Fantasy baseball sleepers: Dansby Swanson and Bobby Witt Jr., among shortstops target

The MLB Lockout has come and gone and now we can get back to looking forward to Opening Day. With the 2022 season getting started on April 7th, now is a great time to start mock drafting and looking into your fantasy baseball leagues.

Free agency is expected to kick up again with the new CBA and with Carlos Correa still a free agent, that is certainly something to keep an eye on. For now, here are some sleeper shortstops to keep an eye on in your fantasy baseball drafts.

Dansby Swanson, Atlanta Braves

Not the sexiest name out there for your lineup, especially with the Braves being in the hunt for Carlos Correa and Trevor Story as free agents. Even so, Swanson is the incumbent shortstop and he is coming off the best season of his career. He hit 27 home runs and drove in 81 runs over 160 games played. He finished with the 11th most fantasy points in 2021 among shortstops.

Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals

The Royals were in no rush to get Witt to the majors as he spent the entire 2021 season in AA and AAA. He isn’t officially on the Royals major league roster at the time of this writing, but it is hard to picture the Royals not using Witt as their Opening Day shortstop. He is their number one prospect for a reason and he shouldn’t carry high draft capital until they announce he is on their 26-man roster.

Brendan Rodgers, Colorado Rockies

With Trevor Story being a free agent, Rodgers figures to slide in as the starting shortstop barring the Rockies bringing back Story. Even if Story comes back, Rodgers has dual-eligibility along with second base so he still has value as a depth piece for your roster. Rodgers was hitting second in the Colorado lineup for the second half of the season and in that time he knocked in 10 home runs over 61 games. Not a bad late-round look.

Others to consider: J.P. Crawford, Seattle Mariners; Josh Rojas, Arizona Diamondbacks; David Fletcher, Los Angeles Angels; Javier Baez, Detroit Tigers