2B Ranking Using Bill James 2012 Projections
Yesterday, the Bill James’s Projections were added to all the player pages here at Fangraphs. Bill James’s numbers seem to be on the optimistic side and are probably not regressed as much as other projection systems. It is all we have to work with for now though. With the projection numbers, I ranked the players according to their value among other 2B using Zach Sander’s formula for finding fantasy above replacement values.
Here are the ranking with some gaps at breaks in the data:
| Name | PA | R | RBI | HR | AVG | SB | Ranking Value |
| Ian Kinsler | 647 | 108 | 78 | 25 | 0.271 | 25 | 6.7 |
| Robinson Cano | 671 | 96 | 101 | 25 | 0.302 | 5 | 5.9 |
| Dustin Pedroia | 642 | 95 | 73 | 17 | 0.299 | 17 | 5.1 |
| Brandon Phillips | 663 | 91 | 79 | 19 | 0.279 | 15 | 4.0 |
| Chase Utley | 570 | 85 | 79 | 21 | 0.280 | 14 | 3.9 |
| Jason Kipnis | 557 | 88 | 69 | 18 | 0.272 | 18 | 3.3 |
| Ben Zobrist | 646 | 88 | 80 | 18 | 0.262 | 18 | 3.3 |
| Michael Cuddyer | 646 | 86 | 85 | 21 | 0.275 | 8 | 2.9 |
| Danny Espinosa | 623 | 83 | 74 | 25 | 0.248 | 19 | 2.9 |
| Dan Uggla | 673 | 95 | 92 | 33 | 0.251 | 2 | 2.9 |
| Michael Young | 633 | 81 | 82 | 13 | 0.306 | 5 | 2.9 |
| Howie Kendrick | 601 | 80 | 74 | 14 | 0.287 | 13 | 2.7 |
| Rickie Weeks | 605 | 95 | 62 | 22 | 0.262 | 12 | 2.2 |
| Neil Walker | 649 | 77 | 88 | 15 | 0.273 | 9 | 1.9 |
| Jemile Weeks | 583 | 68 | 51 | 4 | 0.279 | 28 | 1.6 |
| Johnny Giavotella | 551 | 65 | 60 | 7 | 0.295 | 12 | 0.7 |
| Kelly Johnson | 589 | 78 | 62 | 19 | 0.251 | 13 | 0.5 |
| Daniel Murphy | 497 | 60 | 64 | 10 | 0.302 | 6 | 0.4 |
| Dustin Ackley | 697 | 82 | 60 | 11 | 0.255 | 14 | 0.0 |
| Martin Prado | 553 | 72 | 56 | 11 | 0.289 | 4 | -0.3 |
| Ryan Raburn | 476 | 64 | 66 | 18 | 0.264 | 4 | -0.8 |
| Sean Rodriguez | 462 | 66 | 57 | 15 | 0.252 | 12 | -1.0 |
| Aaron Hill | 516 | 62 | 61 | 14 | 0.256 | 11 | -1.0 |
| Ryan Roberts | 472 | 61 | 51 | 14 | 0.255 | 14 | -1.1 |
| Omar Infante | 560 | 62 | 54 | 8 | 0.291 | 4 | -1.2 |
| Orlando Hudson | 561 | 68 | 51 | 8 | 0.263 | 13 | -1.2 |
| Gordon Beckham | 549 | 70 | 61 | 13 | 0.256 | 6 | -1.5 |
| Allen Craig | 318 | 43 | 50 | 13 | 0.288 | 3 | -2.1 |
| Maicer Izturis | 473 | 59 | 48 | 5 | 0.272 | 10 | -2.2 |
| Freddy Sanchez | 487 | 53 | 47 | 6 | 0.284 | 1 | -3.2 |
| Brian Roberts | 330 | 44 | 29 | 5 | 0.274 | 13 | -3.3 |
| Ryan Theriot | 456 | 52 | 34 | 2 | 0.278 | 9 | -3.5 |
| Mark Ellis | 450 | 49 | 45 | 8 | 0.255 | 9 | -3.6 |
| Justin Turner | 393 | 45 | 39 | 5 | 0.271 | 6 | -4.1 |
| Chone Figgins | 316 | 38 | 22 | 2 | 0.261 | 16 | -4.6 |
| Darwin Barney | 321 | 36 | 25 | 2 | 0.275 | 6 | -5.4 |
| Robert Andino | 296 | 34 | 24 | 4 | 0.253 | 7 | -6.4 |
| Tsuyoshi Nishioka | 506 | 30 | 43 | 0 | 0.241 | 4 | -7.3 |
• First, I would not be to worried about someone being a spot or two lower than expected. The key is to look at the Ranking Value and compare it to other players.
