It’s time again to look ahead to the 2013 fantasy baseball season by highlighting the top potential impact rookies at each position. Why? Because it’s never too early to begin thinking about next year, even if you’re still trying to win your league right now.

For those of you in keeper leagues, particularly deeper ones, these primers will be especially helpful, because you’ll find out which young players may be worth snatching up now — before other owners get a clue — so you can hang onto them next season, when their value kicks in. Think of it like an investment requiring only a little up-front cost that could pay off big in the near future.

Much like my Mining the Minors columns on this site, which focus on current-season impact more than long-term upside, these 2013 rookie primers are meant for players who will exhaust (or are expected to exhaust) their rookiedom next year. Also much like my MTM work, the point here is to find the right mix of opportunity and talent, so that you’re picking up a player who can contribute, either in a starting role or as a reserve, from Opening Day or soon thereafter. For now, it’s good to get ahead of the curve with a snapshot of the young talent at each position.

In case you need a brief example of how this sort of strategy can be worthwhile: In two deep leagues, one AL-only and one NL-only, that allow for up to 10 keepers, I picked up Jarrod Parker, Addison Reed and Will Middlebrooks, as well as Paul Goldschmidt, Todd Frazier and Zack Cozart around this time last year, keeping them all for dirt cheap. Worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Here are the previous position primers: Catchers, Corner Infielders

This episode? Middle infielders (aka, second basemen and shortstops).

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Looking for some cheap steals and saves down the stretch? Here are two players for that late-season/playoff push…

Eduardo Nunez | 2B, SS, 3B | Yankees | Owned: 1% Yahoo!

I touted the 25-year-old Nunez as a steals sleeper way back in February, but he quickly played his way off New York’s big league roster not with his bat, but with his defense. He struggled with the routine play and was demoted to Triple-A in mid-May despite a solid (for a utility infielder) .294/.356/.373 batting line, then resurfaced when rosters expanded in September.

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In my main league, I picked up rookie Colorado infielder Josh Rutledge about six weeks ago off the waiver wire. This is hardly because I had any sort of prescient idea that Rutledge would suddenly become a red-hot hitter who would help propel me into the playoffs; mainly, it was because previous flavor-of-the-week Trevor Plouffe was hurting, and the guy who was at least likely to get a shot at shortstop playing time with Troy Tulowitzki injured and Marco Scutaro traded seemed like a better option than the Nick Puntos and Brandon Crawfords of the world. 46 games later, Rutledge’s teammates are calling him “Baby Giambi” and his .399 wOBA (headed into play on Thursday) would be good for fifth-best in baseball if he could keep that rate up over enough plate appearances to qualify.

Bright red “small sample size” alarms are justifiably ringing there, and it’s of course far from realistic to expect that kind of production from Rutledge over a full season. Still, even having this kind of conversation regarding offensive output from a middle infielder is impressive, and it’s worth looking into the 23-year-old Alabama product as fantasy playoffs loom this season and 2013 keeper decisions start to get made. While Rutledge has been exclusively a shortstop in his time in the bigs, he moved across the bag to make his first start at second base on Thursday, which is where he’ll remain now that Tulowitzki is nearly healthy. Read the rest of this entry »

September is right around the corner, which means it’s time to really start preparing for the fantasy playoffs. Here are a pair of AL East youngsters who can boost your roster for the stretch drive…

Pedro Ciriaco | 2B, SS, 3B | Red Sox | Owned: 21% Yahoo! and 29.9% ESPN

Ciriaco, 26, got his shot with the Red Sox early last month due to various injuries and has quickly established himself as a pesky, “this guy shouldn’t be killing us” type of player for whoever happens to be playing Boston on a given day. The infielder is hitting .360/.374/.500 (145 wRC+) with two homers and nine steals (in nine chances) in 141 plate appearances for the Red Sox, and now he’s playing third base pretty much everyday with Will Middlebrooks on the shelf. He managed to pick up both second base and shortstop eligibility along the way.

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The trade, as it stands now, is Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for Jerry Sands, James Loney, Ivan DeJesus, Allen Webster and Rubby De La Rosa. We’ll have plenty of in-depth analysis over the coming days, but fantasy is often about speed, so let’s try to break down the “blink” style fantasy implications.

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There is one huge flaw that is keeping Danny Espinosa from reaching the upper echelon of middle infielders in fantasy baseball, an enormous strikeout rate. While the strikeout rate is unlikely to come down, Espinosa can still be a rather useful fantasy player. His dual eligibility at both middle infield spots makes him extra valuable, but it is nice to see that we can pretty much expect what type of player he is for the foreseeable future.

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It’s never fun when your starting middle infielder goes down and you’re choosing from the crap heap of those no-power, limited speed leftovers. If this has happened to you, it’s your lucky day. Here are a pair of middle infielders who might actually contribute.

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In today’s waiver wire column, I look at two hitters who will see increased playing time due to some surprising roster moves. Let’s dive in…

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It wasn’t the most publicized trade made yesterday but it will likely have the most impact on the playoff race and possibly your lineup. The Tigers, trying to win now, shipped top prospect Jacob Turner to Miami in exchange for Omar Infante and Anibal Sanchez.

For the purposes of this post we’re going to focus on the second base positions of both teams. Infante rejoins the Tigers after having spent the first five years of his career there. He’s currently ranked 12th among second basemen – not great but a solid contributer. With eight home runs and a .155 ISO the 31-year-old has been showing the most power he has since his 16 home run 2004 season. Contributing to that ISO are his doubles; he’s already at 23 while his career high is 28.

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Sunday night, Alexi Amarista played a little center field and a little left field. Not so ground-breaking if you consider he’s been doing a lot of this sort of thing recently. Since the All-Star break, Amarista has played at every position other than the third, first, pitcher and catcher. There’s an outside chance that Amarista can put up real value for daily leaguers, in the vein of — but of course not quite exactly like — Emilio Bonifacio.

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