2017 Second Base Tier Rankings – July Update
Instead of updating these rankings monthly like I did for the past few years, I decided to dial that back this year, with this being the third and final edition for 2017. In the past, I found the four-week turnaround to be a bit quick, as the samples since the previous entry were always small. This year, I’ve given myself more like 6-8 weeks between updates, giving me a format I’m much more confident in.
For reference, here’s what these tiers looked like in mid-May.
TIER ONE
I always flirt with the idea of putting someone in the top tier with Altuve, and I’ve even done it a couple times. In the end, I come back to the fact that he’s been performing at a level above nearly every other second baseman since 2014. There are times when someone else will keep up with him for a month or two, but it doesn’t last, and Altuve always ends up distancing himself from the pack again.
The 27-year-old is having his best-ever season at the dish, with a juicy .350/.420/.561 slash. His Offensive Runs Above Average (33.2) is higher than anyone in baseball not named Aaron Judge. In the context of a standard 5×5 fantasy league, it doesn’t get much better than .350, 14 HR, 19 SB, 65 R, 51 RBI through 89 games.
Regardless of position, Altuve is one of the most dangerous five-category offensive weapons in modern-day fantasy baseball. A true generational talent.
TIER TWO
Ramirez is making a pretty good case to join Altuve in that top tier, but he’s not quite there yet. In fact, Ramirez is putting up numbers close to Altuve’s, but Ramirez is a bit more slanted toward power, whereas Altuve’s advantage is in steals:
- Altuve: .350, 14 HR, 19 SB, 65 R, 51 RBI
- Ramirez: .326, 17 HR, 10 SB, 62 R, 48 RBI
Good lord, Daniel Murphy! Lots of people were skeptical of Murphy’s huge year in his age-31 season last year, but the way he’s silenced the doubters is just amazing.
- 2016 (582 PA): .347/.390/.595, 25 HR, 104 RBI, 88 R
- 2017 (365 PA): .348/.400/.595, 16 HR, 71 RBI, 61 R
I’m tempted to nudge Murphy ahead of Ramirez, but I think those 10 SB outweigh 20ish RBI and 20ish points of AVG. But man, not by much.
TIER THREE
There haven’t really been any substantial updates in the 2 1/2 weeks since Turner hit the DL with a broken wrist, but even optimistic views had him out until mid-August, and who knows if he’ll be back to normal when he does return. It’s a shame, because he was really cooking on the basepaths, with a ridiculous 35 swipes in 315 PA. Even with the uncertainty regarding the wrist, I’d still probably take him above anyone other than Altuve/Ramirez/Murphy on a per-game basis when he comes back.
Dee Gordon is doing Dee Gordon things, like stealing 32 bases with no homers. As long as he keeps flirting with a .300 AVG, he’s a very good fantasy 2B, but he doesn’t have much wiggle room for that average because he’s entirely worthless in two categories (0 HR, 18 RBI in 384 PA).
Take your pick between the Mariners starting middle infielders. Despite having nearly opposite fantasy skillsets, Segura and Cano are roughly equally valuable. Give Segura a bump if you need AVG or SB, give Cano the nod if you need HR or RBI.
Schoop has been a really pleasant surprise this year, and his career-best .295 AVG is paired with an improved power stroke (18 HR, .235 ISO). He’s playing a lot like Cano for fantasy purposes. No really, a lot like Cano:
- Cano: .271 AVG, 18 HR, 63 RBI, 49 R
- Schoop: .295 AVG, 18 HR, 54 RBI, 51 R
Cano still slots in barely ahead of Schoop because his plate discipline and track record make him more of a sure thing, but they’ve been essentially the same player in standard leagues so far this year.
TIER FOUR
The Diamondbacks having great pitching this year is possibly serving as a bit of a distraction from the fact that Chase Field still inflates hitter stats more than any other non-Coors park. Chris Owings is not just a product of his home environment, he’s still nearly unplayable on the road for fantasy purposes. But wow those home stats:
- Home: .341/.376/.581, 8 HR, 10 SB, 36 RBI, 29 R
- Road: .238/.270/.371, 4 HR, 2 SB, 14 RBI, 11 R
This tier in general is the “guys I’d be okay with starting semi-regularly in a mixed league” range. Gyorko is putting up surprisingly balanced numbers. Until this year, he had never hit .250 and hadn’t stolen a base since 2014. Now he’s hitting .294 and he’s a perfect 5-for-5 on the basepaths.
