Stephen Drew is not the Diamondbacks best player – that would be Justin Upton. He’s not the best player at his own position, nor do his numbers (including a career .270/.330/.442 line) jump off the page at first glance. And yet, given the current state of Major League shortstops, Drew’s health might be as critical to the teams success as any other variable.

Drew is recovering from a fractured ankle, and his status for Opening Day is in serious doubt. More likely, he’ll continue to rehab once the season begins and join the team in early May. How quickly he’s able to get back to what he was before the injury could very well determine how successful the Diamondbacks will be in 2012, however.

That’s because a player’s value is directly related to how good he is compared to the alternative options a team can field, and indirectly, how much better he is than his peers at the same position on other teams. And right now, Major League shortstops are a barren wasteland of offensive talent.

There are essentially three guys in the sport who can play shortstop and be significant difference makers at the plate – Troy Tulowitzki, Jose Reyes, and Hanley Ramirez. The latter two are now teammates, so Ramirez has shifted off the position, even further diluting the pool of talent at shortstop around the game. Last year, Major League shortstops hit .263/.317/.380, and only the Rockies and Mets received an .800 OPS or better from their combination of shortstops. For comparison, seven teams got at least that level of production in 1999, and three teams got a .900 OPS or better from their shortstops.

Granted, 1999 was the zenith of offensive shortstops – Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, and Nomar Garciaparra all had MVP caliber seasons, and even Omar Vizquel had a monster year at the plate – but we’ve still seen a significant loss of offensive production from the position over the last 10 years. When evaluating Drew’s value, we have to account for the enormous black hole that the Diamondbacks have to put in the line-up when he’s not on the field.

Last year, Arizona gave 350 plate appearances to shortstops not named Stephen Drew, and those players combined to hit .246/.292/.328. Their .621 OPS was worse than Carlos Zambrano’s career mark at the plate. Zambrano’s a good hitting pitcher, but he’s still a pitcher, and the non-Drew shortstops provided less offensive value than he has during his big league career. And yet, rather than look for upgrades to help give the team a bit more punch at the plate when Drew isn’t able to play, Arizona rewarded both Willie Bloomquist and John McDonald with two year contract extensions. This isn’t so much a criticism of Kevin Towers as it is an example of just how thin the crop of available players at the position currently is – the bar is now so low that just being able to defend at an adequate level and having a pulse qualifies you for a multi-year deal.

This is why Drew offers such a significant value for the Diamondbacks, and why he’s such an advantage for the Diamondbacks if he’s healthy. Dan Szymborski’s ZIPS projections have Drew hitting almost exactly at his career numbers, and the .765 OPS he’s projected for is a better total than 25 teams got from their shortstops last year.

Over the last three years, only nine shortstops have posted a higher WAR than Drew, and eight of the nine have needed more plate appearances to beat his total. On a per plate appearance basis, only The Big Three significantly outperformed Drew since the beginning of the 2009 season. And, of course, Ramirez’s move to third means that it’s now really The Big Two.

Drew might not get the recognition of his more famous teammates, but when he’s on the field, he’s one of the best players in the game at his position. The drop-off when he’s out of the line-up is staggering, and he provides a significant advantage for the Diamondbacks when he’s at full health. If the D’Backs are going to repeat as NL West Champions, they’ll need Drew to get healthy in a hurry.

The Royals have an awful lot of young talent. Even after graduating top prospects Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, and Danny Duffy to the Majors last year, they still placed five players on Keith Law’s list of the 100 best prospects in baseball, and he rated their farm system as the fifth best in the game right now. Their oldest projected position player is Alex Gordon, who just turned 28-years-old on February 10th, and besides Bruce Chen, their entire pitching staff is a bunch of 20-somethings.

The Royals will almost certainly be one of the youngest teams in Major League Baseball this year, and with all the highly touted young talent they’ve developed internally over the last few seasons, comparisons to the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays are inevitable. However, a closer inspection of what we should actually expect from the Royals young talents this year suggests that this team just isn’t ready to win yet.

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Despite spring proclamations of hope and what could be possible, not every team has a serious chance of capturing the World Series title this year. For some clubs, the lack of talent on the field makes that an unrealistic goal for 2012. However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t have a successful season, especially if they set their sights on things that they can accomplish this year. So, let’s take a look at outcomes for nine expected non-contenders that would make 2012 a worthwhile campaign, even if it doesn’t end with a run at the playoffs.

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When it comes to spring training statistics, there are so many problems with the data – small samples, inferior competition, hilariously small ballparks – that the numbers generally are just not worth even looking at. In most cases, March numbers can simply be thrown away without a second thought.

