Shortstop isn’t the sinkhole it was in recent years. An influx of talent, as well as Manny Machado gaining shortstop eligibility, has added top-end talent to the player pool while also extending the depth at the position. Shortstop remains a unique position with sizable gaps in value in between tiers.

A staggering seven players have an ECR in the top 40 with Trevor Story rounding that crew out with an ECR of 37. There’s a 29-player gap between him and the next shortstop up.

After that player, there’s a 57-player gap. Between Machado (ECR No. 8) and the 12th ranked shortstop (Eduardo Nunez, ECR No. 158), there’s a 150-player gap. The spacing between players furthers my point about the talent differences between tiers, and that’s why the ECR restrictions have been loosened a bit for the trio of busts included below.

Check out all of our 2017 fantasy baseball player profiles

Jean Segura (SEA): ECR No. 66
Segura is the player I mentioned above who follows Story in the shortstop rankings. He’s the only shortstop in the top-100 ECR who I believe is a bust. Francisco Lindor is the only other shortstop in that group who I have ranked lower than the ECR, but it’s only by a few spots, and I love his well-rounded skill-set — even if I don’t love it as much as what Xander Bogaerts and Jonathan Villar provide. Changing gears back to Segura, he’s coming off of a great campaign in his lone year playing in the desert for the Diamondbacks.

Segura swatted 20 homers, scored 102 runs, tallied 64 RBIs, stole 33 bases, and hit .319. He basically did it all as the leadoff hitter (only 17 of his 694 plate appearances came outside of the first spot in the order) for the Diamondbacks. Arizona dealt him to Seattle this offseason, though, and the change of clubs hurts his value. Chase Field — Arizona’s home ballpark — is one of the most hitter-friendly in MLB as you can see here.

It has right-handed batter park factors of 122 for doubles/triples, 116 for homers and 113 for runs, according to the three-year rolling averages used at StatCorner. Safeco in Seattle, on the other hand, is a pitcher-friendly park with right-handed batter park factors of 89 for doubles/triples, 103 for homers, and 94 for runs. The park factors in his new home digs represent a big step down for his offense.

Not surprisingly, Segura hit better at home (.325/.362/.529 with a .204 ISO and 12 homers in 354 plate appearances) than on the road (.312/.375/.468 with a .156 ISO and eight homers in 340 plate appearances). As you can see, Segura was excellent on the road, and after accounting for the hitter-friendly nature of his home ballpark in 2016, Segura actually posted a higher wRC+ (127) on the road than at home (126). Still, unless you’re in a unique scoring format, the raw, non-park-factor adjusted numbers are what matter for fantasy purposes.

It’s also worth noting that he feasted in Coors Field hitting .425/.500/.625 with a homer and five steals in nine games and 40 at-bats, according to the splits data at Yahoo! The Mariners play just two games in Colorado this year, so not only does Segura no longer call Chase Field home, he also no longer benefits from playing in the same division as the launching pad known as Coors Field.

It’s highly unlikely the M’s new shortstop approaches the 20 taters he hit last year, and it’s far more likely he barely squeaks into double-digit dingers. Also, after hitting just 11 homers in 1,141 plate appearances in 2014 and 2015 combined, double-digit homers aren’t even a given for him this year.

Prior to his monster offensive season last year, Fox Sports provided some possible reasons for Segura’s struggles at the end of his time with the Brewers. It’s plausible that last year represents the true-talent Segura, but it’s not advised to completely ignore the data from his last two years in Milwaukee.

The soon-to-be 27-year-old’s speed is of little question. He’s stolen 20 or more bases in four of his full seasons in the majors with a 44-steal 2013 and 33-steal 2016 sandwiching a 20-steal season and a 25-steal season. He should be a shoo-in to eclipse 20 steals, but his ceiling might be reduced moving from a team that ranked third in steals with 137 to one that ranked 24th with 56. Last year was M’s manager Scott Servais’ only as a manager in the majors, so it’s possible he’ll be more aggressive sending runners now that he has added a speedster like Segura to the mix.

Having said that, the separation in stolen base attempts for the Diamondbacks (168) and Mariners (84) in 2016 was large. ZiPS has the most aggressive stolen base projection for this year of those featured on FanGraphs with 30 while Steamer brings up the rear with 24. Penciling Segura in for 25-30 steals is a more prudent move than expecting 30 to 35. The speed is great, but with likely major drops in homers and batting average as well as runs scored as a result of being on base less often, the total package falls short of being a top-70 pick.

Troy Tulowitzki (TOR): ECR No. 140
It wasn’t that long ago Tulo was the class of the shortstop position on a per-game production basis. I say per game because in addition to being able to count on excellent numbers when he was on the diamond, you could count on him missing games quite often. He still misses time, but he’s no longer the offensive force he was playing his home games in Colorado.

Last year, he played in 131 games. In his season split between Colorado and Toronto in 2015, he played in 128 games. You have to go all the way back to 2011 to find a season in which Tulowitzki played in more than 140 games or bested 600 plate appearances — marks he’s hit just three times since reaching the majors full time back in 2007.

