On Tuesday, the White Sox promoted second baseman Micah Johnson from Double-A to Triple-A. In 2013, Johnson split the season between A and High-A, with a brief taste of Double-A, compiling a .312/.373/.451 slash in 601 plate appearances with an eye-popping 84 stolen bases. Our own Nathaniel Stoltz wrote a comprehensive scouting report on Johnson last June, and two of Nathaniel’s statements in that article help place Johnson’s 2014 success into the context of his long-term prospects:

• “Johnson will go as far as his approach and BABIP take him, and a lot will hinge on how well both facets translate to the upper minors.”
• “It will be Double-A Birmingham that will begin to solidify the direction Johnson’s career will take.”

Fortunately for Johnson, and the White Sox, he has responded in a big way, succeeding beyond expectations in the specific areas pointed out by Nathaniel last June. As a result, the perception of Johnson as a prospect needs to be reevaluated and likely elevated.

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Last week, I unveiled the May Tiered Rankings for the second base position, and readers quickly zeroed in on my rankings of Dee Gordon and Aaron Hill. They believed I had placed both of them too low. One intrepid reader even took the time to pound at the keyboard and ask exasperatingly, “WHAT DOES DEE HAVE TO DO!”

While I appreciate the lack of question mark at the end of the sentence — as it would’ve resulted in an uncouth double punctuation — it’s clearly a question about which this individual feels passionately and desires a sincere answer. After all, Dee Gordon is hitting .331/.364/.441 with 24 steals. He’s the number-one ranked second baseman in ESPN leagues and the number-three overall player, behind only the Colorado duo of Charlie Blackmon and Troy Tulowitzki.

How the [insert choice expletive here] could I possibly rank Dee Gordon as a fourth-tier second baseman?

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Are you desperate for a second baseman or middle infielder in your deep league? Then you’ve come to the right place! I’ve got a pair of possible free agents ripe for the picking just for you.

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Marcus Semien and Jonathan Schoop have similar strikeout rates. They did *not* get there the same way. Which is good, because otherwise I would have had to link these two just by saying that they sometimes play second base and are young, which is not a great intro. Not saying this intro is A+, but a little bit better than that intro at least. I hope.

Navel gazing aside, it’s sort of fascinating how different players can find their way to a strikeout. The patient one that doesn’t swing much can find his way into bad counts while still making good contact. The free-swinger can hack his way into a strikeout. The slugger that never chokes up can whiff at pitches that scrappier guys would take the other way.

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We’re a month through the season, and fantasy owners are already jumping to huge conclusions regarding the 2014 season. These tiered rankings attempt to capture the production from the first month of the season, moving some players up and down where I felt it was necessary, but largely, I attempted to refrain from getting too caught up in the ebbs and flows of single-month performance. There are five months remaining in the 2014 season. Lots will change, and I didn’t want to make the tiered rankings a simple “who is performing well right now,” as that’s not overly useful.

Anyway, here we go.

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Occasionally, the collective fantasy baseball community reflects on a productive single-season performance and sees a top-10 value that doesn’t really fit the underlying skills. The title of this column belies the vagueness of that opening line, but the upshot is something many people said last year and repeated ad nauseum over the winter. While Brandon Phillips was the sixth-ranked fantasy second baseman in 2013, many people were concerned with the declined skill set that lurked below the surface — a surface that was largely buoyed by his 103 RBI.

In 2013, his ISO dropped to .135, which was a career low. He only stole single-digit bases for the first time since 2005, when he only had nine plate appearances with the Cleveland Indians. He continued swinging at more pitches outside the strike zone, and his swinging-strike rate eclipsed 10.0% for the first time since the 2008 season.

Phillips essentially experienced a drop-off in many major peripheral statistics, and he people suddenly became concerned that he was on the wrong side of 30 and about to experience a precipitous decline. I ranked him as a fourth-tier second baseman coming into the season and noted significant concerns throughout the offseason.

Of course, the overarching point of this article is to illustrate that those concerns were fully justified. Brandon Phillips has been brutal throughout the month of April, and if we pull back the veil and peak at the underlying numbers, the picture becomes even more bleak and troublesome. Things aren’t getting better. They’re getting much worse, and as the title suggests, I’m turning my back and sprinting away from him as much as possible.

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It is hard not to at least like a player with a 112 wRC+ and that is dual eligible at second and third base, but I am starting to fall less in love with Matt Carpenter as a fantasy player.

My reasoning is not based on his numbers shrinking down from where they were last year, I think the power will come back a bit at least in the form of more doubles and I think he’s going to score a bunch of runs and hit for a high average. My problem with Carpenter lies in the lack of homers and lack of steals he provides a fantasy roster.
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Another week, another crop of injuries open up spots for two waiver wire candidates. Me thinks there’s a pattern here. As we snorkel amid the waiver wire waters, our first contestant is no stranger to deep league fantasy owners, though his awful 2013 made him persona non grata in the vast majority of formats entering the season. Meanwhile, a Tommy John snakebite has opened up a spot in the Yankees rotation, potentially opening the door for an intriguing left-hander to aid fantasy owners.

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Every season, unexpected players enjoy a huge April and either become hot waiver wire pickups or become surprise mainstays in your fantasy lineup. Guys like Chris Colabello, Emilio Bonifacio, Dee Gordon, Aaron Harang, and Alexei Ramirez weren’t high (or even present) on many draft boards during the offseason, but all five have been top-50 fantasy players in ESPN leagues to begin the year.

A year ago, we saw Yuniesky Betancourt, Lucas Duda, Carlos Gomez, Jean Segura, Patrick Corbin, and even Vernon Wells dominate in the early season. Some of those players sustained their respective performances and became above-average players throughout the year, but others quickly tapered off and became irrelevant. The goal in April is determining which performances are ones you can trust and which players you should bail on when the going first gets rough.

Brian Dozier has been overlooked this spring because he’s being dragged down by a .219 batting average, but he’s actually the second-ranked fantasy second baseman and has even more value in on-base percentage leagues. He is the only player in Major League Baseball with at least five stolen bases and at least five home runs. Furthermore, the 27-year-old currently benefits from batting leadoff for the Twins, which means he is also racking up the runs. He leads Major League Baseball with 19 runs scored.

That’s all beautiful, but again, the trick is sussing out whether he’s going to be a top-10 fantasy second baseman going forward or if he’s more a fourth-tier guy as he was last year. He was the 14th-ranked fantasy second baseman in 2013, ranking behind Martin Prado and just ahead of Howie Kendrick. In other words, if you’re a Dozier owner, should you be looking to flip him while his value is high or should you keep him plugged in your lineup everyday and reap the benefits?

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Today’s deep league waiver wire might bring back memories of seasons yonder. Don’t rush over to the calendar, we haven’t time traveled back to the past. The two men in this week’s recommendations are the short-term beneficiaries of injuries to the incumbents. Often times, this is what a deep leaguer needs to do — follow injury situations closely and just play the carousel rotating in hitters getting full-time at-bats to fill a weak spot on your roster. Admittedly, I won both these players through FAAB in AL Tout Wars this week.

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