Joc Pederson has had one heck of a 2014. The center fielder has blown away the already-high expectations placed before him this year, leading all of Triple-A in home runs, on-base percentage, on-base plus slugging, walks and runs scored. To be fair, his spot atop the list in some of those categories is partially thanks to the simple fact that he’s been in Triple-A all season — and playing half his games in the bandbox at Albuquerque —  but it’s still pretty astounding stuff.

All told, Pederson owns a .304/.434/.590 slash, with 33 homers and 30 steals, making him the first player with a 30/30 season in the Pacific Coast League since Frank Demaree accomplished the feat way back in 1934. He is also the first player this author knows of who has given away his car as a ballpark promotion.

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All year, both Dustin Pedroia and Martin Prado have been falling down my monthly tiered second-base rankings, to the point where I couldn’t recommend either in anything but AL/NL-only leagues or very deep mixers. Over the last few weeks, both Pedroia and Prado have put themselves back into mixed-league consideration — in the last 30 days,  Pedroia was the No. 10 fantasy second baseman, with Prado at No. 15.

So who would you rather own rest-of-season? Both are aging second-sackers with steadily fading production, but both are coming off pretty good months:

• Pedroia (Last 30 days) – .325 AVG, 1 HR, 8 RBI, 17 R, 3 SB
• Prado (Last 30 days) – .253 AVG, 4 HR, 16 RBI, 12 R, 1 SB

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For the season, Ian Kinsler has played pretty well. He’s the No. 6 second baseman in standard fantasy formats and, on the surface, he’s having a pretty typical Ian Kinsler season. His .732 on-base plus slugging is pretty much in line with the .753 OPS he averaged in his last two seasons with the Rangers. He’s got 11 homers so far, following 13 last year and 19 in 2012. He’s showed better efficiency on the basepaths, improving last year’s 15-for-26 mark in stolen-base attempts to an impressive 12-for-15.

However, a look at his plate discipline numbers suggests something amiss with Kinsler. His strikeout rate is great, as always, as his 10.7% K-rate is a notch better than his 11.7% career rate. However, the 32-year-old has suddenly stopped taking walks, with an alarming 4.0% BB-rate — miles away from his career 9.1% mark. In fact, Kinsler’s worst single-season walk rate coming into 2014 was 8.2% two years ago.

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I got my first opportunity to see Jorge Soler in person last Friday, and to say that he was impressive would be a colossal understatement. I’d read the scouting reports, watched him on MiLB.tv, etc. But Soler is one of those guys that you just can’t really prepare yourself for. He’s so insanely talented that it would be easy to get lost in superlatives while merely naming off his attributes.

The 22-year-old Soler has been even better than Javier Baez (my thoughts on him here) or Kris Bryant (write-up on him here) this season. Sure, Bryant and Baez have put up video-game numbers of their own, but what Soler has managed to accomplish through 43 games — split between Double-A and Triple-A — is simply astounding. Through 156 plate appearances (he’s missed time with hamstring injuries), Soler is hitting an outrageous .346/.442/.746. In addition to his 11 homers, Soler has hit more doubles (17) than singles (16).

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Yesterday was the trade deadline in the keeper league I’ve been in for over a dozen years. I’m in the midst of a full rebuild, and was spending the day shopping around my spare parts in exchange for draft picks and prospect upgrades. (Without boring you with too many details, each of the 12 teams keeps eight major-league players per year.)

Daniel Murphy is one guy I was openly shopping. Without even really thinking about it, I envisioned him as one of my more valuable spare parts; someone who wasn’t in my long-term plans, but could bring back a nice haul. It was only when I started getting offers for him that I started to really evaluate the way I view him as a fantasy commodity.

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In 1948, Preston Tucker introduced the Tucker Sedan, a revolutionary automobile that innovated several safety features still in use today. The Tucker 48 posed a threat to the major automobile manufacturers of the time, and the company fell into bankruptcy amidst smear campaigns and a lengthy SEC trial, in which Tucker was acquitted on all counts. His story inspired the 1988 Francis Ford Coppola film Tucker: The Man and His Dream, which is an okay movie. Jeff Bridges is really good as Tucker, but it’s a pretty cheesy flick.

In 2014, Preston Tucker (no relation, at least that I know of) is an outfielder in the Astros’ system. Largely overlooked, thanks to Houston’s crazy-deep farm system, Tucker didn’t make a whole lot of top prospects lists this year, but he still got enough attention to slide in at No. 21 on SB Nation’s organizational consensus top prospect list.

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If you’d like to check out my tiered second-base rankings from last month, click here.

TIER ONE

Jose Altuve
Anthony Rendon
Robinson Cano

Rendon’s awful month of May sure does feel like it happened ages ago. Since the calendar turned over to June, Rendon has hit eight homers and stolen eight bases, with a .294/.353/.498 slash. He also leads the entire National League in runs scored for the season. Rendon is a true five-category fantasy stud, and moves up from Tier Two into Tier One this month.

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Yesterday morning, the Twins dealt Sam Fuld to Oakland for Tommy Milone, in a trade that I feel is getting somewhat unwarranted criticism. I’ve seen the term “highway robbery” thrown around, often with the addendum that the Twins “won the trade.”

In a vacuum, yes, Tommy Milone for Sam Fuld is kind of ridiculous. Milone is a 27-year-old lefty with a career 3.84 earned run average who could anchor the back end of the Twins rotation for years. Fuld is a 32-year-old fourth outfielder with a career .240/.323/.337 slash. However, Milone didn’t really have any value to Oakland as their No. 8 starter, and Fuld fills an immediate need as a platoon partner for Jonny Gomes.

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I’ve been a believer in Brian Dozier for quite some time now. Since his breakout around the midway point of last season, Dozier has consistently been one of the most valuable second basemen in fantasy. This year, things only got better, as Dozier started taking more walks and showing much-increased aggressiveness on the basepaths. For a full calendar year, Dozier was an elite fantasy option and five-category contributor, showing no signs of slowing down.

Then July arrived and Dozier came crashing down to earth, with a slash of just .213/.232/.404. The power has still been there, but little else has. There are lots of things to be worried about regarding his performance in July, but none moreso than the figures below:

• April – 19 BB, 26 K
• May – 13 BB, 18 K
• June – 19 BB, 21 K
• July – 1 BB, 21 K

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Despite Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer’s best attempts to convince fans otherwise, it seems that Javier Baez will likely be in the majors sooner rather than later. While Hoyer brushes off several recent adjustments made to his roster as being big-picture moves, it’s impossible not to notice the openings being created for major-league playing time for Baez.

Baez recently started seeing time at second base with Triple-A Iowa. If, as Hoyer claims, this was done “to increase his versatility,” the timing is awfully coincidental. All within the space of about a week, the Cubs had Baez start playing at the keystone, designated incumbent second-sacker Darwin Barney for assignment, and tested the waters with Arismendy Alcantara playing center field.

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