Gennett is a great guy to play splits with. He’s hitting .335/.392/.671 against righties and .209/.244/.372 against lefties.
Taylor’s .389 BABIP is still unsustainable as hell, but I’m certainly enjoying this while it lasts. He’s been great, and might be the most surprising player in the majors with double-digit HR and SB.
TIER FIVE
- Josh Harrison
- Whit Merrifield
- Matt Carpenter
- Rougned Odor
- Brandon Phillips
- Dustin Pedroia
- Cesar Hernandez (DL)
- Logan Forsythe
- Ian Kinsler
Second base is super-crazy-deep, as evidenced by the fact that these are all perfectly good players who still aren’t quite good enough to make the cut as a standard mixed-league 2B. They are all good options for a MI slot, or to platoon with an Owings or Gennett.
All of these guys have some warts, of course. For example, some of them are past their primes (Kinsler, Pedroia, Phillips), some of them have names that sound like rejected F. Scott Fitzgerald characters (Whit Merrifield), some of them are hitting .245 (Forsythe, Carpenter), etc.
TIER SIX
- Javier Baez
- Ian Happ
- Jonathan Villar
- Paul DeJong
- Eric Sogard (DL)
- Yangervis Solarte (DL)
- Neil Walker (DL)
- Joe Panik
- Jed Lowrie
- Jose Peraza
Even these guys are viable bench pieces or AL/NL-only options.
TIER SEVEN
- Kolten Wong
- Howie Kendrick (DL)
- Ben Zobrist
- Brad Miller
- Brandon Drury
- Jason Kipnis (DL)
- Steve Pearce
TIER EIGHT
Scott Strandberg started writing for Rotographs in 2013. He works in small business consultation, and he also writes A&E columns for The Norman Transcript newspaper. Scott lives in Seattle, WA.
Would Matt Carpenter be Tier 4?
He’s in tier 5
this is great, besides sporer who has been really helpful with starting pitching, wish someone would do these tiers for the other postions
Tiers were exhausting to put together. I used to do the AL SP tiers, and I know for myself, they were pretty useless. My pre-season tiers are strictly mathematical – develop projections, convert stats into dollar values, sort, and voila, you have your rankings/tiers.
Once the season gets under way, I’m not going to update my projections, so then I’m literally just looking at names and arbitrarily moving them up or down or just putting new faces somewhere. There’s no math behind it, so it’s pretty useless. Without a valuation spreadsheet, it’s impossible to compare how much a 3.20 ERA is worth versus 200 strikeouts. What’s worth more? No idea.
Yea, I’ll take Odor over Scooter Gennett.
Shows you how much stuff varies. I personally would put Gennett above Schoop and Gordon. Look at what Gennett has done this year. Until Murphy passed him yesterday, Gennett had actually posted a higher wRC+ , and still has better power numbers.
Except, that just represents what he’s done and not what he will do. It’s Scooter Gennett who prior to 2 months ago arguably never had fantasy value. Offer Gennett straight up to a Schoop or Odor owner and see what they say…
Being that Odor is sitting on the waiver wire and Gennett is owned, I am pretty sure the owners have spoken.
In what? Your one 10-team league? No decent league has Odor on the waiver wire, I would bet a lot of $$$ on that. 12 teams+ and/or leagues with a MI slot. Gimme a break. Guy is on pace for roughly what he did last year save the Avg, That would be 30 bombs, mid teens SB, and more than playable R and RBI. He’s a solid + in 4 categories. Check out that ZiPS RoS projection fam. Odor please!
Well “save average” is being a bit generous, because he was on your team it cannot be saved. And if we are going to talk pace? Over 600 at bats Gennett would be on pace for 48 hrs and 162rbis! So lets not talk pace.
If you were drafting today for RoS, are you really trying to tell me you’d draft Gennett over Odor? You might say so, but when the clock is winding down, I think we both know the truth.
Pace? Over 222 at bats? That’s your justification for a projected 48/162 season, after Scooter had 35 homers in 1526 at bats before 201? C’MON, MAN. Desperate men say desperate things.
The problem is that “it’s Scooter Gennett!” is sometimes right, and sometimes embarrassingly incorrect. Ex: owners who were saying “Pssh, it’s Jose Bautista!” were looking a little silly a few years back.
