Check out last month’s rankings here.

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No more bland, rote tiers from this guy! Thanks to the urging of commenter “Urban Shocker,” my eyes are now open to the fun that can be had with ridiculously labeled tiers. You see, I used to just write these monthly second-base columns with boring old numbered tiers. That is, until Urban Shocker convinced me in the comments section of my April rankings to name my tiers from then on.

To be perfectly honest, the task of doing these monthly rankings can get rather stale — for both me and you — as the season wears on. Eventually, it gets to the point where the rankings barely change, because 30-day samples don’t substantially change the way I/we think about a certain player.

Furthermore, there’s only so many ways I can say “Jose Altuve had a good month again,” or “Dee Gordon steals lots of bases,” or “Holy crap, Dan Uggla is so incredibly terrible!” (Actually, never mind on that last one. I will never get sick of making jokes about Uggla, who got paid $13 million last year to post a weighted offense 72% below league-average.)

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We’re making our way around the diamond with our updated rankings and today we reach the keystone.

• Catchers
• First Basemen

If you feel we missed someone, please let us know in the comments.

The names we missed that are mentioned in the comments will be added by Friday, 5/29. 

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You don’t have to dig too deep to find an article on Robinson Cano’s early-season struggles. Everywhere from regional newspapers to ESPN.com, the extremely wealthy 32-year-old’s inability to hit baseballs is a hot topic. Rightly so, one would surmise, seeing as the guy’s hitting .253/.295/.337.

I still included Cano in the second tier — also known as the New Orleans Tier — of my May second-base rankings. (Spoiler alert: The tiers for next week’s June rankings will be named after Kurt Russell films.) In fact, I had Cano ranked second overall, and not a single commenter took umbrage with that ranking.

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Often times I get my player ideas for this column from the bids in AL Tout Wars. Unfortunately, that means my recommendations typically learn toward American Leaguers, rendering National League owners $hit out of luck. My apologies. But you’re in luck! This week actually features a player from each league.

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Over the last couple weeks, a 24-year-old former top-ten overall pick has been on fire. He has started 13 consecutive games, batting leadoff or second in 12 of those games. He slots in as the No. 6 fantasy second baseman in that stretch. Furthermore, he’s already third-base eligible in Yahoo leagues, making his sixth appearance (fifth start) of the season at third on Sunday.

On the year, this player is now hitting .262/.338/.431, with two homers and four steals. Sounds like a guy we should be jumping all over, right? Would you ever in a million years expect his ownership rates to look like this?

• 6% Yahoo, 3.4% ESPN, 11% CBS

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Ever since Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop went down with a sprained right knee, manager Buck Showalter has been covering the keystone in some wonderfully weird ways. Without backup Ryan Flaherty — who hit the disabled list himself with a groin injury — Showalter turned to a couple of highly unorthodox options.

As Jeff Sullivan outlined last week, the Orioles called up natural second baseman Reynaldo Navarro, but used him sparingly before ultimately optioning him back to Triple-A on Friday. Instead, Showalter has relied on Jimmy Paredes — who had made just eight starts at second in his five partial major-league seasons — and first baseman/corner outfielder Steve Pearce, who had never logged an inning at the position in his 11-year professional career.

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Check out last month’s rankings here.

I am, if nothing else, a man of the people. This month, I am integrating reader feedback to improve upon both the helpfulness and the overall fun factor of this feature. Regarding the helpfulness, as commenters pointed out last month, I should probably rank Mookie Betts, even though he’s not eligible in all formats.

As commenters also pointed out last month, I could have just ranked him instead of explaining why I am or am not ranking him, thus saving myself both time and effort. Still, I felt compelled to account for my actions, and here we are, several possibly unnecessary sentences later.

Now, the fun factor. I was encouraged to come up with clever names for the tiers, as opposed to my previous yawn-inducing numerical system. Therefore, I am this month grouping players into tiers based upon the relative subjective quality of cities I’ve visited. I enjoy travel almost as much as baseball, and I have strong feelings about the places I’ve been — both good and bad — that are quite suitable for comparison to second basemen. Why not.

TIER ONE – ANNECY, FRANCE
Jose Altuve

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I’ve been receiving lots of questions about Rougned Odor lately, in the comments section of my weekly second-base posts. Being the fool that I occasionally am, I wrote up an entire post about Odor, without realizing that Ben Duronio did so less than a week ago. Thankfully, my views on Odor are at odds enough with Ben’s that I was able to retool the post you’re reading now into a counterpoint of sorts.

Like I said, I’ve been fielding plenty of questions about Odor, and understandably so. He’s off to a putrid start, slotting in as the No. 37 fantasy second baseman through the season’s first few weeks. He has just eight hits, good for a .140 batting average that has many owners in early-season panic mode.

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Rougned Odor, slight of frame and young in age, impressed in his debut last season despite playing just 62 games above double-A. Forced into a role due to injuries to Jurickson Profar, a 90 wRC+ is not world beating but he did hit nine homers and steal four bags which is certainly appealing for fantasy purposes given he played in just 114 games.
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Just two weeks into the season, it’s still mighty important to not overreact to any small samples. Still, we can draw some conclusions based on things like playing time and batting order position — and perhaps a little bit on performance — to identify players who will be on the rise in next month’s second base tier rankings. Below are three 2B-eligible players who were buried in my April rankings, but await healthy upward promotions.

Devon Travis (53% Yahoo, 80.4% ESPN, 83% CBS)

For this month’s tier rankings, I included the following note regarding Travis: “If he can hold down the starting job, he’ll likely jump up a tier next month.” The 24-year-old is tearing the cover off the ball, to the tune of a .356/.408/.644 slash, with three homers. There’s no way he’s losing his job to the likes of Steve Tolleson and Ryan Goins, and Maicer Izturis’ eventual return from a groin strain doesn’t seem like a threat to Travis’ job either.

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