This is the latest installment of the power rankings. If you would like an introduction of the power rankings, click here. If you would like to read the power rankings for catcher, click here. If you would like to read the power rankings for first base, click here. If you would like to read the power rankings for second base, click here. If you would like to read the power rankings for shortstop, enough with the clicking. You have come to the right place. Please read on.

Below, you will find a graph of every team’s projected shortstop WAR for the upcoming season based on the FanGraphs Depth Chart Projections.

The shortstop position is incredibly well-stocked for the future. Six of the top 11 shortstops are 23 years old or younger and the only shortstops older than 26 in the top 13 are 29-year-old Brandon Crawford and 31-year-old Troy Tulowitzki. Even some teams closer to the bottom like the Brewers and Phillies have reason for optimism with young shortstops on the way. Headed by Carlos Correa, shortstop should have a number of great players over the next few years.

#1 Astros

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Name	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA	Bat	BsR	Fld	WAR
Carlos Correa	630	.274	.340	.475	.349	15.9	1.9	0.3	4.8
Marwin Gonzalez	70	.255	.294	.383	.295	-1.3	-0.2	-0.1	0.2
Total	700	.272	.335	.465	.344	14.7	1.8	0.2	5.0

If one were looking for a word that would describe Carlos Correa’s growth as a player over the past few years, astronomical would be an appropriate word to use. His meteoric rise began in 2012 when the Astros drafted him, in part because he agreed to an under slot signing bonus. Correa rocketed through the system with just 539 plate appearances between High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A combined, and just one year ago, he entered the season without a single plate appearance above Single-A ball. The lack of minor league experience did not prevent the 20-year-old from becoming an immediate star.

Now 21, Correa is expected to continue to shine brightly, providing very good offense with at least average defense. Carlos Correa is the only MLB player projected to exceed 20 home runs and 20 stolen bases this season. He is projected for nearly five wins above replacement this season after a 3.3 WAR season last year, but he only needs a more terrestrial 2.3 WAR season for the second-most WAR for a shortstop through Age-21 over the past 50 years (Alex Rodriguez is first with 12.9 WAR). Marwin Gonzalez will get a few starts at multiple positions here and there, but if Correa were to go down for any length of time, it would be a problem.

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Shelby Miller’s pitch usage changed last year. Per PITCHf/x, his cutter percentage jumped from 5.8% to 20.7% while his curveball percentage fell from 19.5% to 9.7%. He also employed his fastball differently. His four-seam — a pitch known for its explosiveness — was thrown just 32.7% of the time, down from 61.6%. Conversely, his two-seam percentage climbed from 10.3% to 33.8% (and his ground-ball rate rose from 39.9% to 47.7%).

The hard-throwing right-hander’s changeup usage remained relatively static, inching down from 2.4% to 2.2%.

Miller had success with his new approach. In his first-and-only season with the Braves, the former Cardinal established a new career high in innings pitched, and his 3.02 ERA, 3.45 FIP and 0.57 HR/9 were career lows.

Earlier this week, I asked the 25-year-old Arizona Diamondback about the thought-process behind his changes, and whether we might see anything different this season.

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Miller on throwing more two-seamers: “I knew it could help me get deeper into games and be a more efficient pitcher. In 2013 and 2014, in St. Louis, I relied on my four-seamer a lot. I’d go five innings, five-plus, six once in awhile. I wasn’t getting deep; I wasn’t getting into to the seventh and eighth like I wanted to.

“I throw a lot of fastballs. When you throw four-seams the whole time, guys foul them off. And it’s flat, so they see it better. I know that mine [has good carry], so I do use it a lot up in the zone. It’s still one of my favorite pitches. It’s what I control the best and I rely on it a lot.

“When you’re only throwing a four-seamer, guys see it and see it and see it. I think you have to mix it up. A sinker is a great pitch. It looks like a four-seam fastball and at the last second it moves. It has a couple inches of sink, which can be the difference between a fly ball and a ground ball.

“The sinker allows me to give a hitter a different look. Everybody is different. Some hitters are better than others, and some people hit sinkers better than others. It’s really more about going in with a game plan. You’re not trying to overpower guys with sinkers. It’s more a pitch for double-play situations and early in the count when you’re trying to get ground balls. You have longer at bats and you have shorter at-bats, and my motto is, ‘Try to get guys out with three pitches or less.’”

