2011 Shortstop Rankings

fantasy baseball shortstop rankings 2010

Fantasy Baseball Rankings 2011: Shortstop

When one of fantasy baseball’s top overall players plays is at a traditionally weak position, there’s never much argument about who belongs atop the list.

For the third straight year, Florida’s Hanley Ramirez is at the top of our fantasy baseball shortstop rankings (our 2008 under appreciation of HamRam is well documented). In fact, over the past two seasons, several shortstops have come and gone from the list of top fantasy baseball shortstops… but no player besides Hanley has met expectations consistently like him over the past few years.

The Marlins shortstop started 2010 as our no. 1 overall shortstop and he remains in that same position heading into 2010. In ’10, HanRam had another productive fantasy season – .300 average, 21 home runs, 76 RBI, 92 runs, and 32 steals in only 142 games. Sure, it wasn’t a 30-30 season. But if you owned Ramirez in 2009 and were disappointed by his production – you have no concept of fantasy baseball value.

In fact, considering the disappointing fantasy seasons players like Jimmy Rollins and Jose Reyes had over the past two years has only INCREASED the value of Ramirez in recent years.

There’s no way anyone at Fantasy Baseball Dugout is going to recommend drafting Hanley over Pujols in 2011. However, there may not be a better middle infielder first round draft choice than Ramirez.

Fantasy Baseball Shortstop Rankings

Outside of the top five fantasy baseball shortstops, the list really isn’t that attractive. If you don’t have a chance to draft one of the top five fantasy baseball shortstops in 2011, focus your selection on the best possible combination of batting average and speed. If you can find a shortstop who bats at the top of a productive lineup, that may be beneficial as well.

Check out our list of the top 25 shortstops heading into the 2011 season. E-mail webmaster [at] fantasybaseballdugout [dot] com if you think we got something wrong.