As we move into draft season, I will be updating these rankings occasionally, when there is news to justify changes. The original rankings will stay at the bottom of the article to maintain my player notes. The original middle infield rankings were posted 1/25 and the most recent update is 2/27.

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Earlier this week, Lucas Kelly and Chad Young ran though their tough keep or cut decisions at middle infield for their Ottoneu teams. Now I’ll join in on the party and run through three players on my bubble and where I think the keep line could be for each of them. All P/G projections are from the 2024 Steamer projections.

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Ryan McMahon 2B/3B
Salary: $6 and $10
Average Salary: $11.4
2023 P/G: 4.71
Projected 2024 P/G: 4.95

Ryan McMahon’s career trajectory has been anything but a straight line. A breakout season in 2019 was followed by an extremely disappointing pandemic-shortened season. A second breakout in 2021 made it seem like he had gotten things back on track but he took some significant steps back the next year and followed that up with another step back this year.

It all comes down to his strikeout rate. In 2021, he struck out a career-low 24.7% of the time while continuing to hit for power and draw a decent amount of walks. The strikeout rate stayed low last year but his power dried up a bit despite similar looking underlying batted ball peripherals. His quality of contact stayed mostly the same in 2023 — a good thing — but his strikeout rate suddenly shot back up above 30%. It’s pretty easy to see why.

His ability to make contact on pitches in the zone absolutely cratered last year. His walk rate was actually a career-high 10.8% which indicates he still had a decent idea of which pitches to swing at. Unfortunately, his ability to consistently make contact with those right pitches eluded him. For a player with his offensive profile, making the most of every single ball he puts in play is paramount, but when those below-average bat-to-ball skills take a turn for the worse, the whole house of cards collapses.

Keep or Cut?
The good news is that his quality of contact is still present. He posted career bests in barrel rate and expected wOBA this year and will continue to play in the most hitter friendly environment in baseball. His profile will always be a little risky thanks to his below average contact skills even if his power and discipline give him a solid floor in this format. Steamer projects a bit of a bounce back in his strikeout rate at the cost of some power leading to an overall wOBA right in line with what he’s done the last two years. That puts his value somewhere between $8 and $11 based on the Auction Calculator. I’m rostering him in two leagues and I’m definitely keeping him at $6. In the other league, he’s still on my bubble since that team desperately needs cap space and I’m not sure keeping McMahon at essentially market value is the best use of resources there.

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Jeff McNeil 2B/OF
Salary: $8 and $13
Average Salary: $10.9
2023 P/G: 4.35
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.14

A year ago, Jeff McNeil was coming off a phenomenal season in which he won the NL batting crown, was an All-Star, and received down-ballot MVP votes. Fast forward a year and McNeil’s star looks a lot less bright. It’s not hard to figure out the issue that sank his season this year: it’s all about the BABIP. In many ways, his offensive struggles this year look a lot like the mediocre season he put together in 2021. Unfortunately, there are a lot more red flags this year than there were two years ago.

It’s important to note that McNeil’s full season stats hide the ebbs and flows of his season. He actually started off fairly strong, posting a 139 wRC+ through the first month of the season, but a prolonged summer slump dragged his production into a crater that even a late season surge couldn’t salvage.

For the most part, his wOBA followed his BABIP, which makes sense for a player so dependent on his high-contact approach. The weird thing was the gigantic spike in strikeout rate that occurred in the middle of the season. It’s almost as if he tried to swing his way out of his slump which only exacerbated his issues. Despite that huge mountain of strikeouts during the summer, his overall strikeout rate ended up at nearly a career-low by the end of the season. His ability to make contact isn’t in question.

I am a little more worried about his quality of contact. McNeil has never really hit the ball all that hard, relying instead on an ability to spray his contact from line to line while never really producing all that much weak contact. Unfortunately, his hard hit rate fell three points to 27% and his sweet spot rate dropped seven points to 32.1%. It all culminated in a ghastly .281 expected wOBA on contact, easily a career-worst for him and one of the worst marks in baseball among qualified batters. For a batter who relies so heavily on putting the ball in play, to have such a dramatic drop in contact quality is a serious red flag.

