Eno Sarris just published the Rotographs 2012 composite rankings for 2B. I will be concentrating on covering 2B for this upcoming season. Besides over analyzing 2B, I will contributing to the composite rankings. Today, I am going to go over some of my thoughts on the initial rankings and then give an overview of how I ranked the players.

2B Rankings

-The four of us are in general agreement over the first 6 picks with not one ranking really diverging. The first disagreement happens at the 7th and 8th spot where Eno likes Rickie Weeks more than the rest of us and he is not fond of Howie Kendrick.

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A pitcher’s fantasy value is more than ERA, WHIP or K/9. Even if they have great values in rate stats, they are useless if they aren’t pitching. Today I am going to give the chances for certain starting pitchers to end up on the disabled list in 2012.

Last year, I determined a formula to get the percentage chance a pitcher will end up on the DL. Historically, any starter that pitched 120 innings in the previous season has a 41% chance of ending up on the DL. So of a team’s 5 starters, 2 will spend time on the DL on average.

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One of the keys to winning at fantasy baseball, especially in deep leagues, is to have players that will actually, you know, spend time on the field. No matter how much ability a player possesses, they are useless if they aren’t getting playing time. I am going to look during this preseason for possible changes in playtime for various players.

Todd Helton –- The Rockies plan on playing Helton in only 100 to 110 games in 2012 even if he is healthy.

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Eno was the first to put out his bold 10 predictions for 2012. I will now give it a stab.

1) Brennan Boesch will be a Top 30 fantasy player. I liked Boesch even before Prince Fielder was signed. He has the potential to have 20+ home runs and 100+ runs since the Tigers say they will bat him in the No. 2 hole. Also, pitchers are going to challenge him quite a bit since they would rather face him then either Miguel Cabrera or Fielder.

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Grady Sizemore

Grady is out until opening day with a strained lower back. Grady has played in only 104 games total over the last 2 seasons and is fairly familiar with the being on the DL. Currently, there is no firm time table for his return.

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Ryan Braun will not have to serve a 50 day suspension for performance enhancing drugs. While many ramifications may come from this ruling, I will get to the meat of the matter. How does the ruling affect his and his teammates fantasy value?

Ryan Braun

Ryan now jumps up from a late 2nd to 5th round pick with the suspension, to being one of the first players taken. Before the news was released, many people considered him the top pick in the draft. This high ranking should not change, but it may just a bit.

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Some people love following prospects from the time the players are in high school and college to when they make it to the majors. I am not one of those people. It is important to have some idea of which prospects may have a impact in an upcoming fantasy baseball season. To keep the process simple every year, I create a combined ranking of different prospect rankings and merge them into one composite ranking. This year ranking ended using 7 different lists (I waited until Baseball America released their list to make it complete). Seven minds are better than one, especially if the one mind is mine.

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Zach Britton (BAL – P) – In 2011, Britton started his first season in the majors on a tear. After his first 10 games, the ground ball pitcher had a 2.35 ERA and 5 Wins. The good start to the season was because of an extremely low BABIP (0.242). Over the next 10 games, he had an 8.00 ERA that was BABIP (0.410) driven. At this point in the season, he went on the DL for 17 days with should inflammation. After the short DL stint, he came back and pitched much better, with an 4.47 ERA and a 0.282 BABIP. During the whole time, he was able to maintain a relatively constant strikeout rate, walk rate and fastball speed.

This off season, he stated that his shoulder has still been in pain. He had an MRI on it that came back negative. With that news, he has begun long toss sessions to get ready for the season. The 23-year-old stated that he will just have to deal with the inflammation at various times over his career.

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With Yahoo finally opening up its mock drafts, I am going to look today at how second basemen are being drafted at Yahoo compared to MockDraftCentral.com. Here is the list of 2B drafted at Yahoo and their positions drafted at MDC along with some notes.

Note: Remember that the rankings are highly based off of the website’s initial rankings of the players.

Notes

– The first major difference in the drafts was Ben Zobrist being taken 27 places higher. I have Zobrist lumped in with a group of 2B including Uggla, Young, Phillips, Utley, Kendrick, Cuddyer and Weeks (Rickie). At MDC, Rickie Weeks, on average, is being taken 1 spot ahead of Zobrist. At Yahoo, Zobrist is being taken 36 spots earlier. As a group, these 7 2B average being a taken at 67th over all at Yahoo. At MDC, they average being taken at the 77th spot. I believe there is plenty of talent at the 2B position and there is no reason reach for one of this group early. I think MDC’s numbers are closer to where these 2B should be drafted, about one round later.

– Danny Espinosa and Neil Walker are lower at Yahoo compared to MDC. I am guessing it is because everyone has already participated in a run on the over-ranked 2B earlier in the draft. The pair has been taken 100% of the time on both websites.

– Kelly Johnson is loved and Aaron Hill is hated by Yahoo compared to MDC. At MDC, they are being taken at almost the same clip. Johnson was taken 71% of the time with a ADP of 235. Aaron Hill was taken 81% of the with an ADP of 233. Aaron’s ADP drops 21 places to the lowest value among 2B at Yahoo. Johnson’s ADP jumps 24 spots and is the last 2B taken 100% of the time at Yahoo. Owners know that Hill has the ability to produce and are taking him late in 83% of the Yahoo leagues.

– Jason Kipnis is the biggest dropper from MDC to Yahoo of the 2B. His percentage drafted is similar (92% vs 97%), but is being taken almost 6 rounds later in the draft.

– I would not use the preset rankings for reference at all at Yahoo, especially later in the draft. If a person was to go off the percentage drafted, the ranking of the players are much improved.

Marco Scutaro

Marco has been handed the 2B job of the Rockies after being traded by Boston for Clayton Mortenson. Scutaro has put up decent numbers averaging about 10 HRs and a 0.285 AVG with Boston over the last 2 seasons. While the 36-year-old is not a spring chicken, he projects to hit around 0.275 with 9 HRs.

While he is not an offensive power by any means, he is better than what the Rockies recycled through the 2B spot in 2011. They tried 7 different players at 2B last season. The seven players had a 0.256/0.304/0.351 triple slash line compared to the N.L. average for 2B of 0.258/0.319/0.380. Scutaro looks to be a significant improvement at 2B for the Rockies.

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