Fantasy Baseball: Under-the-radar players

Travis Shaw, third base, Boston Red Sox

With his promotion over Pablo Sandoval as the Boston Red Sox starting third baseman, Travis Shaw enters the season with some MLB experience under his belt, but on ESPN’s fantasy leagues he’s still listed as a first baseman, where he played last season.

Shaw is owned by just 20 percent of ESPN fantasy owners but has seen a jump of +11.1 percent since being named the starting third baseman for Boston. Last season at the plate, Shaw had 61 hits (226 at-bats) with 31 runs, 10 doubles, 13 home runs and 36 RBIs. He also walked 18 times.

In his short amount of time in the majors in ’15, Shaw batted .270 with a .327 on-base percentage. Digging a little deeper into his numbers, Shaw finished with a .487 slugging percentage and .813 OPS+, along with 110 total bases.

This spring, the numbers of Shaw are very intriguing with a .339 average in 21 games (59 at-bats) before Saturday’s game. In his at-bats, Shaw has collected four doubles, two home runs and 10 RBIs, enough to out-play Sandoval for the starting role.

It will be exciting to see how Shaw progresses with more at-bats under his belt in the early portions of the ’16 season, but as he’s done throughout his entire career up to this point, he’ll have no problems taking on competition, and I believe he’ll be able to have success in his current role with the Red Sox.

Next: Under-the-radar: Wil Myers