However, there are a few instances where spring training performances might actually tell us something. Most famously, Jose Bautista finished the 2009 season with a surprising burst of power, and he carried over that surge into spring training in 2010. The continuation of his revamped approach and swing in spring training could have helped clue us in to the fact that Bautista had undergone a dramatic transformation.

That doesn’t mean you should start reading too much into every player’s results over the next few weeks, but there are a few players worth keeping an eye on as the exhibition games get underway.

Jeremy Hellickson, SP, Tampa Bay

It’s a little weird to say that the 2011 Rookie of the Year had a performance that raised a lot of red flags, but after carving up minor league hitters left and right on his way to the big leagues, Hellickson’s strikeout rate took a nosedive in the Majors. It wasn’t even just a struggle adjusting to MLB hitters – his strikeout rate actually got worse as the season went along, ending the year with just a 2.94 K/9 in September.

However, Hellickson’s swinging strike rate of 9.7% – a measure that has shown to have some predictive power when it comes to forecasting future strikeout rate – was actually quite good, placing him among the likes of Max Scherzer, Ricky Romero, and Gio Gonzalez. Given that his minor league strikeout rates and his swinging strike rate both suggest that he should get more whiffs than he did in 2011, be on the lookout for an uptick in strikeout rate by Hellickson in spring training. As David Appelman showed back in 2008, there is some correlation between a spring training change in a pitcher’s K/9 and his regular season strikeout rate.

Matt Wieters, C, Baltimore

The prospect who inspired a list of Chuck Norris-style facts hasn’t exactly lived up to the billing to date, and the most disappointing part of his Major League performance so far has been his overall lack of power – a career .415 slugging percentage is not what the Orioles envisioned. However, there’s still reason to believe that Wieters has more thump than he’s shown, and he may have begun to tap into some of the natural loft in his swing as the 2011 season came to a close. After hitting just seven home runs in the first three months of the season, Wieters launched seven in September alone, and 24 of his 47 hits in the final two months of the season went for extra bases.

The fact that he was able to sustain a well above average contact rate while also driving the ball more frequently suggests that Wieters still has the skills to be a dominant offensive force, and the final two months of 2011 could be a harbinger of good things to come in 2012.

Brian Matusz, SP, Baltimore

While Wieters ended the year on a high note, his battery mate did the exact opposite, giving up 17 runs in just eight innings in September, closing a miserable season in the worst way possible. Matusz’z problems have been tied to a loss of velocity – his fastball averaged 91.5 MPH during his rookie season of 2009, but was just 88.5 MPH last year – but he was getting pounded even as he got his fastball back over 90 at the end of the year.

Keeping an eye on his velocity in spring training will be important, but Matusz will also need to show that he can command the ball in the strike zone with regularity. He doesn’t have the power repertoire that will allow him to get away with poor location, so if he’s going to work his way back into Baltimore’s rotation, he’ll have to show he can hit his spots and throw strikes consistently. Keep an eye not only on the radar gun when Matusz takes the mound, but the percentage of pitches he throws for strikes – if he’s going to get back to what he was a few years ago, it’s going to come because he remembers how to get ahead of hitters once again.

Mike Moustakas, 3B, Kansas City

When the Royals promoted Moustakas in June of last year, they did it to help show Royals fans that they had a bright offensive future, with Moustakas and fellow rookie Eric Hosmer forming a corner infield duo of impact power bats. However, Moustakas had just one extra base hit in his first month in the Major Leagues, and then didn’t hit a home run in either July or August. His isolated slugging marks during his first three months in the Majors were .053, .064, and .061 – marks that only look normal if you’re Juan Pierre or Luis Castillo.

However, Moustakas was a different beast in September, collecting a total of 11 extra base hits that included four home runs. His first three months in the Majors suggested he might need more time in Triple-A before being handed a full time big league job, but with the way he closed the season, Moustakas showed that the Royals hope wasn’t all misplaced. The Royals will likely want to see Moustakas driving the ball in March like he did to finish 2011, but more than just raw home run totals (which can be easily inflated in the Arizona air), keep an eye on the percentage of his March hits that go for extra bases. If he’s consistently getting the ball into the gaps, then there’s a decent chance that his late season power surge could carry over into 2012.

Brent Morel, 3B, Chicago

Morel’s story is a bit like Moustakas’, only far more extreme. His quality glovework has always been ahead of his offensive game, and he’s never profiled as much of a power threat in the minors, but his total lack of punch – he entered September with just two home runs on the season – was a real problem for the White Sox last year. Morel spent the first five months of the year just repeatedly beating the ball into the ground, but during the last month of the season, his results took a complete turn – he launched eight home runs in 103 plate appearances and posted a .329 ISO, the eighth best mark in baseball during September. For comparison, that put him right between Miguel Cabrera and Carlos Pena.

