Last week we kicked off our 2010 keeper league rankings, and Troy Tulowitzki and Jose Reyes were alone in the top tier of shortstops. This week we take a look at a second tier that is filled with the new youth movement at a position that could use a shot in the arm.

Asdrubal Cabrera ($19)

How much you value Cabrera is likely in direct correlation with how much you believe in his power. He hit 25 home runs in 667 plate appearances last season after hitting just 35 home runs since 2006, spanning 2,713 plate appearances in both the majors and minors. Back in June I wrote about how I believed in Cabrera’s new found power, citing an Ohio.com piece, as well as one written by our own Joe Pawlikowski, which noted a change he made in his swing similar to that of Ben Zobrist. My views haven’t changed. He’s going to be 26 on Opening Day and provides 20 home run power to go along with 15-20 stolen base potential. Yes, his OBP and wOBA declined month by month, but if you believe in the power there’s no reason value him lower.

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My Mother used to have a way of telling you that she really didn’t like something without having to sound outright nasty about it. She would size up whatever was in her cross-hairs — a haircut, a girlfriend, a new pair of tennis shoes and say, “well that’s… different.”

As I continue to look at the rather suspicious keeper prospects of third base, I can’t help but want to apply her diplomacy. Because this group, while mostly promising, is — well, different. The first tier for third base featured just Jose Bautista and Evan Longoria, and the second tier is full of some pretty great talent, but all come with question marks that leave their keeper status a little up in the proverbial air relative to what you paid for them and their perceived value going forward. On Saturday, we covered Ryan Zimmerman, Kevin Youkilis, and Adrian Beltre. And similar to that post, the remainder of this second tier is presented in no particular order.

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This batch of American League outfielders is the smallest. The reason? Unlike those from the first tier, none of these players can be counted on to be an OF1 because of some kind of flaw, obstacle or hiccup…but all three of them are also capable of being your top OF in the end, if you squint through the appropriately-colored glasses.

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Tier 1
Dustin Pedroia
Ian Kinsler
Robinson Cano

Tier 2
Michael Young
Brandon Phillips
Rickie Weeks
Chase Utley

Reminder, I have based most of these rankings off my 2B player talent values.

Michael Cuddyer – Cuddyer has one big question over his head right now. What team will he be on next year? Some reports have him back in Minnesota or with the Indians. Depending on the lineup and stadium of the team he signs with, his value will change significantly.

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The top of the outfielder food chain is a crowded place. Between our first National League tier, the first American League tier, and these three talented dudes, we’ve already got nine excellent players. It seems to make sense to wait to pick your OF1 in mixed leagues, doesn’t it?

Tier One
Matt Kemp
Ryan Braun

Tier Two
Justin Upton
Little Brother did a lot of things right this year. He cut his strikeout rate to one that was better than league average for the first time (18.7% in 2011, 23.9% career). He hit a career high in home runs, runs, RBI, and stolen bases. His ISO was the best of his career, too (.240 in 2011, .211 career). In the end, only five outfielders in all of baseball outproduced Upton last year.

The fact that there’s no obvious outlier in his peripherals can only be considered a good thing. Sure, he hit all those career highs, but all of them were within hailing distance of his career numbers (other than, perhaps, strikeout rate). His BABIP (.319) was reasonable and below his career number (.337). His increase in power was tied to an increase in fly balls, but even that seems sustainable. he hit 44.8% fly balls last year, and his career number is 41%.

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The 2012 Catcher keeper rankings continue here with the third tier which is filled with a little bit of hope and a whole lot of promise.  How much of that promise we see…well, that’s going to be the question.  In case you missed the first two tiers, here are links to Tier 1 and Tier 2 so you can see exactly where these guys here in Tier 3 rank in the grand scheme of things.

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The first tier to the third base keeper rankings was decidedly small, featuring only Evan Longoria and Jose Bautista (for those of you wondering, yes, Jason Catania and I have decided that he’s awesome enough to be top keeper at two positions). There was a moderate degree of discontent regarding the decisions revolving around the first tier, although I’ll admit I was expecting a greater degree of vitriol.

Many of you seem to have concluded (as several of us around here have), that third base is riddled with land mines relative to keeper status and it’s hard to use one of your few keeper picks on guys that are either old, ineffective, or so young that predicting future performance remains rather tenuous. Nonetheless, the second tier features some first tier talent based on 2011 performance not to mention some formerly high-ranked players who didn’t live up to expectations in 2011. The second tier, in fact, is long enough to consume two posts, featuring (in no particular order) Brett Lawrie, Adrian Beltre, Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright, Pablo Sandoval, and Kevin Youkilis. I’ll take a look at half that batch today.

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After looking at the top tier of 2B, I will move onto the 2nd tier. The top 3 are much better than these 4 players, but the drop off after these three is much smaller.

I am basing the list heavily off of the talent ranking I did recently. As a general rule, the ranking did not like younger players with little MLB experience.

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While working on my 2B rankings, I kept seeing Dustin Ackley and Jason Kipnis ranked low. The rankings were a combination of 2011 stats and ZIP preseason projections. While they both hit good in 2011, the projections seemed low. I decided to look into players that had similar rookie seasons and how they performed the next year.

I took all rookies from 1991 to 2011 that had between 150 and 400 PA and an OPS between 0.750 and 0.850. I chose to use OPS, because it is an encompassing stat that is available in the options at Baseball-reference’s Pay Index. Twenty-eight players made the list. Besides Ackley and Kipnis, two other rookies from 2011 where on it, Paul Goldschmidt and Eric Thames. In the end, I had 24 players to use in the comparison.

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First things first: As Howard Bender noted yesterday, we’ve decided to move away from a rigid tiering system into something with a little more flexibility. At this point, very little changes in what’s already out there. I still like Ian Kennedy a lot because of the production you get for his value and for some of the reasons I’ll get into with Tim Lincecum below.

I’m still going to list the values for those interested, just know that if a $13 player is listed above a $16 player, it isn’t a typo.

In fact, without further adieu, let’s jump right into the melee. Read the rest of this entry »