. He has 60-hit, 55-power, and 60-run tools. He’s only 19, but he may move through the minors quickly and could stick at shortstop for a long time. In his 20-game debut last season, he hit .297 and walked 25 times compared to 12 strikeouts.  

Lee (48) is someone I’ve been grabbing in a lot of drafts this season, especially if you don’t have an early enough pick to grab Holliday and want a promising shortstop from this year’s draft. He was taken eighth overall by Minnesota and is already the 31st-best prospect, according to MLB.com. According to the website, “the switch-hitter has as good contact skills as anyone in the Minors, leaving college with more walks than strikeouts and a measly K rate of 11.7 percent.”   

That will do it for our shortstop rankings and analysis for a few of them. We just have the outfield rankings to get to after this and our offseason dynasty rankings for hitters will be wrapped up. The shortstop position is so deep with so much talent already in the bigs and on the way, so there should surely be a few names you’d like to target for your dynasty league, and I hope this helped you with a decision.  

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