You have to look at their numbers and accept players can change – Gennett may or may not have, but there’s enough here now that he deserves a closer look and some cautious optimism, at least.
Hah! Sounds like you’re in a “Roto Light” league. Scooter has joined the conversation; he’s not only ranked, he’s ahead of some decent players in Tier 4. He wasn’t ranked when the season started, he went undrafted in even the deepest of leagues. He was Tier 6 in May. The league (Carter’s league) in question is, quite obviously, not a keeper league, nor a deep one. There’s no doubt as to who has upside, who’s on his way up, and who is in the midst of a career year, soon to begin spiraling down. If Scooter can stay relevant for a couple of more years, good for him. But players that come from nowhere at 27 almost always return to nowhere shortly after. Almost.
Popular second baseman Anthony Rizzo? Tier 2, yeah?
I personally would put him in tier 2, but I’d venture most people would have him in tier 1.
Rizzo is not nearly as valuable as Altuve, no matter what position he is eligible at.
Yep, he’s tier 2 once he gets that final appearance for eligibility. Or is it “if” at this point? Feels like it’s been over a month since he got to 9 appearances.
I’d put money on a Carpenter bounce back ROS
Yeah this jumped out as very bad.
His underlying numbers show that he is crushing the ball but hitting into bad luck. He had the 12th-highest xwOBA in the majors when I checked a couple of days ago. He’s hitting the ball harder than ever, swinging at fewer balls than Joey Votto, and he’s not striking out much. Strip away luck, and Carpenter should be much higher.
Carpenter would strike out even less and raise his batting average if he learned the meaning of the phrase “too close to take” with two strikes. It’s great that he knows the strike zone so well, but that’s not going to keep the umpires from making bad calls of their own. The extra walks he gains aren’t worth all the times he gets punched out looking on a borderline pitch.
Thanks very much for the write-up, Scott. I think Carpenter needs to be bumped up two Tiers.
I’m with everyone else, Carpenter is just way too low.
2016, 160-G pace (only played 129): 26HR, 100R, 86RBI, 0.271 AVG
2017, 160-G pace (played 86 so far): 26HR, 97R, 82RBI, 0.243 AVG
Almost identical, minus the average. What’s under the hood?
2016 BABIP: 0.307
2017 BABIP: 0.267
Career BABIP: 0.323
Of course, he’s at an all-time high with FB%, which means we should likely take the under on Career BABIP (and maybe even under on 2016), but I’d take the over on 0.260 2nd-half. And of course, with career-high FB% and career-high hard-hit %, I’d take the over on 26 HR too.
He is also 31, and seems to have sold out for power and is pulling everything. Think Albert Pujols with less power, or Todd Frazier without the speed.
He sold out for power all the way back in 2015. It didn’t keep him from becoming an All-Star that year or the next.
I think this might be overreacting to a bad first half from Dozier. His plate discipline and contact numbers are essentially the same as last year. But big difference is a drop in FB% and HR/FB%, both of which we know can be streaky with him.
Where do you think Moncada will fit in once he gets the call? Obviously wide range of possibilities.
How is Lowrie the bottom of tier 6? He’s in the top 12 in scoring in my H2H league. I get it this is future value, not simply ranking what has happened to date, but hard to imagine he goes from “viable starter” to “not someone you want to start,” particularly when you price in possibility of being traded into a better lineup/hitting environment. Don’t get that one.
Jed Lowrie at the bottom of tier 6? Is this an accidental re-post from 2016?
Check out that ZiPS RoS projection fam. Lowrie is weak, just like Scooter! Lowrie has already banked 75% of what his likely end of season stats are going to be. He doesn’t play full seasons and his career high in homers is 16. He is a serviceable MI…until he hits the DL.
Ian Happ and his 120 wRC+ in tier 6? bizarre.
I thought the same. I know that it’s splitting hairs but it seems like Happ has put up numbers similar to or better than the players in tier 5. The biggest difference between him and the tier 5’s seems to be a lack of experience. On the one hand the lack of a track record my work in his favor as he’s young enough to improve.
I guess I just don’t see why Happ is a tier under Brandon Phillips when Happ has a 358 wOBA and youth and Brandon Phillips has a 335 wOBA and age.
I don’t play in leagues that use wRC+, but I def take Happ over Scooter Gennett!
Once Marwin Gonzalez gets 2B eligibility, where does he fit in?