The question of whether you’d prefer to have Buster Posey or Yadier Molina at catcher has lots of layers, as does the debate about whether Miguel Cabrera is the game’s top first baseman.

But with Troy Tulowitzki coming back from major surgery and facing an uncertain future, there really is no clear No. 1 among the shortstops. You could take this in a lot of different directions, depending on what you value the most -- a preference for high-end offense, or Platinum Glove-caliber defense, or mere consistency.

Through conversations with team evaluators, general managers and our own statistical analysts, we probably considered four or five different guys in the No. 1 spot at one time or another.

We settled on this ranking of MLB shortstops:

1. Andrelton Simmons, Atlanta Braves

Simmons is not the perfect player, by any means; picking the No. 1 shortstop is not the same now as it was in 2001, when you had your choice of Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Jeter, Miguel Tejada and others. Simmons had a .286 on-base percentage last season, with seven homers among just 29 extra-base hits in 540 plate appearances. It would be very reasonable here to make a case in the No. 1 spot for a better hitter, or maybe two or three others.

But a highly ranked executive put it best