Brooklyn, New York — Toss the hype aside. LJ Mazzilli has quietly, steadily put together an excellent professional debut season.
After the Mets drafted him out of UConn in the fourth round, the son of former Met Lee Mazzilli, was rushed into the spotlight of a media blitz.
Coming into the season, I thought Matt Carpenter was a decent sleeper in deep leagues. In the Skip Schumaker mold, he might play a decent enough second base to make an empty batting average work. I bought him in a few deep leagues, and ranked him 35th among third basemen, and made a comment that I’d rank him around 22nd among second basemen. We had one comment about him.
Flash forward to our All-Star ranks. He ended up 12th in our second base rankings update, but was ranked anywhere from seventh to 25th by our various rankers. He sparked nine comments. That’s a lot of variance for a guy that has ten months with more than 20 plate appearances in the major leagues… and has hit over .290 in seven of them. How you think of him going forward is based on batted-ball theories, your league settings, and even how you ended up with him.
While fantasy baseball doesn’t pretend to fully reflect on-the-field value for individual players, there’s always a strange disconnect when a player objectively compiles a quality season and it’s not captured in standard fantasy formats. Often, that difference can be ascribed to defensive value, which is not accounted for in fantasy, but occasionally, a player pops up who provides solid offensive value for their team yet is marginally useful in fantasy.
This year, Marco Scutaro of the San Francisco is a perfect example of the value disconnect.
Let’s face it, even in leagues of 10 to 12 teams, the waiver wire is looking pretty bleak. Every once in a while you get to fight for some hit, young rookie like we all did for Christian Yelich the other day, but beyond that, it’s about fill-ins and stopgaps as opposed to long-term solutions. The middle infield is particularly ugly on this front so you have to dig deep. You still won’t find that perfect guy you’re looking for, but you might find someone who will stick for the duration of the season such as… Read the rest of this entry »
At the beginning of the year, I thought this might be the worst position in baseball. It might still be when all is said and done, but there are positive things you can say about this group, too.
There are actually some great young players at the position. Jason Kipnis has zoomed to the top. Jose Altuve probably won’t ever be a true-talent top three guy, but for batting average and speed, he looks like a steady contributor. Kyle Seager is a find. Matt Carpenter was a favorite of ours, but he’s outproduced even our more rosy projections. Jedd Gyorko has a nice compact, fast swing and looks like he’ll have a bit of power. Anthony Rendon, well we have to see about his strikeout rate, but he’s looking good too. Nick Franklin! And maybe even Jurickson Profar.
It’s often said that almost anything in baseball can happen in a single month. We witnessed Yuniesky Betancourt compile a .848 OPS with six home runs and 21 RBI during the month of April, while Barry Zito began the season with 14-consecutive scoreless innings and had a 3.29 ERA in the first month.
Both players have since crashed back to reality, but their unexpected performance helps highlight the point outlined above. One month in baseball is a minuscule sample size. Literally, almost anything can happen in a single month, and when it happens to begin the season, it can fill fantasy owners with false hope and result in bandwagon-jumping at the expense of more proven commodities.
Gordon Beckham missed 47 games in April and May with a broken hamate bone in his left wrist. Since returning on June 3, he’s begun to turn heads with a .338/.361/.460 slash line and a pair of home runs. He’s quietly been the sixth-best fantasy second baseman over the last 30 days, and his .361 wOBA over the same stretch ranks eighth amongst all second baseman in the league. The fact he’s running a bit and has five stolen bases since returning from the disabled list certainly helps his fantasy rankings.
But what do we make of Beckham’s fast start? After all, we’re talking about the same guy who ranked 27th amongst second basemen last year — behind guys like Dustin Ackley, Mike Aviles and Chris Nelson. He’s also posted a measly .238/.303/.362 combined slash line over the last three seasons. Thus, for fantasy owners to discount the previous three seasons and begin to put some trust in the 26-year-old infielder, his numbers must illustrate something has changed. Something substantive in his approach or his peripheral numbers must have changed to make owners forget previous performance and place a modicum of trust in his bat.
The Oakland Athletics currently lead the AL West by 0.5 games over the Texas Rangers. They haven’t made any splashes in the trade market this month, but they just made a substantial move on Sunday evening by promoting Grant Green — one of their top prospects — to the big leagues in an attempt to upgrade their offensive output at second base.
Slotting in Green at second base will give the Athletics the flexibility to shift Jed Lowrie to shortstop on a more permanent basis, allowing the organization to upgrade the offensive production of two positions simultaneously. When Lowrie had been playing shortstop, the Athletics were coping with Eric Sogard (.305 wOBA) and Adam Rosales (.268 wOBA) at second base. Green, who was tearing up Triple-A with a .385 wOBA in 81 games, has a chance to provide better numbers at the plate without being a trainwreck on defense.
In each of the past four years, Ben Zobrist has hit 20 home runs or stolen 20 bases, but it is rather doubtful that he reaches either of those marks this season. At age 32, it is reasonable to ask whether Ben Zobrist is starting to hit his decline phase, which is important to consider in dynasty and keeper leagues.
Excitement! Intrigue! Royalty! It’s a an all Royals edition of the deep league waiver wire which I am positive is the best thing you learned all day. A bad offense creates opportunities and has opened up playing time for two interesting names.
Nearing the All-Star Break, fantasy owners are primed to make moves to prepare themselves for a second-half push. This tiered list should serve as a quick-reference guide as owners evaluate trades and ruminate on potential waiver-wire pickups. Some minor shake-ups have occurred in the second-base rankings, but the overall landscape remains intact.
(Note: This tiered rankings list may not include every single player who’s eligible at second base in every league. It’s primarily geared toward the ESPN positional eligibility guidelines.)