2008 Fantasy Baseball Sleepers - Shortstop

It's kind of a weak crop, but here are your 2008 MLB sleepers at shortstop (in order of sleeperishness):


Sleepers
1. Stephen Drew - He hit 12 homers as a 24-year-old last season, while only batting .238. His line drive rate (16.5%) combined with his batting average on balls in play (.267) suggests that he got a little unlucky. He's a great hitter who showed in college and the minors that he has real power. It's only a matter of time before he hits 20+ homeruns at the major league level. Drew also went 9-for-9 in steal attempts last season, so it wouldn't be surpising to see him attempt a few more in 2008.

2. Felipe Lopez - I feel pretty confident that Lopez will never hit 23 homers again like he did in 2005 or steal 44 bases like he did in 2006, but 10 HR and 25 SB is a very reasonable expectation. He's still young (28) and his upside is something in the neighborhood of 15 homers and 35 steals.

3. Julio Lugo - I know he was utterly disappointing last year, but 33 steals is 33 steals. His line drive rate declined in 2007, which is worrisome, but even taking into account that decline, he still got unlucky in the batting average department. At this point he's probably relegated to the #9 spot in the order, but when it's Boston's order, that's not a terrible place to be. He could still score plenty of runs.


Semi-Sleeper
Jhonny Peralta - Mr. and Mrs. Peralta should have faced some sort of disciplinary action for spelling Johnny wrong. It's not that hard. That said, Peralta still has plenty of upside left in him. In fact, if you sort PECOTA's projections by "Upside," Peralta ranks 15th among all position players. He has power and I think one of these years he's going to top 30 homers.


Deep Sleeper
Erick Aybar - Let's be clear: Aybar is a bad baseball player. He commits tons of errors, he makes baserunning mistakes, and he has very little power. So why should you keep your eye on him? Because the Angels just might be silly enough to run him out there at shortstop everyday and the kid is fast. Very fast. In his minor league career, Aybar average about a stolen base every three games. That's 54 over the course of a 162-game season. Of course, he won't be able to get on base enough to steal 54 bases, but if he gets a full-time gig, I'd expect to see him steal 30-35 bases.