• The top 5 2B all seem pretty reasonable, but from 6 on down there could be much controversy.
• The rankings like Jason Kipnis quite a bit. Personally, I am not putting him at the same level as others around him. Johnny Giavotella is another player ranked higher than I expected. I don’t know if the Royals think he is the answer at 2B, so I could see playing time being a huge issue in 2012.
• Dustin Ackley has little love except being predicted to some how have the most PA among 2B. Kelly Johnson is another player that is lower than I expected.
Some players have their values down because of playing time (ex. Ryan and Brian Roberts). To even out the numbers for playing time, here are the players ranked with their stats adjusted for 600 PAs:
| Name | Runs | RBI | HR | AVG | SB | Ranking Value |
| Ian Kinsler | 100 | 72 | 23 | 0.271 | 23 | 5.4 |
| Robinson Cano | 86 | 90 | 22 | 0.302 | 4 | 4.5 |
| Chase Utley | 89 | 83 | 22 | 0.280 | 15 | 4.5 |
| Jason Kipnis | 95 | 74 | 19 | 0.272 | 19 | 4.1 |
| Allen Craig | 81 | 94 | 25 | 0.288 | 6 | 4.0 |
| Dustin Pedroia | 89 | 68 | 16 | 0.299 | 16 | 3.7 |
| Brandon Phillips | 82 | 71 | 17 | 0.279 | 14 | 2.0 |
| Howie Kendrick | 80 | 74 | 14 | 0.287 | 13 | 1.9 |
| Rickie Weeks | 94 | 61 | 22 | 0.262 | 12 | 1.7 |
| Michael Young | 77 | 78 | 12 | 0.306 | 5 | 1.6 |
| Danny Espinosa | 80 | 71 | 24 | 0.248 | 18 | 1.6 |
| Ben Zobrist | 82 | 74 | 17 | 0.262 | 17 | 1.5 |
| Michael Cuddyer | 80 | 79 | 20 | 0.275 | 7 | 1.5 |
| Sean Rodriguez | 86 | 74 | 19 | 0.252 | 16 | 1.5 |
| Ryan Raburn | 81 | 83 | 23 | 0.264 | 5 | 1.4 |
| Dan Uggla | 85 | 82 | 29 | 0.251 | 2 | 1.4 |
| Daniel Murphy | 72 | 77 | 12 | 0.302 | 7 | 1.3 |
| Brian Roberts | 80 | 53 | 9 | 0.274 | 24 | 0.4 |
| Ryan Roberts | 78 | 65 | 18 | 0.255 | 18 | 0.3 |
| Neil Walker | 71 | 81 | 14 | 0.273 | 8 | 0.2 |
| Johnny Giavotella | 71 | 65 | 8 | 0.295 | 13 | 0.0 |
| Jemile Weeks | 70 | 52 | 4 | 0.279 | 29 | -0.2 |
| Kelly Johnson | 79 | 63 | 19 | 0.251 | 13 | -0.3 |
| Aaron Hill | 72 | 71 | 16 | 0.256 | 13 | -0.6 |
| Martin Prado | 78 | 61 | 12 | 0.289 | 4 | -0.7 |
| Maicer Izturis | 75 | 61 | 6 | 0.272 | 13 | -1.5 |
| Gordon Beckham | 77 | 67 | 14 | 0.256 | 7 | -1.7 |
| Chone Figgins | 72 | 42 | 4 | 0.261 | 30 | -1.7 |
| Orlando Hudson | 73 | 55 | 9 | 0.263 | 14 | -2.3 |
| Omar Infante | 66 | 58 | 9 | 0.291 | 4 | -2.3 |
| Justin Turner | 69 | 60 | 8 | 0.271 | 9 | -2.6 |
| Mark Ellis | 65 | 60 | 11 | 0.255 | 12 | -3.0 |
| Dustin Ackley | 71 | 52 | 9 | 0.255 | 12 | -3.3 |
| Freddy Sanchez | 65 | 58 | 7 | 0.284 | 1 | -3.5 |
| Ryan Theriot | 68 | 45 | 3 | 0.278 | 12 | -3.7 |
| Robert Andino | 69 | 49 | 8 | 0.253 | 14 | -3.7 |
| Darwin Barney | 67 | 47 | 4 | 0.275 | 11 | -3.7 |
| Tsuyoshi Nishioka | 36 | 51 | 0 | 0.241 | 5 | -9.7 |
• Allen Craig (not 2B qualified in all leagues, but added per a reader’s request) takes a huge jump. Craig, along with Jason Kipnis, jump ahead of Dustin Pedroia. This discrepancy is where this projection system doesn’t regress enough. There is no way a player with little MLB experience should have more talent than established MLB stars. Putting each player at 600 PA is not a huge reach for all 3 in 2012. Having Kipnis and Craig putting up stats at a higher rate than Pedroia is a problem.