Now a 32-year-old shortstop, it’s hard to envision him staying healthier than he did as a young lad. The 131 games played and 544 plate appearances he recorded last season look more like best-case-scenario expectations this year than locks.

As for on the field, Tulo is coming off of a season in which he hit just .254 with one stolen base, 54 runs, 24 homers and 79 RBIs. The .254 AVG is his lowest in a full season in the Majors. He’s played in 172 games with the Blue Jays totaling 727 plate appearances. With Toronto, he’s hit .250/.318/.427 with 29 homers, 85 runs, 96 RBIs, a .177 ISO and two stolen bases. To put those numbers in perspective, since 2015, the number-20 ECR shortstop, Brandon Crawford, has hit .266/.332/.445 with 33 homers, 132 runs, 168 RBIs, a .179 ISO, and 13 stolen bases in 1,184 plate appearances.

Tulo has hit a homer once in every 25 plate appearances with Toronto while Crawford has hit one in every 35.9 plate appearances. Tulo’s edge over Crawford in HR/PA hardly makes up for the reliability of Crawford to be on the field as well as the other statistical contributions, yet the average ADP gap is roughly 83 picks. Point being, whether you’re a fan of Crawford or not, Tulo looks grossly overrated.

Not all is terrible with Tulo. He is part of Toronto’s loaded lineup, and Rogers Centre is a favorable offensive environment for right-handed batters with park factors of 116 for doubles/triples, 102 for homers and 107 for runs. Also, after returning from a disabled list stint that started in late May and ended on June 18th, he hit .280/.333/.474 with 16 homers in 354 plate appearances last year.

The veteran shortstop has some upside, but those numbers appear to be what his upside is. He looks a lot more like a fringe top-200 player than a top-150 one to me.

Javier Baez (CHC): ECR No. 187
The Cubs are loaded, and Baez appears to be behind others in the pecking order at each of the positions he played in the field in 2016. He does bring versatility to the table, and that will get his bat in the lineup, but he may need an injury to someone in front of him in order to surpass the 450 plate appearances he totaled last year. The 24-year-old brings elite bat speed that helped him swat 14 homers last year to the table, and he parlayed a nearly league average FanGraphs speed score into 12 stolen bases in 15 chances, but duplicating the .273 average he turned in last year will be tough.

Baez is a hacker. He walked in just 3.3% of his plate appearances while striking out 24.0% of the time. He’s improved his swinging strike percentage (SwStr%) a great deal each successive taste of action in The Show, but his 14.4% SwStr% was much worse than the league average of 10.1% last year and would have ranked as the 12th highest if he had enough plate appearances to be a qualified hitter.

Baez is a chaser, too, with a 42.9% swing percentage on pitches outside of the strike zone (O-Swing%). The Big League average for O-Swing in 2016 was 30.3%, per FanGraphs, and his mark would have been the fifth-highest among qualified hitters.

As for contact in the zone (Z-Contact%), his 82.3% Z-Contact% was four percent below the league average and would’ve ranked 19th lowest among qualified hitters. Unless he improves his contact, it’s likely his strikeout percentage goes up in 2017 as opposed to down.

Baez’s BABIP is also probably due for a slight downturn. In the admittedly small sample of 309 plate appearances in the majors prior to last year, Baez owned a .300 BABIP. He ripped off an eye-popping .402 BABIP in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League in 313 plate appearances at the Triple-A level in 2015, but he had a .333 BABIP in 240 plate appearances at the Double-A level in 2013 and a .322 BABIP in 434 plate appearances at the Triple-A level in 2014.

Taking everything into account, his .336 BABIP last year looks at least a pinch high, and FanGraphs’ Depth Charts pegs him for a .314 BABIP, Steamer checks in with a .306 BABIP and ZiPS is the most optimistic projection system with a .323 BABIP projection for this season. An uptick in punch outs and a little less luck on batted balls is a recipe for a batting average flirting with .260 as opposed to breaking .270.

Baez is young and full of upside. However, he carries very real downside as well both from a playing time perspective and a performance perspective. Furthermore, as the No. 18 ECR shortstop behind a few players such as Machado, Villar, Segura, Eduardo Nunez, and Jose Peraza who could be used at other positions, he’s too close to a fantasy starter ranking for my comfort. All it takes is one owner to fall in love with his upside for him to be stripped of most of his value as a gamble — which is what he is.

In shallower leagues, using a bench spot is fine on Baez even with his realistic bust potential. In standard size leagues or larger, there’s no way I’d advocate using the top-200 draft pick necessary to roster him.

• Fantasy Baseball Busts: 1B
• Fantasy Baseball Busts: 2B
• Fantasy Baseball Busts: 3B
• Fantasy Baseball Busts: C
• Fantasy Baseball Busts: OF
• Fantasy Baseball Busts: SP
• Fantasy Baseball Busts: RP

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Josh Shepardson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Josh, check out his archive and follow him @BChad50.