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When it comes to overall production in 2012, fantasy baseball’s best shortstop wasn’t Jose Reyes or Derek Jeter. It wasn’t Troy Tulowitzki or Hanley Ramirez, either. In 2012 the best shortstop in fantasy baseball was Ian Desmond, and in 2013 that could be the case once again.
Last season, Desmond’s 25 home runs led fantasy baseball’s thinnest position. Only three other shortstops even broke the 20 mark—Ramirez, J.J. Hardy and Jimmy Rollins—all three of which hit .260 or less.
Desmond hit .292. He also stole 21 bases.
Had it not been for an oblique strain that cost him 30 games, the 27-year-old would have finished miles ahead of any other shortstop in baseball last year. There were stretches in 2012 where he looked like the next 30/30 stud at the position, and if he had been able to fight through his injury and play those 30 games we might have seen that 30/30 year.
He was that good.
A statistically slow starter, Desmond hit a superb .285 in the first half of last season with 17 home runs and 51 RBI, earning him the first all-star appearance of his career. His oblique strain forced him to withdraw from the big game, but that extra rest propelled him to a .308 second half average.
To top it off, Desmond was clutch come fantasy playoff time. He hit .315 with six home runs and 15 RBI in 30 September/October games last year, coming through when fantasy owners needed it most. To put that in perspective, Reyes went deep exactly zero times in that span. Jeter went deep only once.
So don’t forget about Desmond come draft time in 2013. He’s going sixth among shortstops despite ending 2012 in the top spot at the position, and with a high powered lineup around him we could see him return to that rank in 2013. He’s a solid 20/20 bet with the potential to be much more.
Not bad for a shortstop.
2013 Projections: .290 average, 26 HR, 85 RBI, 20 SB, 110 RS
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