Keep or Cut?
McNeil now has almost 2700 career plate appearances with a .346 wOBA and Steamer projected a nice bounce back from him in 2024. Still, the drop in contact quality is a big concern which clouds his future a bit. During his down year in 2021, his hard hit and sweet spot rates were right in line with his career norms indicating that much of his struggles were simply rooted in bad batted ball luck; that’s not the case this year. Despite his up-and-down year, he was still worth $8 according to the Auction Calculator in 2023. Like McMahon, I’m rostering McNeil in two leagues and one is priced as an easy keep ($8) and the other puts him on the bubble ($13). There is certainly a universe where McNeil returns that higher value or even more but it now feels a little more risky than it did a year ago.

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Carlos Correa SS
Salary: $27
Average Salary: $27.4
2023 P/G: 4.45
Projected 2024 P/G: 5.40

A year ago, if you told me I had the option of keeping a $27 Carlos Correa, it would have been a no-brainer decision. One season long bout with Plantar Fasciitis has completely changed his fortunes. Health has always been an issue with Correa; he’s topped 150 games played in a season just once back in 2016 and has had major IL stints for a variety of ailments in nearly every other season. The production is obviously elite when he’s on the field, but you have to bake in some risk that he’ll miss significant time each season into your evaluation calculus.

While his foot injury sapped a lot of his power, he also underperformed many of his underlying metrics based on his batted ball quality. His hard hit and barrel rates were right in line with his career norms, but all of his expected stats outpaced what he actually produced at the plate this year and his BABIP fell from .339 to .272. That one-two punch of bad luck combined with bad health meant that he was a shell of his normal self in 2023.

The amount you value Correa in 2024 seems entirely dependent on how much you think he’ll play. If you believe he’ll be healthy and ready to play a full season, a $27 salary could be close to market value with the potential of becoming a steal if Correa is truly firing on all cylinders. As it is, $27 feels like too much of a risk for a player who had yet to prove he can stay on the field for an entire season.

Keep or Cut?
The team that has to make a decision about Correa also has Gunnar Henderson to cover shortstop if I end up cutting the former. Steamer projects a pretty significant bounce back campaign for Correa next year and the projection even accounts for around 20 games missed next year. Because I have Henderson to step into the full-time shortstop role and they’re priced around the same, I’ll be cutting Correa in favor of the younger option.

Last week I tried to create benchmarks for what should be considered a replacement-level player in a few of my FanGraphs points leagues. Here’s what I came up with for middle-infield players:

2B Replacement Level: 3.71 P/G
SS Replacement Level: 3.51 P/G

The actual MI position is a tricky one to nail down, so I’ll just separate the two positions out for now. This replacement level mark is not an exact science. Maybe your league mates have been stock-piling shortstops for some reason and that would change the way you calculate a replacement-level player. Regardless, if you have a sense of what kind of player you can typically find on the waiver wire throughout the season, you can make decisions on whether a player is worth keeping in 2024 or not. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few of my middle-infielders and analyze their keepworthiness for 2024.

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Tommy Edman, 2B/SS/OF
Salary: $11.00
Average Salary: $11.98
2023 P/G: 4.17
Proj 2024 P/G: 4.50

Edman’s projected 4.50 P/G according to Steamer places him in Tier 5 among all players who played in over 75 games last season. Steamer expects Edman to take a step forward in 2024, increasing his P/G mark by over 0.30 P/G. What’s the reason for that? Well, his BABIP was at a career-low .248 in 2023 and Steamer took notice, bumping it up to .264 in 2024, which is aiding increases in his slash line:

2023: .248/.307/.399
2024: .264/.321/.407 (PROJ)

Though Edman did lose some time to injury in 2023, he still reached 528 plate appearances. Steamer has bumped that up to 536 in 2024 and FanGraphs Depth Charts is even higher at 581. No one seems too concerned that Richie Palacios will be taking over either 2B or SS playing time from Edman in 2024. Unless something unexpected happens this offseason, Edman seems like a very good lock at everyday SS. Edman’s speed is still an asset and though FanGraphs points leagues reward power and slugging percentage more, speed still plays and I’m banking on a positive hitting regression for Edman.

