January 29, 2014

Graphical Fantasy Rankings

Second Basemen

by Mauricio Rubio

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For a primer on this series, click here.

My colleague Paul Sporer put it best in the opening paragraph of his “State of the Position” column regarding the depth at 2B. No, this is not a sexy position full of robust offensive options and guys who can hit 30 bombs. What the keystone has become in my mind is a position that keeps your team going. The average top-30 2B will hit around .262 with around 10 bombs, 10 SB, 54 R, and 47 RBI. There’s nothing spectacular about that 5x5 line, but what it showcases is a type of positional depth that’s difficult to appreciate.

Let’s look at the graph for 2B:

Again, these are ordered by tiers and the tiers themselves are in no particular order, but there aren’t many guys here that will kill you fantasy-wise. Profar’s bars look bluer than you’d expect because PECOTA only projects 335 PAs from him. Outside of Profar, who has legitimate upside with the bat, there’s a lot of good value to be had in the two-star group, which can’t be said for other positions. Some of that does have to do with the lack of elite depth up top—the gap between Cano and the four-star group is wide, and the chasm between Kipnis and the three-star guys might be even wider. But really, only the one-star guys will kill you, and that’s pretty much true of any position.

Second base is vanilla in a lot of ways. Guys like Aaron Hill and Martin Prado don’t make the needle move, but there are plenty of values to be found at the keystone.

Here are the data bins for 2B:

Mauricio Rubio is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @MRubio52
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