It’s been one hell of a strange season for Kolten Wong. He’s hit a couple of very high peaks and a couple of equally low valleys; as such, it’s quite difficult to judge his body of work on the season thus far, as his .242/.299/.392 slash line isn’t really representative of how he’s played at any point this year.

I was high on Wong coming into this season, but he scuffled badly in April. He hit just .221/.264/.265 in 76 plate appearances, and found himself back in Triple-A before the month’s end. The 23-year-old got his game back on track in Memphis, hitting a robust .360/.400/.533 with three homers and six steals in 18 games. While he was gone, Mark Ellis fought a losing battle with the Mendoza line, hitting .190 as the Cards’ starting second baseman.

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Hard to imagine we’re one week away from the All-Star break, but alas, time flies when you’re having fun. As we continue our never-ending search for upside guys on the fantasy scrap heap, we turn our attention to two players who can help owners, one a multi-position infield tool, the other a sleeper outfielder at season’s outset who, halfway into the season, might just be making good on his preseason promise.
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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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Here’s a variation on the old DLWW tune: neither guest star this week owes his opportunity to another player’s injury. Rather, each of these two contestants are getting shots because their predecessors were terrible enough to persuade management to shake things up — even if neither player arrives at the majors with terribly high expectations.
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Even after losing some time to injury, Jason Kipnis has managed 200+ plate appearances this year, and his fantasy line has not matched his work in the past so far. It’s a little too far into the season to just poo-poo it away with mentions of small sample size. But, jump into the numbers, and it looks like issues of sample and perspective are hiding the fact that he’s probably still a top-half second baseman in any league.

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When I compiled this month’s second base tier rankings, one concern I had was whether I ranked Ben Zobrist too low. I placed him at the bottom of the third tier, 14th overall — was this an overreaction to a slow start? After all, Zobrist was the No. 6 fantasy second baseman in 2012.

Last year, he slipped to No. 11, but in placing him 14th in this month’s rankings, I was essentially admitting that the 33-year-old Zobrist is on the decline, and that I don’t see his 2013 as an aberration. The further we get into 2014, the more confident I am that I wasn’t selling Zobrist short.

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Despite extremely low ownership rates (5% Yahoo, 3.5% ESPN, 14% CBS), Luis Valbuena has performed well enough so far this season to make himself mixed-league relevant. The 28-year-old currently owns a .289/.390/.461 slash line through 61 games, and is showing no signs of slowing down. He’s fantasy-eligible at both second base and third base, yet fantasy owners would rather own, for example, Kelly Johnson (24% Yahoo, 9% ESPN, 19% CBS), who is hitting .226/.299/.398 by comparison.

Maybe this is a product of the fact that Valbuena has never been good before. After all, even with his 210 plate-appearance sample from this season, he’s still just a .230/.313/.365 career hitter, with 33 homers and five steals in 1,710 PA. That doesn’t sound like a fantasy-relevant player to me. So what’s changed, and how sustainable is it?

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Today is the next installing of my updated Pod’s Picks, comparing my rank versus the other three RotoGraphers. We’re now up to the second basemen, of which the consensus rankings published two weeks ago can be found here. I’ll generally only consider those second basemen that I ranked within the top 20 for the bullish category and those the rest of the crew ranked in the top 20 for the bearish category.

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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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The Brewers made a move last week to put Scooter Gennett in the leadoff spot and, while it doesn’t drastically help his fantasy stock, it does make him a bit more appealing.
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