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With Orlando Cabrera gone, the everyday shortstop job is open for three candidates. Brandon Wood checked out of the race early, leaving Erick Aybar and Maicer Izturis to fight it out in Spring Training. They aren’t doing a whole lot, so far, to differentiate themselves.

Neither has made an error in the first eight spring games. Both have hit well enough — Aybar is 4 for 11, Izturis 4 for 13 after getting an RBI double in Friday’s 11-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox.

But Manager Mike Scioscia said he would just as soon the two candidates to replace last year’s Gold Glove winner, Orlando Cabrera, did nothing to separate themselves.

“Hopefully, they’re going to both come up and play to their level, and we’re going to be able to see which one gives us the better look,” Scioscia said. “If some guy is really struggling with something or something sets him back, then obviously there will be a separation. Right now, they’re both going strong. That’s what we want — for both of them to get into their game and play as well as they can.”

Neither player is really much of a mixed league option. But, if you had to take one, it would probably be Aybar. In AL only leagues, Izturis still trails Aybar in Average Draft Position (ADP) and in draft percentage. Aybar is being selected in 95.8% of AL only drafts while Izturis only 33%. Aybar’s ADP is 202.75, compared to 277.63 of Izturis.

If neither player wins the job outright, they’re fantasy value goes down. Both players project to hit anywhere between .260 and .280 and steal 12-15 bases. Many people feel Aybar has more upside potential, but I feel Izturis give the Angels more punch, right now for 2008. Aybar may be further away, but Izturis could steal 20+ bases and hit .280 if given 600 at-bats. Aybar isn’t ready for those kind of numbers yet. His average has been steadily declining every year for three years as has his stolen bases.

There are only two reasons to watch this battle progress, whether it ends in Spring Training or at some point in the season. The first is a source of cheap stolen bases for your fantasy team. The second is to monitor how long it take both players to step aside for Brandon Wood, who will eventually take over at shortstop.

Here is the ranking list of American League shortstops for 2008.

1. Derek Jeter | New York Yankees
2. Carlos Guillen* | Detroit Tigers
3. Edgar Renteria | Detroit Tigers
4. Michael Young | Texas Rangers
5. Orlando Cabrera | Chicago White Sox
6. Julio Lugo | Boston Red Sox
7. Jhonny Peralta | Cleveland Indians
8. Jason Bartlett | Tampa Bay Rays
9. Yuniesky Betancourt | Seattle Mariners
10. Tony Pena | Kansas City Royals
11. Erick Aybar | Los Angeles Angels
12. Bobby Crosby | Oakland Athletics
13. David Eckstein | Toronto Blue Jays
14. Adam Everett | Minnesota Twins
15. Juan Uribe | Chicago White Sox
16. Nick Punto | Minnesota Twins
17. John McDonald | Toronto Blue Jays
18. Brandon Wood | Los Angeles Angels

* - Carlos Guillen will be playing first base for the Tigers in 2008, but will have shortstop eligibilty, in most leagues. He is a more valuable shortstop than a first baseman, and should be used as such, as long as he is eligible.

Here is the ranking list of National League shortstops for 2008.

1. Hanley Ramirez | Florida Marlins
2. Jose Reyes | New York Mets
3. Jimmy Rollins | Philadelphia Phillies
4. Troy Tulowitzki | Colorado Rockies
5. Miguel Tejada | Houston Astros
6. J.J. Hardy | Milwaukee Brewers
7. Rafael Furcal | Los Angeles Dodgers
8. Khalil Greene | San Diego Padres
9. Stephen Drew | Arizona Diamondbacks
10. Ryan Theriot | Chicago Cubs
11. Yunel Escobar | Atlanta Braves
12. Jack Wilson | Pittsburgh Pirates
13. Alex Gonzalez | Cincinnati Reds
14. Cristian Guzman | Washington Nationals
15. Omar Vizquel | San Francisco Giants
16. Cesar Izturis | St. Louis Cardinals
17. Brendan Ryan | St. Louis Cardinals
18. Alfredo Amezaga | Florida Marlins
19. Jeff Keppinger | Cincinnati Reds
20. Jamey Carroll | Colorado Rockies

That’s right, a prominent major-leaguer might owe millions of dollars in back taxes. The surprising thing is that it isn’t a certain former Giants slugger with a loose lipped mistress and a boatload of his own legal troubles. No, the alleged culprit in this instance is none other than the pride and joy of the Yankees, Captain America, Mr. Derek Jeter.

Jeter, who has played with the Bronx Bombers since 1995, owns an off-season home in Tampa, Fla., and has claimed residency in Florida for years. But the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance insists the superstar shortstop is an Empire State resident, and is demanding back taxes, plus interest, for the years 2001 through 2003, according to court filings.

While Jeter’s salary is already partially taxable in New York, the alleged indiscretion involves his hefty endoresement dollars, which he may be “sheltering in the sunshine state.” Given the frosty relationship between Jeter and former best friend Alex Rodriguez, you have to wonder if A-Rod isn’t a little perturbed to have the headlines swiped away from him again. If I were the Yankees, I’d make sure I got his signature on that $275 million contract pronto. Can’t you just see Scott Boras breaking off talks with New York and sending out on announcement via blackberryduring the start of the Bonds hearing on December 7?

One of the most overlooked aspects in roster construction is the idea behind positional scarcity. The premise behind the theory is that an owner should not necessarily draft the player with the best overall stats, but rather, the player with the best stats when compared to others at the same position. The concept is simple in theory but unfortunately much more difficult in practice.