That wasn’t the only drastic change for Morel in the season’s final month – he also drew 15 walks after taking just seven free passes in April through August. One of the league’s least patient and least powerful hitters ended the season by performing like a middle-of-the-order slugger, taking pitches with regularity and driving the ball over the wall when he got ahead in the count. It was the most dramatic change of the season, and was completely out of character with what Morel had done previously in his career. Keep an eye not just on Morel’s spring training power, but also his willingness to take the free pass – the rise of both were connected in September, and if he’s still willing to let pitches go, he has a much better chance of sustaining his late season power boost.

After getting mostly ignored by the Baseball Writer’s Association of America, Ron Santo was finally elected to the baseball Hall of Fame by the veteran’s committee this summer. Santo’s enshrinement was a victory for those who had championed his case for years, and suggested that perhaps even the folks in Cooperstown were coming around to the growing appreciation for the value of defense at the offensive-oriented corner positions. Just a few months after his election, however, several clubs have apparently decided that quality defense at third base is a luxury item after all.

The Tigers have gotten the most coverage for their decision to move Miguel Cabrera back across the diamond to a position he was deemed too big to play back in 2008. However, the Angels are also toying with the idea of giving first baseman Mark Trumbo some playing time at the hot corner after he was displaced by the signing of Albert Pujols, and the Marlins acquisition of Jose Reyes means that Hanley Ramirez – never known for his focus on defense to begin with – will grudgingly move over to third base. In all three cases, a team with hopes of contention in 2012 is showing some willingness to sacrifice glove work at third base in order to upgrade their offense. There’s no doubt that Pujols, Fielder, and Reyes will help their new teams win more games, but just how bad might we expect the new third baseman to be, and would these teams just be better off abandoning the experiment and finding another way to get those bats in the line-up?

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While the offseason nears its end, there are still several contending clubs that have some glaring holes on their rosters.

Whether it comes through promoting a player from the minors or picking out of the bargain bin of what remains in free agency, these five clubs each will need to be creative to get production from a roster spot that could prove problematic in their chase for a playoff spot in 2012.

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Having lost 95 or more games in three of the last four seasons, the Seattle Mariners have moved into full-scale rebuilding mode. Their big offensive upgrade of the winter was 22-year-old Jesus Montero, and the team is currently penciling in players with less than a full year of experience at second base (Dustin Ackley), third base (Kyle Seager) and left field (Mike Carp), plus wherever Montero ends up playing. General manager Jack Zduriencik is preaching patience, letting the fans know that they should expect to take some lumps this year, but that the fruit of going young will pay off with a steady rise up the standings as the kids mature.

Zduriencik can point to the Texas Rangers, who slowly stockpiled talent for years and saw their win total rise every season from 2007 through 2011. However, a more thorough look at recent history suggests that teams don’t usually follow this model of taking a slow, methodical rise from good to bad.

That isn’t to say that teams that lose with a bunch of young players don’t improve as those guys develop, or that the strategy currently being employed in Seattle won’t work in the long term. However, the evidence does show that improvement often comes from a big unexpected leap forward, as opposed to a steady rise.

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With prospective owners lining up around the block to bid for the Los Angeles Dodgers, we thought it’d be helpful to shine a light on just what kind of team they’d be buying. While the franchise’s history and large fan base offer value on their own, the team will be more profitable if the new owners can turn them into winners in a hurry. So, how far away are the Dodgers from being contenders?

Let’s start with the good news. The team has two franchise building blocks in Matt Kemp and Clayton Kershaw, young stars who are already performing at an elite level. There aren’t many teams in baseball that have two young players of this quality, and they are certainly capable of forming the foundation of a championship team.

The bad news is that those two performed about as well as anyone can realistically be asked to in 2011 and the team still won just 82 games, finishing in third place in the NL West. If the team is going to contend, it will have to get better performances from the supporting cast because they can’t realistically expect to get much more from Kershaw and Kemp than they got a year ago.

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With their two big splashy free-agent signings this winter, the Los Angeles Angels have become a trendy pick to win in the American League West. Certainly, adding Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson to a roster that won 86 games last year seems like a formula for a playoff berth, but the Angels are one of the contending teams that need to plan on at least one key player from 2011 taking a pretty big step backward during the upcoming season.

Howie Kendrick, 2B
In Anaheim’s case, its regression candidate is second baseman Howie Kendrick. On the surface, Kendrick’s numbers from last season don’t seem out of line with his career numbers. His .285 average was below his career mark. He set his career high in home runs with 18, after hitting just 10 homers in each of the previous two seasons. That jump doesn’t appear too far out of line for a player coming into his prime.

