Today is kind of a big day for the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team. I’m excited. I haven’t really done the chant thing yet, but that’s mostly because I watched their group-stage matches in my home, where for some reason I’d feel more uncomfortable doing it.

I categorized the catchers for this month by USMNT’s all-time leaders in clean sheets. (That’s “shutouts,” which are registered by goalkeepers, for the uninitiated.) The Yanks could use one of those today versus Belgium. I doubt that they’ll be so fortunate, but I expect them to exhibit considerably more promise in the attacking third than they did against zee Germans.

The more clean sheets, the higher the netminder. No subjective hierarchy here. Just like my catcher tiers. Wink wink. You’re welcome to compare to last month’s.

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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
Ian Kinsler
Robinson Cano

Alright, Cano, you’ve officially got company. I said last month that, if Cano still wasn’t hitting many homers, he would no longer be the sole occupant of Tier One, and I am staying true to my word. Cano’s got three homers over the last month, and a total of five on the season. Altuve and Kinsler are both having monster years, and I would take either over Cano rest-of-season. Cano is still having a very productive season, and the slight uptick in power in June is a welcome sign, but Altuve and Kinsler are simply performing far too well to keep valuing Cano over them in his own tier.

TIER TWO

Brian Dozier
Dee Gordon
Anthony Rendon
Daniel Murphy
Jason Kipnis

If you’re in an on-base percentage league, push Dozier up into that first tier as well. I took some heat for ranking Gordon fourth last month, but he was the No. 6 fantasy second baseman in June, and he’s still No. 2 on the season. Sticking to my guns with him.

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We just finished ranking week (find them easily on the right-hand nav bar), and since I’m apparently a masochist, I’m going to jump right back in and examine where I was different from the consensus. We’ll do as many positions as possible today — I’ll focus on those players that are most differently positioned in my rankings — before checking out the pitchers.

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Relievers are a volatile bunch. Some of you drafted the Greg Hollands and Koji Ueharas of the world early and you’re like “this closer game is easy.” Others are saying “I can’t believe I spent a ninth-round draft pick on Joe Nathan.” More are lauding their own snag of Francisco Rodriguez from the Opening Day waiver wire while their fellow players still lament that between Joe Smith, Rex Brothers, Mark Melancon, and Darren O’Day, their free agent scavenging has borne little fruit.

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Starting pitching is so tough to evaluate. First, you get massive amounts of information every five days, but each of those bursts of information is tied to a single park or team and is so context dependent. Second, there are only five starting slots, and if you’re the sixth-best starting pitcher on your team, you’re outta luck.

That last part is really the reason for the delay on these rankings. Tony Cingrani was a starting pitcher yesterday and we were about to pub the rankings — and then news came out that Mat Latos would take his slot this week. Now Cingrani is suddenly among the prospects — who are impossible to project given their uncertain role — and waiting for Alfredo Simon to pumpkin or Latos to hurt again. That’s not great for his ranking.

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When you start ranking outfielders, all you can think about is how many there are. It seems impossible. And then something funny happens, somewhere in the 60s for me — you run out of ones you really want in your lineup. And then there’s a ton left, yes, but they’re all mix and match fantasy platoon outfielders. And they aren’t super easy on the eyes.

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Third base has had some nicks and cuts but has survived fairly intact. Sure, Evan Longoria has takent some time to get going, and David Wright looks like he won’t be that counting stat monster going forward. And Nolan Arenado’s injury has been a disappointment. I’m sure some of you are even upset about the terrible start Mike Moustakas has had.

But, generally, the position looks pretty good still.

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Whoo boy. What a turd of a position.

Sure, in the shallower leagues, you’re okay. There’s about 5-10 shortstops that I want to have and another seven or so that look okay to me. If you waited and picked Dee Gordon (or got him off waivers), congrats. Alexei Ramirez was another great late pick. Jimmy Rollins is resurgent. It looks like a good Alcides Escobar year — not a bad one at least.

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It’s that time again, updated American League starting pitcher tiers! We’re now far enough into the season where I have to finally take skills changes into serious consideration. Velocity changes are real, as are changes in repertoire and various advanced metrics such as the strike type percentages. While I have sometimes in the past concerned myself with rankings within tiers, I am not doing so anymore. They did begin in descending order of my projected dollar value, but it’s simply not all that helpful to determine whether Tanaka is above or below King Felix at this point. So, consider any pitcher within a tier to be worth within a several buck range of each other.

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The key word for second base is: close. When it comes to the top three, apparently the rest-of-season projections have changed the order daily over the past three days. Jeff Zimmerman had to call it, at some point, and it was Jose Altuve by the slimmest of margins.

For me, the closest rankings came later.

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