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Hello! This is a post in the series called “Positional Power Rankings,” which started on Monday with Jeff Sullivan’s introduction and continues today with my thoughts on the league’s shortstops. If you’d prefer to read other people’s thoughts on other positions, you can navigate to those thoughts using the widget above.

We’ve been talking about a golden age of shortstops for a few years now. Scanning through this list, I don’t see any particular reason to stop the chatter. Some players are fading a little, but Manny Machado is a shortstop again this year, after spending much of his big-league career at third; J.P. Crawford and Gleyber Torres are emerging, and the guys at the top of the list are projected to be just as good or better than they were last year. This is a special time to care about the middle of the infield, and the folks ranked in the middle of this list this year could easily have ranked near the top a decade ago. In some cases, like Troy Tulowitzki’s, they literally did. Anyway, here’s the chart you’ve been looking for:

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Washington Nationals. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

65 FV Prospects

He’s barely played a month above A-ball, but Robles looked ready for the big leagues in 2017 and got a brief cup of coffee before finishing his season in the Arizona Fall League. He’s a polished, instinctive player capable of making an impact in every facet of baseball. Robles has great feel for all-fields contact and sneaky power for his size, which manifests itself in doubles and triples. He’s also a potential Gold Glove center fielder with breathtaking range and arm strength, and he was easily the best baserunner in the AFL, which features a pretty advanced group of prospects.

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Throughout the week, we’re publishing our positional power ranking series. If you’re unfamiliar with the process or concept, Jeff explained the series on Monday. Today, I’ll be addressing second base. What fun!

Every position has its theme. You have the bright young things who play shortstop, the fly-ball revolutionaries occupying first base, the catchers who aren’t Buster Posey.

Second base has, in the past, been defined by the veterans at the top, but these rankings portend change in the form of young upstarts. Jose Altuve wrested the top of the rankings from Robinson Cano last year and has only widened the gap between himself and his keystone compatriots; he’s projected to be more than a win better than second place Brian Dozier. And as mentioned, the middle and bottom bits of the rankings feature names like Ozzie Albies, Ketel Marte, Yoan Moncada, and Luis Urias, all of whom could outperform their projections and shift their teams’ positions.

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As this offseason confirms, the way in which clubs spend their money has changed perceptibly over the last decade or so. Where it used to be commonplace for an organization to pay a player for what he had already done, teams have increasingly begun to compensate players for what they’re likely to do in the future. We see the emergence of this trend most clearly in long-term extensions for younger players, a development that has led to missing free-agent classes.

Of course, that doesn’t mean clubs have stopped signing free agents altogether or stopped exposing themselves to risk of any kind. Teams still need to address weaknesses, and one means to do that is by way of the open market. In some cases, the performances they expect fail to materialize. In some of those cases, teams decide they’re better off paying someone else to take care of the problem. This is how teams end up with dead money on their payroll.

Dead money is generally any money a team is paying out to a player who no longer appears on their 40-man roster. There are three types of dead money:

1. Money paid to players who have been released. Those players are free to sign with other teams, but the team releasing the player still owes the money remaining on the contract.
2. Money paid to other teams as compensation for players who have been traded. Generally, we see teams cover a portion of a contract to receive a better return in trade.
3. Money paid to players who are still in the organization, but who have been removed from the 40-man roster. Any team could have claimed these players if they were willing to take on the contract, and the player probably could have elected fee agency, but then he would forfeit his right to the guaranteed money.

Last season, nearly $300 million of MLB payroll was of the deceased variety, a sum that was double the amount of the prior campaign. Over the past year, we’ve seen the contracts of Carl Crawford, Josh Hamilton, Jose Reyes, and Alex Rodriguez all come off the books. The result is a $100 million decrease in the amount of dead money from last year. The graph below shows the teams who are paying the most money this season to pay players not on their roster.

Boston takes the top spot this year thanks entirely to Rusney Castillo and Pablo Sandoval. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ dead money, meanwhile, is spread out over seven players. Because of their original trade with the Padres that removed Matt Kemp from their roster, they are actually paying an amount higher than his current salary after having reacquired him. And the Dodgers would actually place higher on this list if they had released Adrian Gonzalez instead of taking on Matt Kemp’s contract when their former first baseman was dealt to the Braves and then released. The team could also still increase its total if the front office decides Kemp is not a fit for the current roster.

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It’s that time again! The time when I get to write the same post I write every March. Oh, every time, the numbers are always different. But the words? The words seldom change. In one sense, that makes this post very easy. In another sense, it makes it hard to change things up. Hopefully you won’t notice if I plagiarize myself.

Strength of schedule. You know what I mean when I say that, right? It’s pretty much self-explanatory — we’re talking about how strong or weak a team’s overall schedule is. I think this gets talked about most often in football. Especially college football, I assume. You don’t hear this much in conversations about baseball, because baseball is widely perceived to have a great deal of parity. And the schedules are so very long that it’s easy to assume everything just averages out in the end. But that’s not what happens! If anything, the schedules are so very long that minor differences have a chance to pile up. What’s the cost of a win on the free-agent market? $8 million? $7 million? $9 million? Schedule strengths can matter by multiple wins. This can be a real and significant variable.

And FanGraphs makes this very simple to calculate. So, come along. I can show you who’ll have it relatively easy, and who’ll find things relatively challenging. I always love a post I can write in an hour.

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The positional power rankings return this afternoon. If you’re unfamiliar with this series, Jeff Sullivan provided an introduction to it on Monday morning. Basically, this is FanGraphs’ means to previewing the season.

Catcher and first-base positional rankings are already complete and accessible via the widget above. Here, I’ll be examining third base.

Third basemen may be underrepresented in the Hall of Fame, but right now, the position is among the game’s strongest. Last year, five of the top-14 players in WAR — all with at least 5.5 — hailed from the hot corner, and over the past two years, the count is six of the top 12 and nine of the top 25. Manny Machado has since moved back to his natural position of shortstop, but Jose Ramirez has settled in, and Adrian Beltre, the lone player here assured of a berth in Cooperstown, is still going quite strong.

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Zach Davies logged 17 wins and a 3.90 ERA in 33 starts for the Milwaukee Brewers last season. He did so — as my colleague Travis Sawchik detailed in September — as a major-league outlier. Compared to the bulk of his contemporaries, the svelte right-hander is both undersized and velocity-challenged.

Neither of those things is about to change, at least not in a stand-up-and-take-notice way. Genetics are what genetics are. Not that he would mind adding a little meat to his six-foot frame and an extra inch or two to his not-so-fastball. The 25-year-old finesse specialist believes that each would be an asset to his already effective game.

Davies discussed that very game, including his velocity and his approach to sequencing and speed differential, earlier this spring.

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Davies on adding weight and (hopefully) velocity: “I went into the offseason trying to get stronger and put on some weight — that’s always a goal for me — and I’m up to 170 now. I was 160 last year. I think the extra weight has multiple benefits for me. Adding a little velo — I hovered right around 90 last year — would definitely be a positive, and the weight should at least help keep me healthy throughout the year.

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