Looking back on 2007, yere are the average stats for each position:

C - .255 AVG, 9 HR, 39 R, 47 RBI, 2 SB

1B- .277 AVG, 19 HR, 63 R, 71 RBI, 2 SB

2B- .274 AVG, 9 HR, 69 R, 54 RBI, 10 SB

3B- .272 AVG, 17 HR, 64 R, 67 RBI, 7 SB

SS- .276 AVG, 12 HR, 72 R, 59 RBI, 15 SB

OF- .276 AVG, 14 HR, 66 R, 62 RBI, 11 SB

Last season, FIO and the Baseball Lab created an in depth Player Rater tool that enables us to rank every player in the game based upon the 5 basic fantasy scoring categories. Plugging these stats into the tool, we can determine the position with the most depth, or said another way, the best average stats:

SS- 100%

3B- 92%

1B- 79%

OF- 73%

2B- 36%

C - 14%

The percentages listed next to each position are the percentile values when compared with the leader, the shortstops. As an example, read the third basemen line as follows: In 2007 third basemen were, on average, 92% as valuable as shortstops. First Basemen were 79% as valuable, and so on.

What can we do with this information? A sound strategy next spring will be to wait on shortstops as there are many solid to great ones available. Let’s say you are targeting one of the big three – Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, and Jimmy Rollins – and all three are off the board earlier than you wanted to take them, or before you had a chance too. Do not panic, the position is deep, and even if Troy Tulowitzki (finished 4^th) is taken, realize that Carlos Guillen, Khalil Green, and Derek Jeter are of almost the same value and still available.

The opposite holds true as well. The outfielders have been on the decline for several years now, and 2007 was no different. Yes there were stars at the position (Matt Holliday, Magglio Ordonez, Eric Byrnes) but once you go into middle ranks of the position the talent level drops precipitously.

Another way to look at is this. The average fantasy league (12 teams, 14 batters) drafts 18 shortstops and 64 outfielders. The shortstop in the 25^th percentile is the 13^th or 14^th best, and correspondingly the 25^th percentile outfielder is ranked around 48^th. Comparing the players with these rankings from 2007:

SS-Edgar Renteria: .332 AVG, 12 HR, 87 R, 57 RBI, 11 SB

SS-Miguel Tejada: .296 AVG, 18 HR, 72 R, 81 RBI, 2 SB

OF-Austin Kearns: .266 AVG, 16 HR, 84 R, 74 RBI, 2 SB

Would you rather have Renteria or Tejada at short, or Kearns as one of your outfielders? Obviously, the shortstops are more valuable and if your goal is to obtain a decent shortstop (as opposed to an elite one) it make sense to wait on the pick. Further, use the draft picks on outfielders because the lower ranked shortstops outperform similarly lower ranked outfielders.

A picture is worth a thousand words. First, a graph of SS vs. OF in terms of the score the player rater gives for each. Since there are more outfielders than shortstops, we need to adjust to give the two positions an identical scale. To do this, we’ll go back or percentile idea and compare the players of similar percentiles (i.e., the 9^th ranked SS vs. the 32^nd ranked OF, both of the 50^th percentile).

It doesn’t look like much at a glance, but there is a discernable difference between the two positions. First and very obvious is the fact that the top SS are much better than the Top OF (1). This is followed by a fast drop in SS rank where the OF’s perform better between percentiles 22-50% (2). Then, the two positions are roughly even through percentile 78% (3) before SS takes the lead through the last ranked player. To show the tail more clearly, here’s a blow up of percentiles 61 - 100

In summary, the shortstop position is strong at the very top and the very end – either grab an elite one (Ramirez, Reyes, or Rollins) or wait till the end when you will get more value out of a lower round pick.

PS. Knox had requested something, well, a little less in depth and I had every intention of doing so. But, when I come across something I hadn’t thought of before, I have a tendency to get a bit carried away. In this case, it was comparing the progressive scores of the positions as they go from the best to worst. It is something I will most assuredly look into in more detail this winter as I think the application on draft day could be tremendous once we adjust the rating curve for 2008 projections.

It’s going to be a busy week for the teams in MLB as the deadline looms on the exclusive negotiating period with their free agents. When the clock strikes midnight tonight, free agents can talk to any of the teams about a contract for next year and years to come.

So what does this mean for the Red Sox? It means that they better hope their contract offer of 3-years $36 million is good enough for Lowell or they risk the potential of losing him. I fully expect Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein to be burning up the phones of Lowell’s agents, the Levinson brothers, all day today.

It will be interesting to see what happens with other free agents like Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Barry Bonds, Francisco Cordero and others.

There is a fantasy baseball impact on this as well as many of you out there participate in fantasy baseball leagues. Some of you participate in AL-only and NL-only leagues as well as mixed leagues. With some of this AL and NL-only leagues being keeper leagues, your hoping that your star free agent on your team doesn’t switch leagues. I’ve had this happen to me when Jim Thome was a free agent with the Indians. He ended up signing with the Phillies and it hurt my team for the following season.

Today also marks the start of the big four awards in MLB, the AL & NL Rookie of the Year, the AL & NL Cy Young, the AL & NL Manager of the Year and the AL & NL MVP’s. This is how the schedule breaks down this week and next.

Nov. 12: AL and NL Rookies of the Year
Nov. 13: AL Cy Young
Nov. 14: AL and NL Managers of the Year
Nov. 15: NL Cy Young
Nov. 19: AL MVP
Nov. 20: NL MVP

Eleven-time Gold Glove shortstop Omar Vizquel agreed to a $5.3 million, one-year deal with his San Francisco Giants Friday, including a club option that could bring his worth to $10.2 million over two seasons.

He’s guaranteed $5 million next season, and the Giants have a $5.2 million option for 2009 with a $300,000 buyout.

Slumping offensively, Vizquel batted just .246 this season, but played defense up the middle like a young buck, which is probably the reason he’s still able to get a contract at the age of 40.