The toughest players to rank at shortstop for 2027: Gunnar Henderson's decline creates a Fantasy dilemma

Gunnar Henderson, CJ Abrams and Francisco Lindor headline the shortstops, presenting difficult decisions for 2027 Fantasy drafts

Sep 18, 2026 at 8:26 am ET • 7 min read

For the past few years, shortstop has been pretty much the undisputed strongest position in Fantasy. It might not always be the deepest, but generally speaking, the high end of shortstop has been much stronger than the rest of the positions. 

But that may be changing heading into 2027. Long-time stalwarts like Trea Turner, Mookie Betts, and Corey Seager look like they have aged out of being difference makers for Fantasy, and a younger supposed superstar in Gunnar Henderson sure doesn't look like one anymore. Trevor Story may have completely collapsed, Geraldo Perdomo's 2025 breakout looks like a fluke, and even Zach Neto has been a relative disappointment after a step forward in 2025. The position isn't weak, but it definitely took some hits in 2027, and the step forward CJ Abrams took, plus the emergence of Kevin McGonigle, isn't nearly enough to offset what we've lost. 

Want something a bit more concrete to grab on to? Well, coming into the season, there were six shortstops inside the top 50 in ADP, 12 inside the top 100, and two more inside the top 110; heading into the final weekend of the season, five shortstops are inside the top 50 overall and only nine will be in the top 100. That includes Ezequiel Duran, who has more value thanks to his all-over-the-field eligibility, and Otto Lopez, who you probably used at second base at least as often as you used at shortstop.

The position hasn't collapsed, but it definitely isn't as strong as it looked coming into the season. There's plenty of high-end talent here, and the next crop of prospects will only make it stronger – let's not forget about Konnor Griffin, who will surely be drafted among the elite at the position in 2027 – but right now we're in a bit of a transitional phase for the position. 

Here are the main culprits making it tough to figure out: 

Toughest SS to rank

The toughest players to rank at shortstop

Gunnar Henderson, Orioles

I'm starting to wonder if Henderson is even worth all the fuss. He certainly was in 2024, when he was the No. 6 player in Fantasy, and seeing as he was just 23 at the end of that season, it felt reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt. But if you remember, that was a pretty front-loaded season for Henderson, and he really hasn't played like a first-round caliber player in about two and a half years at this point:

• 2024, first half: .956 OPS, 48-homer pace
• 2024, second half: .799 OPS, 23-homer pace
• 2025: .787 OPS, 17 homers
• 2026: .708 OPS, 23 homers and counting

One of these things is not like the other … 

Henderson has been so bad this season that you have to wonder if he's been playing through some kind of injury. His plate discipline remains largely unchanged from the previous few seasons, but he has lost nearly three mph off his average exit velocity from 2025 and has put up an expected wOBA of just .318, by far the worst of his career. Toss in the career-worst spring speed and the drop from 30 steals to just 10, and the thesis that he's been limited by injuries looks pretty strong.

But even assuming there's some regression coming, he hasn't played like a first-round caliber hitter since that first half of 2024, and at some point, we've gotta stop giving him the benefit of the doubt for that. He was a fringe top-50 player in 2025, and even if he returns to that level of production, that would still require a significant discount on his price from the past two seasons. Even a third-round price tag might be too rich for Henderson at this point, and he certainly doesn't deserve to be treated as one of the elites at the position anymore. 

CJ Abrams, Nationals

Abrams probably can't outrun an inevitable move to second base, and ultimately, he couldn't quite outrun his usual second-half slump this season. It wasn't as extreme as previous seasons', when he would get off to blazing fast starts and stumble around June or July, but even a recent run of multi-hit games has him hitting just .190/.258/.303 since the start of August. His strikeout rate has spiked to 33.5% in that run and he has just two homers in 36 games entering play Thursday. 

He's still going to end up with his first 30-30 season (well, assuming he gets one more steal in the next week and a half), but the foundation here looks a lot shakier than it did for most of the season. He has a career-high 24% strikeout rate, and while his underlying numbers are still the best of his career, there's been some significant slippage there as well. Abrams still deserves credit for the career-best season, but the late slide, showing up yet again, casts doubt on how sustainable it all is. Draft him earlier than 2025, when he was the eighth shortstop off the board on average, but I may balk at the prospect of paying face value for this season at this point. 

Francisco Lindor, Mets

I think the likeliest explanation for why this has been such an underwhelming season for Lindor is the simplest: He got hurt less than a month into the season and just never got right. He'll end up playing over 100 games and has just three steals, which feels particularly noteworthy given that it was a calf injury that cost him nearly two months. Otherwise, things don't look that different than they usually do – his .229 batting average can seemingly be explained by an unsustainably low .243 BABIP (.289 career average). Otherwise, he's on pace for pretty typical Lindor production. So, the calf gets healthy this offseason and he's back to being the Francisco Lindor we know and love and gladly spend a second-round pick on every year, right? 

Maybe. I hope so. But Lindor is also going to turn 33 in a few months and has five seasons left on his contract, so the Mets probably have to be cognizant of keeping him healthy, too, so I don't know if we can just assume he'll go back to being a perennial 30-30 guy, either. The bat will be there, but if it comes with 15 or so steals, it's a lot harder to justify the kinds of prices we usually pay for Lindor. I'm still willing to rank him as a top-six shortstop, but I do think there has to be a discount baked in there, too. 

Otto Lopez, Marlins

Part of me thinks the Otto Lopez thing is as simple as: He got unusually hot in the first half and turned back into himself in the second half. That's complicated a bit by his recent turnaround in September, but the underlying numbers tell a pretty compelling story here: His .327 xwOBA is right in line with last season's. He just happened to underperform in 2025 and then overperformed in 2026, especially early on. He's a fantastic contact hitter with good speed and decent enough power, and that should be enough to make him a viable starting option at shortstop, though one that will likely leave you at a deficit relative to some other players at the position. 

Trea Turner, Phillies

Unfortunately, I think we might be nearing the end of the line for Turner. He's still having a decent season, ranking as the No. 85 player in Fantasy this season and has a good chance of getting to 100 runs, 20 homers, and 20 steals. It's an objectively good season, even if it comes with a .240 average. But this is Trea Turner we're talking about! A career .291 hitter! The BABIP has fallen from a career .333 mark to .280, so maybe there's plenty of room for regression, but his expected batting average is down to .240, so it sure doesn't feel like a fluke. His strikeout rate has climbed to 21.3%, the second-worst mark of his career, and his defense has absolutely fallen apart – a sign that the athleticism has taken a hit. Again, Turner is still a very useful option, but it's hard to justify an early-round price on him coming off a season like this. A top-50 pick? Maybe, though, even that won't make you feel great.

Corey Seager, Rangers 

Seager is going to be 33 and coming off arguably the worst season of his career, so why am I kind of excited to draft him in 2027? Well, in part, it's because I think nobody else is going to be. He was already going around 100th overall coming off an .860 OPS and 35-homer pace, so with another injury-riddled season under his belt and his skill set in decline, the price is going to be even more reasonable. And the thing is, I'm not actually sure how steep his decline has been. He was awful to start the season, with a heightened strikeout rate and dreadful underlying numbers that have marred his season-long rates. 

But he has hit .297/.368/.510 since the All-Star break, and the quality of contact metrics has largely rebounded to the point where I'm mostly willing to write off the early-season slump as just that, a slump. That doesn't mean I expect a full bounceback from Seager in his age-33 season. But if he falls to around the 150 range or later in drafts, I also don't need him to get all the way back to being an MVP-caliber bat, and I don't really care if there's injury risk at that price.