However, Kendrick didn’t just have a career year at the plate in 2011. He also had one in the field, and that’s where the Angels can expect a pretty substantial step backward. From 2006 to 2010, Kendrick played just over 3,800 innings at second base and posted an Ultimate Zone Rating ( UZR) of plus-8.6, or an average of plus-3 runs per full season. In just over 900 innings at the position last year, Kendrick posted a UZR of plus-14.4 runs, or a total of nearly plus-20 runs over the course of an entire year — a mark that ranked him as baseball’s top defensive second baseman in 2011.

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In his ALDS victory over the New York Yankees, Jim Leyland used a different line-up in each game. The mixing and matching worked out when he got key hits from the likes of Ramon Santiago and Don Kelly, but the Tigers also only managed to score 17 runs in the series, and they’ll have to produce more offense against the Rangers if they want a shot at the World Series.

So, we’re here to lend Leyland a hand, and help him come up with a steady line-up that can maximize his team’s offensive output against Texas. He has some good hitters, but the order in which they’re being used could be improved. Given that the Rangers are going to throw left-handers C.J. Wilson, Derek Holland, and Matt Harrison in the series, he’ll also want to focus on getting his best anti-southpaw hitters to the plate as often as possible.

The line-up below might be unconventional, but it would improve the Tigers chances of scoring runs and advancing to the World Series.

#1: Ramon Santiago, 2B, Switch – .305 wOBA

Austin Jackson’s speed has kept him at the top of the order all season, but the reality is that he just doesn’t hit well enough to justify staying there. He struck out in 27 percent of trips to the plate this year, and the Yankees were able to consistently get him out by throwing off-speed pitches out of the zone. Santiago isn’t anyone’s idea of Rickey Henderson, but his better contact rates and performance against southpaws this year win him the top spot in the batting order.

#2: Victor Martinez, DH, Switch – .368 wOBA

Martinez has gotten a lot of credit for making pitchers pay after they intentionally walk Miguel Cabrera, but right now, Cabrera needs someone in front of him who can get on base. He came up with the bases empty far too often in the ALDS, and moving Martinez’s .380 OBP to the second spot in the line-up will give the Tigers star more RBI opportunities. Having two switch-hitters at the top of the line-up will also help keep the line-up stable when the Rangers go to the bullpen.

#3: Delmon Young, LF, Right – .303 wOBA

While most teams give the #3 spot to their best hitter, Leyland has this one right, as Cabrera is more likely to produce runs from the #4 spot in the order. Young’s OBP isn’t what you’d like from a hitter in this spot, but he hit left-handers significantly better than right-handers and has enough power to drive Martinez in on his own from time to time.

#4: Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Right – .436 wOBA

This one’s easy – he’s the beast of the Tigers line-up and belongs in the run producing spot. The rest of the line-up is just there to try and ensure he gets chances to do as much damage as possible.

#5: Jhonny Peralta, SS, Right – .353 wOBA

Peralta wasn’t able to sustain his tremendous first half performance, and he faded a bit down the stretch. However, he’s still one of the Tigers best hitters, and he has enough power to make teams pay for pitching around Cabrera.

#6: Ryan Raburn, RF, Right – .314 wOBA

Magglio Ordonez got most of the playing time in round one, but Raburn is just the better player, especially against a left-handed heavy pitching staff. He hit .274/.321/.486 against southpaws this year, and he was the Tigers second best hitter in the final two months of the season. Compared to Ordonez, he’s also a defensive upgrade in right field.

#7: Alex Avila, C, Left – .383 wOBA

If Avila was healthy, I’d suggest hitting him a lot higher, but his knee problems appeared to be taking a significant strain on him at the plate in the ALDS. His production was a huge part of why the Tigers got to the playoffs in the first place, and if he shows he’s healthy, he should move up to the #5 spot in the order, but the current version of Avila barely resembles the one that the Tigers saw in the regular season.

#8: Austin Jackson, CF, Right – .309 wOBA

While Jackson’s speed may seem wasted at the bottom of the order, this is actually a better spot for his skills. The negative value associated with a caught stealing is dramatically reduced with weaker hitters coming to the plate, so Jackson could run more frequently when he does get on base.

#9: Brandon Inge, 3B, Right – .247 wOBA

Inge had a terrible season by any standard, but most of his struggles came against right-handed pitchers, whom he hit .170/.220/.228 against. He was reasonably effective against left-handers (.245/.339/.378) and has a significant platoon split over the course of his career, so the Tigers should be willing to roll him out there against the Rangers’ southpaws. As soon as the Rangers go to the bullpen, though, Wilson Betemit should be ready to pinch-hit – Inge should never face a right-hander in a close playoff game.