Keep or Cut?
I am keeping for 2024. If I were rostering him for $12, I would cut him and take my chances trying to get him back for less at the auction. Cuts have not been made in this league yet, and when I look at the players who are not rostered at the 2B/SS positions who played more than 75 games in 2023, the best I can find is 4.35 P/G (Jeff McNeil). That makes me feel pretty good about where I’ve set the replacement level considering McNeil ended the year on the IL.

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Andrés Giménez, 2B
Average Salary: $9.11
Salary: $6.00
2023 P/G: 4.39
Proj 2024 P/G: 5.15

Giménez’s slash line took a hit in 2023 compared to 2022:

2022: .297/.371/.466
2023: .251/.314/.399
2024: .265/.328/.427 (PROJ)

If that’s not an example of a projection system regressing to the mean then I don’t know what is. It would be easy to say that he was BABIP’d in 2023 (.289) and move on. But Giménez is still only 25 years old and I do think there is another gear in his game. His power skills took a hit in 2023, but he played in a career-high 153 games. Could there be an aspect of fatigue involved? Take a look at some of his power skills between 2022 and 2023:

Barrel% 2022: 6.2 -> 2023: 5.5
HardHit% (Statcast) 2022: 37.6 -> 2023: 27.0
xwOBA 2022: .326 -> 2023: .300
EV: 2022: 87.8 -> 2023: 84.8
MaxEV 2022: 109.9 -> 2023: 108.8

He also started to pull the ball more with less power:

There is a disagreement between his statcast HardHit% and his SportsInfo measurements. Regardless of which you believe in more, the bump in 1% in the graph would need to be a whole lot higher in order for the pull-the-ball-in-the-air approach to help Giménez’s power. Though the table below is not adjusted for batted ball events, it does indicate that Giménez is generating the most power from line drives:

He seems to find himself in this place where he needs to add a little more power to his pull-the-ball-in-the-air approach, or he needs to simply focus on making hard contact and plate discipline to increase his BB%. His 30 stolen base potential is at risk and declines further from the .314 OBP he showed in 2023.

Keep or Cut?
Last season’s 4.39 P/G was well above what I’ve marked as replacement level (3.71 P/G) and Steamer likes a positive regression in 2024. The upside is there, stolen base potential and perhaps he finds a way to add power to his new approach. If not, and he reverts back to a harder-hit ball, not in the air, then I still like what he did in 2022. Most second basemen with over 75 games in 2023 at 5.00 P/G were rostered, on average, between $5-$12. I’m keeping anywhere below $8 and might even go a few dollars higher.

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Brice Turang, 2B/SS
Average Salary: $4.30
Salary: $3.00
2023 P/G: 2.51
Proj 2024 P/G: 3.87

Turang’s projection places him above the replacement level at 2B in 2024, but just barely. He came very close to a full season in 2023, playing 126 games and recording 546 plate appearances. Steamer projects a step forward when looking at his slash line:

2023: .218/.285/.300

2024: .246/.319/.370 (PROJ)

Steamer also thinks his six home runs and 26 stolen bases will turn into 10 home runs and 20 stolen bases next season. Turang is not being rostered in Ottoneu leagues due to his ability to provide a P/G mark above that of any replacement-level player. Managers are rostering for his future value and upside potential. The question is, will it come? For now, he seems good enough defensively to stay in the 2B position, and depending on what happens to shortstop Willy Adames in 2025 when he hits free agency, it could be a few more seasons before we really get a sense of what Turang will become. His contact rates from 2023 looked a little troublesome and he really struggled to hit the fastball. While rookies walked 8.1% and struck out 25.8% of the time in 2023, Turang did better, walking 8.5% of the time and striking out 21.0% of the time. However, he did not hit the ball hard very often, only barreling the ball 2.9% of the time. The league average among rookies is 7.6%.