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Ben and Sam banter about a LaRoche-related White Sox conspiracy and update Ryan Webb’s save outlook, then answer emails about Ryan Howard, Trout vs. Goldschmidt, a terrible trivia question, and more.

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

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Usage of the defensive shift has exploded in recent years, most especially against left-handed bats. More and more teams are shifting more and more often, and there’s a reason this trend shows no signs of slowing down: hitters have been incapable of killing it dead. We celebrate Mike Moustakas for his victory over opposing alignments. Moustakas is the exception.

I’ve been thinking about the shift because of Jimmy Rollins. Or maybe it’s because of Ken Rosenthal, I don’t know, but Rosenthal had a Rollins section in his latest notes article. I’ll excerpt:

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EVALUATING THE PROSPECTS 2016 Angels Astros Athletics Blue Jays Braves Brewers Cardinals Cubs Diamondbacks Dodgers Giants Indians Mariners Marlins Mets Nationals Orioles Padres Phillies Pirates Rangers Rays Red Sox Reds Rockies Royals Tigers Twins White Sox Yankees

The Pirates have put together a stunning collection of players who possess strong hit-tool projections, sort of reminiscent of the strategy attributed to the Cardinals’ scouting and development heads in the last 5-10 years. Even just looking at the last three drafts, they have taken five hitters in the various first rounds – Kevin Newman, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Cole Tucker, Austin Meadows and Reese McGuire – and all but Tucker project for average-or-better hit tools as their likely future grades. In fairness, there’s a case to be made that Tucker deserves a 50 as well.

In recent years the Pirates’ player-development system has not been able to get the most out of many of their positional players’ power potentials, a trend that a number of their current prospects will have to hope changes course. You could throw pitcher injuries into the mix as well, but that may only be more apparent because of the dramatic focus on acquiring top-tier hitters over pitchers in the draft and international markets.

There shouldn’t be a ton of surprise rankings on this list, except for perhaps Reese McGuire. He looked like a totally different player in the Arizona Fall League, and it was substantial enough to buy into more of his offensive potential than I have before. Overall, this is just a solid system with plenty of front-line talent and a great mix of upside and floor filling out the next two tiers. It’s an exciting time to watch Pirates’ prospects.

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It’s our turn to Positionally Power Rank the second baseman. If you’re not familiar with this series, read the introduction, and then come back for a walk through the league’s most homogenous spot on the field. By which I mean that the keystone position in MLB is an eclectic mix of young contact hitters, aging contact hitters, contact hitters with some power, and Jonathan Schoop. But hey, let’s sort out which of these contact hitters are better than the others, and we’ll do that right now.

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Opening Day lies just beyond the horizon, though the weather forecasts in many parts of the country don’t seem to want to pay attention. Over the last few weeks in this space, we took a position-by-position look at the ball-in-play (BIP) profiles of 2015 regulars and semi-regulars to gain some insight into their potential performance moving forward. Next, we’re going to take a similar approach with regard to starting pitchers, division by division. We’ll begin today with the NL East.

First, some ground rules. To come up with an overall player population roughly equal to one starting rotation per team, the minimum number of batted balls allowed with Statcast readings was set at 243. Pitchers will be listed with their 2015 division mates; those who were traded during the season will appear in the division in which they compiled the most innings. Pitchers are listed in “tru” ERA order. For those who have not read my previous articles on the topic, “tru” ERA is the ERA pitchers “should” have compiled based on the actual BIP frequency and authority they allowed relative to the league. Here we go:

Most of the column headers are self explanatory, including average BIP speed (overall and by BIP type), BIP type frequency, K and BB rates, and traditional ERA -, FIP -, and “tru” ERA -. Each pitchers’ Adjusted Contact Score (ADJ C) is also listed. Again, for those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Unadjusted Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from opposing hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100. Adjusted Contact Score applies league-average production to each pitchers’ individual actual BIP type and velocity mix, and compares it to league average of 100.

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Previous editions: Arizona / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago AL / Chicago NL / Cincinnati  / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Houston / Kansas City / Los Angeles (AL) / Los Angeles (NL) / Miami / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York (AL) / New York (NL).

Yesterday, lead prospect analyst Dan Farnsworth published his excellently in-depth prospect list for the Philadelphia Phillies. In this companion piece, I look at that same Philly farm system through the lens of my recently refined KATOH projection system. The Phillies have the ninth-best farm system in baseball according to KATOH.

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