As we near draft season it’s time to start looking deeper at at positional rankings to identify key early, middle, and late round targets. These targets will help you build your contingency plans to ensure you are able to address all key scoring categories on your team as you progress in picks. Once viewed as the thinnest and weakest position, shortstop has quickly become a very critical position to fill key roster needs at all stages of the draft. That’s why we aim to help you get a head start on your winning strategy this year by offering our 2024 Fantasy Baseball Shortstop Tiers along with the ADP for each player as of 2/6 from NFBC.
Shortstop Tiers for 2024 Fantasy Baseball
TIER 1
1. Bobby Witt Jr. (2)
2. Mookie Betts (5)
Not only are Witt and Betts certain first-rounders this year but they often are drafted in the top five picks, as reflected by their current ADP. Both offer high floors for five-category performances that only a few other players can match. Though, you’re likely wondering why Betts is even on this list of shortstop tiers. Well for Yahoo leagues Betts reached the five games started threshold at shortstop to gain position eligibility on that platform. He played 16 games at shortstop overall. For most league player pools, this tier would include just Bobby Witt Jr. Remember to use the Fantrax Position Eligibility Tool to see who qualifies for which positions in your league.
TIER 2
3. Trea Turner (10)
4. Francisco Lindor (23)
5. Corey Seager (19)
A strong case could be made for each of these players to be in the top tier and all had been top tier fantasy shortstops in recent years. Though, for Seager, the recent sports hernia surgery has decreased his overall rank a few spots, for the time being until more on his start-of-season status is revealed in spring training. Also, Turner was on his way to an epic first-round bust status much of last season until he finally regained his superstar form the last two months to save his season, in which he batted .317 with 16 HRs, 9 SBs, and an impressive 42 RBI during that period. Lindor consistently produced valuable fantasy stats for his owners last season across four categories. Though, despite reaching 30/30 output his pedestrian .254 batting average keeps him in the second-tier placement as well.
TIER 3
6. Gunnar Henderson (30)
7. Bo Bichette (35)
8. Elly De La Cruz (21)
Few will be surprised to see Gunnar and Bichette in this third tier, given their decent but not spectacular seasons last year. Gunnar put together a solid rookie season with a final line of 100/28/82/10/.259 while Bichette regressed in most categories from previous seasons, with only 20 HRs and 5 SBs, but was saved by his .306 batting average. What will likely surprise people in this tier is the inclusion of Elly De La Cruz, well below his lofty ADP of 21 overall on NFBC. This tier placement is based on the likely wide range of outcomes for this season. These projections range from a potential top-five overall finish to well outside the top 50, given his late-season strikeout struggles along with other underlying metric concerns. Learn more about all the reasons why I predict De La Cruz to be an early-round bust candidate in this recent article.
TIER 4
9. CJ Abrams (37)
10. ONeil Cruz (80)
11. Matt McClain (58)
12. Nico Hoerner (56)
13. Ha-Seong Kim (81)
14. Xander Bogaerts (104)
15. Dansby Swanson (125)
For the most part, this tier provides the last batch of quality hitters that can provide high volumes of steals, with Bogaerts as the obvious exception. In fact, this tier includes several players being drafted in the top 80 picks overall in NFBC drafts so far, which shows the continued appeal of steals. This group includes several breakout players from last season (McClain, Abrams, Kim and Hoerner) as well as a couple of veterans (Bogaerts and Swanson) who struggled mightily after joining new teams in free agency. Their is a good possibility that the latter group of Bogaerts and Swanson return to their top-three tier form in 2024, finally acclimated to their new environments, while several of the younger breakouts demonstrate some regression.
TIER 5
16. Willy Adames (183)
17. Anthony Volpe (131)
18. Thairo Estrada (136)
19. Ezequiel Tovar (195)
20. Carlos Correa (246)
21. Trevor Story (179)
22. Tommy Edman (157)
23. J.P. Crawford (262)
24. Jeremy Pena (221)
25. Luis Rengifo (251)
26. Jackson Holliday (200)
27. Zac Neto (285)
28. Junior Caminero (225)
29. Vaughn Grissom (325)
This tier offers an interesting mix of several current top prospects (Holliday and Caminero) as well as a group of once-upon-a-time top prospects and early career stars that have declined over recent years (Correa and Story) due to injuries. For those current top prospects, their end-of-season ranking will depend on playing time in their rookie seasons, which could be significant. Correa and Story have all the talent but not the health track record to reliably produce their once-abundant stats. The trickiest players in this tier are last year’s heavily hyped rookies (Volpe, Tovar, and Neto) who all struggled through much of their rookie seasons. This year will prove critical for their long-term fantasy values dynasty owners will watch anxiously to see which can take the next step toward reaching their highly lauded potential.
TIER 6
30. Orlando Arcia (339)
31. Jordan Lawlar (312)
32. Maikel Garcia (230)
33. Tim Anderson (335)
34. Brice Turang (324)
35. Marco Luciano (463)
36. Colson Montgomery (493)
37. Amed Rosario (327)
38. Liover Peguro (436)
39. Masyn Winn (372)
40. Ezequiel Duran (346)
41. Jose Caballero (466)
The last tier features several high-potential players that either have top-tier upside coming into their rookie seasons (Montgomery, Lawlar, Luciano, and Winn) or were once top-three tier achievers (Anderson and Rosario) that could easily return to prior season form. However, the most interesting player in this tier may very well be Maikel Garcia, who was a surprising standout for the Royals last season and delivered a consistent batting average of .272 and speed contributions with 23 steals in just about two-thirds of the seasons.
I hope these tiers help you choose the best time in your 2024 fantasy baseball drafts to address your shortstop position with precision. Let me know what you think by reaching me on X at @TheToddMpls.