• Dustin Ackley falls into the Mark Ellis and Freddy Sanchez level. I don’t even hate him that much.
The first 2012 projections are out. While not the best system, the Bill James Projections give fantasy owners a reference to start evaluating players for 2012.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
i’m surprised how low dan uggla is. if the predictions are accurate there are going to be a ton of people overpaying for him.
He’s especially low if you are in a league that counts walks. If he plays in 2012 like he did in the second half of 2011, that comes out to some pretty hefty numbers (35 hrs, etc.).
People discount way too much how badly a low BA hurts you in roto.
How about my lil buddy Jose Altuve? He is included in the James projections with a line of 64/46/10/19/.297, which looks as though it would put him in the middle of the pack here.
I just didn’t have him on my list of players to query. When the other projections come out, I will add him to it.
This thing doesn’t include the aging factor either (for Phillips & Utley). I have them a little lower on my rankings for that reason.
does this change your views on Espinosa? Even with the terrible AVG, a 2B who can put up 20+ HR and 15+ SB is pretty darn valuable in fantasy.
I didn’t like the 2nd half drop off one bit. Whether it was his position in the lineup or pitchers pitching him differently, the drop in power and plate discipline was severe.
on a side note, Bill James projections are always ridiculously optimistic on the young guys who put up big numbers in the high minors (again probably because of the lack of regression). Every year there are guys like Kipnis or Craig who get big fatty projections and cause poor fantasy owners to overpay… just ask those who drafted Kila-monster last year.
the projections for vets with established major league track records are solid (which makes sense because those are the easiest guys to project anyway) but I would take some of those eye-opening projections for rookies or sophs with a big grain of salt.
Then I don’t understand the hate for Ackley. He put up a .303/.421/.487 slash line in AAA over 331 PA’s last year and did well in AA as well. He hit .273 in the majors. James’ other numbers look about right for Ackley, but I would bet a lot of money Ackley hits better than .255 next season, barring injury. Looking at the other numbers for James on Ackley’s page a .388 SLG also looks low, by a bit.
Triple slash lines mean NOTHING in fantasy unless the first slash is a high BA.
jeff, is there a way to get the bill james projections in a spreadsheet?
i assume you didn’t look up and record each and every one of these numbers using just the player pages. going one player at a time is just not practical for doing any sort of serious analysis.
Yes, there is a way to get them in a spreadsheet: buy them at http://bis-store.stores.yahoo.net/bijahapr206.html
oh. gross. no way i’m paying $10 per season for projections that are worse than i can get for free.
thanks for the info.
No. The Dark Overlord (Appelmen) has the rights to publish them, he can’t distribute them. I have access to the FG database, so I just query the 2B I am looking at.
I don’t get why Dan Uggla gets such a bad ranking all the time. Among 2B, he was tied for 6th in runs, 1st in homers and 6th in RBI. He’s not perfect and his BA leaves some to be desired, but its a position with little offense and he’s not that hard to compensate for with a high BA guy at a different position. Whatever, I take him annually and my team’s have been in it in competitive leagues for quite a while, so please keep ranking him so low!
“he’s not that hard to compensate for with a high BA guy at a different position.”
You aren’t fully accounting for his negative effect on BA if you believe this.
and he is a total zero in SB.
yes, he is a stud in 3 categories but unfortunately there are 5….. and he is TERRIBLE in the other two.
On Kipnis, the Bill James projections are notoriously optimistic with youngsters. If I remember correctly, minor league data isn’t used at all (could be getting systems confused) and regression is light.
Some funny comments here. This James guy clearly isn’t going to make it. Hope he has a fallback career.
(Seriously, it’s good to question anyone, even the sacred cows. But it’s unusual to hear James taken to task. Actually, maybe it’s refreshing, in a way. Question anyone, everything, in an intelligent, measured way of course.)