Keep or Cut?
This is my last season holding Turang for upside and it might not last long. He hasn’t shown the skills necessary to be a rosterable hitter, yet. That is in a points format, however. Any player who can hit 10 home runs and steal 20 bases at a very low price should probably be rostered in roto formats. In points formats, anything over $3 is a cut for me.

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Jonathan India, 2B
Average Salary: $12.13
Salary: $16.00
2023 P/G: 5.20
Proj 2024 P/G: 5.23

India found himself in Jeff Zimmerman’s “Hitters Who Played Through a 2023 Injury” report at the end of the season, but the difference between his projected OPS and final OPS was a tiny .003. Regardless, Zimmerman’s research has determined a decline in performance while players play through injury, and with an injury like plantar fasciitis, the one India suffered through in 2023, you can hope that India will improve with health in 2024. Even with the injury, he was above replacement. Players who earned around the 5.0 P/G mark in 2023 with over 75 games have an average salary between $5-$14.

In 2023, India’s BB% increased, his K% decreased, but his overall slash line declined, except for SLG. His wOBA was also up over his 2022 mark. His BABIP was at a career low, .281. His power metrics and batted ball profile have roughly stayed the same, but he’s hitting the ball in the air more. The problem is that his fly ball increases did not correspond with his power increases throughout the season:

His swing percentages tell a story, I’m just not sure what the story is. It looks as if his swing decisions have improved. He has swung outside of the zone less often, swung inside the zone more often, and become more selective overall. None of that really helped against left-handed pitchers, though, he hit .207 against them. That’s the second-worst mark in front of Alan Trejo among second basemen with at least 100 plate appearances against lefties. That’s worrisome when you look at the Reds RosterResource page and see India lined up in the DH spot. He feels dangerously close to finding himself platooned.

Keep or Cut?
I think the $10 or $11 dollar mark is appropriate. Anything over $12 feels like a cut.

As I did in the 1B piece, I’ll ask that we not get too hung up on the actual phrasing of “breakout” as at least one of these selections has undoubtedly broken out before so it’s almost a re-breakout that I have them doing in 2023. These are guys I like above their market price and have them easily outperforming said cost. I understand that a “breakout” is more a first time thing, but they aren’t necessarily “sleepers” (although there is usually at least one guy in each of these pieces that is more deep league-friendly), either, so I chose the better of the two words.

• Catchers
• First Basemen
• Third Basemen
• Shortstops

Max Muncy | LAD | +3B elig.

My Projection: .249/.374/.506, 33 HR, 87 R, 89 RBI, 2 SB in 583 PA

It’s time to get back on Muncy Train! He got his groove back at the end of last year as the elbow stopped causing him problems and the power returned with 12 HR in the final two months after just 9 through the first four. This is a hitter just one year removed from a 36-homer season with 94 RBI and 95 R. There has been a lot of talk about how the Dodgers lineup is one of the weaker ones in recent memory which will make it tougher for him to pull another 90/90 season, but a “weaker” Dodgers lineup still isn’t weak and thus an 80/80 campaign is well within reach.

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We continue our tour of the infield with my second base rankings. I’m hoping to wrap up these rankings pretty quickly with the two up-the-middle positions this week and finish the rest next week.

Jake Mailhot’s Ottoneu Position Rankings: C | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | OF | SP | RP
Chad Young’s Ottoneu Position Rankings: C | 1B | 2B | SS | 3B | OF | SP | RP

I really like the format of Chad’s ranking so I’ll try and emulate them a bit here. Here are few more notes about my process:

1. Tiers > Ranks. While these players will all be technically ranked ordinally, the tier they’re placed in really matters. The order within the tiers doesn’t matter as much, though that isn’t to imply that the players within each tier are interchangeable either.
2. Projected points. I’ve been building my own homebrewed projections for the past decade plus, ever since I started playing Ottoneu, and they form the basis for the rankings below. They’re nothing overly complicated; essentially just a MARCEL-esque projection using three years of historical data filtered through a rough aging curve and adjusted for the current run environment. I also include a collection of three public projection systems (ZiPS, Steamer, and PECOTA) to provide some additional context. That gives each player six data sources that form their projection.
3. P/G vs P/PA. Points per game played is the gold standard by which you should be evaluating players in Ottoneu. I won’t argue with that. That measure does have some drawbacks, particularly for players who pinch hit, pinch run, or are used as defensive substitutions often. Those limited appearances can skew a player’s P/G lower than what they’re producing when they’re getting full-time playing time. To provide a little more context for these kinds of players, I’ve also included points per plate appearance below. That measure should give us a better idea of how a player produces no matter how he’s used by his team.
4. Dollar amounts are pre-inflation. The dollar amounts assigned to each tier are pre-inflation but are easily adjusted for your league context.

Rather than give notes on every player like Chad, I’ll give my general thoughts on the position below and discuss a handful of players I like more or less than his rankings. Let’s get into it.

Traditionally, shortstop has been the lowest non-catcher position in the scarcity hierarchy but second base is really pushing it this year. Mookie Betts stands alone on top of the rankings but he’s bound to lose his eligibility after this season. There are some solid options after him but once you get to 10 or 11 players deep, there’s a group of players with big questions surrounding their production and then a significant drop off. Trevor Story’s injury certainly didn’t help either. Because Ottoneu requires you to start a middle infielder in addition to the two standard positions, the scarcity at second base makes planning your strategy for these three positions pretty tricky.

There are a number of bottom-tier options that do have some potential upside if you’re open to taking on a bit of risk. If you’re stuck with a mid-tier player, one of these youngsters could be a nice partner to give you a bit more ceiling at the position if that sleeper does break out. The other nice thing about the mid- and lower-tier options is that so many of them are eligible at multiple positions. Hitting your games played caps is incredibly important in Ottoneu and these flexible players give you plenty of options when you’re filling out your daily lineups.

Three Guys I Like More than Chad
Brandon Lowe – I think the big difference here is a belief that Lowe’s struggles last year were all injury related. A back injury hampered him all season long and he ended up missing large portions of the year because of it. His ailment obviously sapped a lot of his power last season — his isolated power dropped over 100 points to a career-low of .162 — but he did show some improvement in other areas of his approach. His strikeout rate was a career-best 22.9% and most of that was due to a significant improvement in two-strike counts. His overall swinging strike rate and contact rates were within the realm of his career norms, but when the at-bat was on the line, he was able to reduce his whiff rate leading to a lower strikeout rate. Assuming his back is fully healed this year and his two-strike approach sticks, he’s poised to be one of the most potent bats at a very shallow position.

Ryan McMahon – It’s always tricky rostering Rockies players since their home/road splits often require a platoon mate to pair with them when they’re playing outside of Coors Field. McMahon isn’t necessarily an exception to that suggestion — his away split is a decidedly not-nice 69 point difference in wOBA — but he made some key improvements under-the-hood that could indicate a higher ceiling for him. He reduced his overall swing rate by more than three points and increased his zone contact rate up to 83%. Those two changes led to some higher contact quality and a career-low swinging strike rate. It didn’t necessarily show up in his results — his strikeout rate was still a bit elevated and his power output actually fell from his previous three-year norms — but the adjustments indicate a better approach at the plate.

Brandon Drury – When a journeyman enjoys a mid-career breakout, it’s always important to ask if it’s sustainable. You can read more about my thoughts on Drury’s career-year last season in my deep dive from December but it essentially boils down to this: he made significant improvements to his batted ball quality while also honing his approach at the plate to make contact a lot more often. And with eligibility at three positions, he’s a flexible piece of depth for any Ottoneu team.

