The league leader in WAR for second basemen? Kelly Johnson. I made some pretty bold predictions in our staff-wide preseason series, one of them being that Matt Kemp will not even get to 30/30 (looking like a bad one). One of the ones that is looking good so far is my prediction of Kelly Johnson being a top-5 second baseman.

In Yahoo! leagues, Johnson is currently the third ranked second baseman. His seven home runs leads the group, a group that consists of more home run threats than in past seasons. He has also added over 20 runs, with his team’s best hitter, Jose Bautista, hitting under .200 directly behind him (Johnson batted second until recently). Since moving to the leadoff spot, Johnson is three for three in steal attempts, and should score more runs as Bautista’s production improves. Johnson’s season is looking much more like his breakout 2010 campaign than his underwhelming 2011 season, which is exactly what those who drafted him were hoping for.

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The Royals have called up Johnny Giavotella to the MLB club. The word out of KC right now is that he will join the team and Jonathan Sanchez will be placed on the DL. Besides Giavotella, the Royals have Chris Getz, Yuniesky Betancourt (on DL) and Irving Falu that have or can play 2B. Here is a quick look at each candidate and my take on the entire situation.

Johnny Giavotella – The 24-year-old Giavotella was initially pencilled in as the starting 2B for the Royals to start the season back in Febuary. The Royals decided to keep Chris Getz and re-sign Yuniesky Betanourt, so off to AAA went Giavotella.

In 31 games at AAA this season, he has hit a triple slash line of 0.331/0.408/0.504 with 5 HRs and 1 SB. He has shown that he can hit the ball in AAA and deserves a shot to see if he can cut it in the majors. Projection systems have him at just under 10 HRs and just over 10 SBs with an ~0.275 AVG. Not great, but not horrible in deep or AL-only leagues.

Chris Getz – Chris is having a nice breakout/career season at age 28. His triple slash line of 0.288/0.338/0.424 are all career highs. His 2012 ISO (0.136) is 4 times higher than his 2011 value (0.032). The change in performance can be linked back to a change in his batting stance.

Irving Falu – Falu is no prospect and his current role on the team is to be Alcides Escobar’s backup at SS in case Escobar is injured. If the 29-year-old has to see full time playing time, people can expect and OK AVG (~0.250) and double digit steals. There is no reason to own him unless Escobar goes to the DL.

Yuniesky Betancourt – Yuni was having an OK season for him when he finally went on the DL with an ankle injury. He was trying to play through the injury since the beginning of the season. When he went on the DL he had a triple slash line up 0.280/0.333/0.420. The OBP and SLG would be career highs if he is able to maintain them.

He started the season as the everyday 2B and backup SS. Once the ankle injury became more pronounced, Getz took over at 2B and Betancourt “rode the pine for nine”. He was placed on the DL on May 3rd so he can come off the DL after the 18th.
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So what does this all mean? The situation is a cluster …. mess. Getz, a LHH, and Giavotella, a RHH, look to be in a platoon situation at 2B for the next week or so. Platoon situations are a mess for fantasy owners, especially those with weekly lineup changes. In a few days, Betancourt looks to return, so one of the Royals management’s favorite players will be back taking away playing time from the other two. I see Giavotella headed back to AAA and Getz on the bench most days. When the final answer to the Royals 2B situation is Betancourt, I would just stay away from any of the players involved.

Let’s take a minute all sitting right here to tell you how these rankings came to be. In West fantasylandia, born and raised, on fantasy leagues is where we spend most of our days. Chilling out, ranking, adding, dropping, all trading players with the dudes on the playground, when a couple of guys, they were up to no good, started asking “What about rankings for the rest of the season?” We got in one little fight, and the Dark Lord got scared, and he said “You good for nothings gotta get a consensus together.” So we pulled up our own rankings, each with our own methods, and we yelled to Appelman “Yo dude smell you later.” We looked at our blog, we were finally there, we had Rest-of-Season Consensus Ranks for all of our players.

Uh, so yeah, the point is, these are our consensus ranks for the rest of the season. Because of our methodology, they will move slower than popular opinion. They also don’t give a ton of credit for past work. Just enough we think. On to the second baseman.

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On Monday, I looked at two 2B, Danny Espinosa and Ryan Roberts, who are being dropped the most in ESPN leagues. Today, I am going to look at the next most dropped 2B, Jemile Weeks and Neil Walker.

(Values after name are ESPN ownership %, % point drop in ESPN ownership and Yahoo ownership %)

Jemile Weeks (68%, -21%, 61%) – Most of Jemile’s drop can be directly attributed to his sub-0.200 AVG. Projection systems had his AVG projected to be between 0.266 (Steamer) and 0.296 (Marcel). The drop in AVG is not from an increase K% which is almost identical to his career rate of 14%.

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Today, I am going to do a quick look at the 2B that have been dropped the most in ESPN leagues. I will look at what is wrong with each player and if there is any hope for improvement.

(Values after name are ESPN ownership %, % point drop in ESPN ownership and Yahoo ownership %)

Ryan Raburn (22%, -38%, 8% ) – Raburn is the 2B being dropped the most in ESPN leagues. I am going to wimp out a bit and recommend another recent Rotographs article where David Wiers does a great job examining Raburn’s struggles.

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Today, I am going to look at some 2B options in deep leagues and, as it worked out, NL-only leagues. These 3 hitters are owned in less than 6% of all leagues, so they should be widely available.

Owned percentages are ESPN and then Yahoo.

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Between all of the injuries and slow starts, it’s expected that everyone in your league is scouring the waiver wire and looking for players to fill in the gaps.  The trick though, is to do it on the cheap this early in the season.  There are far too many people blowing their FAAB budget too soon or wasting a decent waiver priority on a quick-fix band-aid that won’t be playing in a month’s time, so while you need to stay active, you need to be smarter than the next guy in the way you do it. Read the rest of this entry »

Six games into the 2012 season, Kyle Seager has a .333/.360/.417 line and is owned in approximately 40% of ottoneu leagues. And that rate is dropping.

Seager is playing every day right now, but with Mike Carp on the verge of a rehab assignment and Franklin Gutierrez on his way back, the Mariners outfield is about to get awfully crowded, which will push the resurgent Chone Figgins back to third, and Seager to…probably the bench. On top of that, his bat probably isn’t good enough to play everyday at 3B. But I am not ready to sell.

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Reliable middle infielders have always been my white whale. I overvalue them on draft/action day and somehow always end up getting burned. Whether it’s Rickie Weeks‘ wrist or Dustin Pedroia‘s foot or Chase Utley’s knees, I always seem to wind up scrounging for infield help. This year I decided to cast a wide net in our staff league, loading up on various $1 options in addition to keepers Utley and Yunel Escobar.

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In past years, I have posted 20 bold predictions for the upcoming season. Just because our little RotoGraphs contest among authors only required 10 doesn’t mean I was going to stop there! So here are another 10 bold predictions to ridicule me for, or cause your eyes to open in wonder as to how I could be such a brilliant prognosticator. And before you read on, take another gander at my first set of boldies to refresh your memory.

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