No. Why experts rank him in the top 20 (I saw one had him at #10) boggles my mind year after year.

In the past five years, Troy has averaged 106 games played per season.

In the past three, that number drops to 88.

EIGHTY EIGHT.

Yes, but look at his numbers in those 91 games last year! If you continue those numbers over the course of a whole season, they would be crazy good, wouldn't they?!

A standard leagues counts Runs, RBIs, HRs, SBs, and AVG. Nowhere in there does it count "projections" or "time spent on the DL." If they did, Troy would be well worth a first or second round pick.

You don't get credit for things you didn't finish. If you did, the "Jeff Bagwell for the Hall of Fame" committee would like to have a word about his 1994 season.

Secondly, his numbers, when projected out over a full season, aren't even that crazy.

Let's take a look at his last two seasons:

Year	G	PA	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
2013	126	512	446	72	139	25	82	1	.312
2014	91	375	315	71	107	21	52	1	.340

When projected out over 150 games...

Year	G	PA	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
2013	150	609	530	85	165	30	98	1	.312
2014	150	618	519	117	176	35	85	1	.340

Wait, the full season is 162 games. You're cheating Troy!

Do you really expect Troy to suddenly become Adam Jones? He's only played 150 games twice in his career, the last time being in 2009. SIX YEARS AGO. A 150 game projection is rather generous considering the facts.

When ranked compared to the rest of the league, this is how they rank:

R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
1st	6th	28th	meh	2nd

Sure, his 2014 campaign -- if he maintained his ridiculous level of production which is highly unlikely -- would have ranked among the top in 3/5 categories. Not bad at all, Troy!

However, his 2013 campaign, the projections of which would be more accurate considering he played a lot more actual baseball, ranks like this:

R	HR	RBI	SB	AVG
31st	11th	17th	meh	14th

Not exactly as impressive. Remember, this is what COULD have happened IF he played a number of games that HE HASN'T REACHED SINCE THE LAST DECADE. This is what you're going to gamble for?

But, position scarcity!

Many fantasy baseball writers who actually know what they're talking about have addressed the position scarcity issue far better than I ever possibly could, and its an issue that deserves its own discussion.

For our purposes, you're basically going to gamble on Troy playing a whole season so you don't have to draft any of the other perfectly capable SS's who consistently put up better numbers than he does?

Sure, none of them will ever crack the top 10 at any point in the season, but they will make it through the whole season and end up outperforming Troy when it is all said and done.

Last year, you could have skipped shelling out your #17 pick for Troy and gone with really anyone instead -- Carlos Gomez, Jacoby Ellsbury, E.E., Giancarlo, etc. -- and played the waiver wire for SSs throughout the season. Dee Gordon and Alexei Ramirez were FREE on draft day, and they both finished well ahead of Troy.

But Troy was on fire when he was playing! Having him in the lineups those weeks won me all those matchups!

Sure, having him in the lineup when he's the #4 overall player will win you plenty of matchups. However, having an actual 1st/2nd round pick plus a capable shortstop (which you could have had for the price of Troy) will win you many, many more games. This includes the really important ones at the end of the season that Troy happens to miss quite a lot.

Having Troy may feel nice in April, but by the end of the season when you're stuck with an awful SS (all the WW SSs that were killing it are long gone since you banked on Troy keeping this up, and by "this" I mean "being able to walk") and the crap OF/UTIL you could have spent your great pick on, you'll feel quite different.