Three Guys I Don’t Like as Much as Chad
Jazz Chisholm Jr. – It breaks my heart to put Chisholm down here because he’s an extremely fun player to watch. His combination of power and speed make him one of the most dynamic young players in baseball. Unfortunately, only one of those tools will be useful in Ottoneu making him a much more valuable player in 4×4 or 5×5 formats. Then, there’s the added complication of a position move, as the Marlins have decided to try him out in centerfield this year. Maybe he takes to the transition without a hitch, but it also presents some uncertainty that, combined with his back injury last year, makes me hesitate to rank him any higher. I really hope I have to eat my words at the end of the year.

Luis Arraez – I like Arraez and Chad and I have him in the same tier, but I think I’m a little lower on him. Arraez’s old school, contact-heavy approach is pretty unique in this day and age and his move to Miami’s pitcher’s paradise shouldn’t hurt him as much since he wasn’t hitting for power anyway. But with an offensive foundation so heavily reliant on good outcomes on all his batted balls, he’s more susceptible to bad luck than most. His career BABIP is .336 and none of his individual seasons look like extreme outliers, but any dip in that metric will have significant effects on his results.

Isaac Paredes – Paredes finally got a chance at near-full-time at-bats in Tampa Bay last season and produced a pretty good 116 wRC+ in just under 400 plate appearances. His excellent plate discipline provides him with a solid foundation but I’m not sure he’ll be able to replicate his power output without some significant changes to his batted ball profile. He blasted 20 home runs last year and his isolated power was .230, the highest it’s been at any level in his professional career. Despite all those extra-base hits, his barrel and hard hit rates were just 6.4% and 37.6%, respectively. Both marks are below league average wouldn’t normally indicate such a high ISO. He was able to hit so many homers because he optimizes his batted balls for pulled contact in the air. Still, without improving his batted ball quality, there’s some risk that he won’t produce as much power this year.

The Middle Infield episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.

Guest: Mike Gianella

Strategy Section

• Kentucky Derby Style (KDS) Draft Order
  • Which draft slot is most similar to an auction?
  • General preferences for slot selection
  • 2023 preferences for slot selection
• Middle Infielders
  • The shortstop and second base player pools
    • SS – Deep
    • 2B – Wide Bottom
  • Do you need to draft stolen bases from the middle infield position?
  • Jon Berti
  • Adalberto Mondesi
  • Bounceback middle infield candidates

Injury Guru’s Trivia of the Week

ATC Undervalued Players

• Middle Infielders
  • Amed Rosario
  • Gleyber Torres
  • Jorge Polanco
  • Vaughn Grissom
  • Ketel Marte
  • Brendan Rodgers
  • Ezequiel Tovar
  • Luis Garcia
  • Nick Gordon

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Podcast (beat-the-shift): Play in new window | Download

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Now that football season is over, it is time to really prep for baseball drafts! Read the rest of this entry »

After a holiday hiatus, we’re back at it with 2B today and we’ll be powering through other positions quickly. My goal is to finish this series in January and to make updates in February as new information comes out or my thinking changes. Second base has already been delayed because of new information and updated thinking.

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Second base is short on top end talent, but incredibly deep in middling options as there isn’t a ton of difference in the 24 guys bookended by the Urias brothers, Luis and Ramon.

Notes on some select 2B:

Marcus Semien fronted the league 43 games before hitting his first homer and still wound up with 26 thanks to an excellent summer. He hit .268/.324/.492 with 20 SB, 72 RBI, 85 R and those 26 HR from May 28th on. While his extreme volume is a big part of his game (4 straight 700+ PA seasons; led MLB in 3 of them), he still had a 20/20 pace over 600 PA in 2022.

I’m not projecting another 18 SBs for Jose Altuve given that he had just 13 in his previous 1436 PA from 2019-21, but the 33-year-old doesn’t need a repeat there to remain a premium option at the position. The offense remains loaded, and his skills are aging brilliantly.

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The New Year cometh (cameth?) and now so too does our last rankings stop on the infield. We’ve now seen in hindsight just how good we had it at catcher and first base, as shortstop is deep but gets shallow fast, and third base is mostly a pit of danger after the first eight guys, or so. Well, bad news, chuckles – second base is no picnic; unless you like yours with bears and half-eaten Jean Segura’s. Read the rest of this entry »