I am foregoing my weekly AL starting pitcher post to hit on a more timely topic today. As you know, we have been unveiling our consensus rankings by position, and yesterday, we published the second sackers. As expected with any set of rankings from multiple people, there were many examples where our opinions diverged. Jose Altuve was one such player, so I thought it would be fitting to jump back onto the Pod hitter projections train and analyze my projection and how I got to that number nine ranking. In addition, if I find my ranking of a player is far off from the consensus, I then go back to my own projection to make sure I wasn’t unreasonably optimistic or pessimistic.

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Eno Sarris just published the Rotographs 2012 composite rankings for 2B. I will be concentrating on covering 2B for this upcoming season. Besides over analyzing 2B, I will contributing to the composite rankings. Today, I am going to go over some of my thoughts on the initial rankings and then give an overview of how I ranked the players.

2B Rankings

-The four of us are in general agreement over the first 6 picks with not one ranking really diverging. The first disagreement happens at the 7th and 8th spot where Eno likes Rickie Weeks more than the rest of us and he is not fond of Howie Kendrick.

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Consensus Ranks: OF, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, and RP and SP.

Tiered Ranks: C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, NL OF, AL SP, NL SP, Holds.

After all of our talk about Jason Kipnis and Dustin Ackley, you may still be surprised about where they sit in our consensus ranks. A degenerative knee condition has pushed Chase Utley down. Each of us had a different opinion about Jose Altuve. We all agreed about Omar Infante’s mediocrity.

Enjoy our Fantasy Baseball Second Base RotoGraphs Consensus Ranks! Brevity is not our strong point.

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Back in November I discussed bargain shopping in Houston and how there are still a few hidden gems that would make for strong selections at the tail end of your draft.  Well, today, we’re going to look at another perennial cellar-dwelling team and see what kind of fantasy gold can be found.  Funny thing, though, is that these Royals — these, more often than not, punching bags of the AL — are looking pretty darn good lately and there’s going to be quite the battle to obtain a number of their players’ services in fantasy drafts this year.

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With Yahoo finally opening up its mock drafts, I am going to look today at how second basemen are being drafted at Yahoo compared to MockDraftCentral.com. Here is the list of 2B drafted at Yahoo and their positions drafted at MDC along with some notes.

Note: Remember that the rankings are highly based off of the website’s initial rankings of the players.

Notes

– The first major difference in the drafts was Ben Zobrist being taken 27 places higher. I have Zobrist lumped in with a group of 2B including Uggla, Young, Phillips, Utley, Kendrick, Cuddyer and Weeks (Rickie). At MDC, Rickie Weeks, on average, is being taken 1 spot ahead of Zobrist. At Yahoo, Zobrist is being taken 36 spots earlier. As a group, these 7 2B average being a taken at 67th over all at Yahoo. At MDC, they average being taken at the 77th spot. I believe there is plenty of talent at the 2B position and there is no reason reach for one of this group early. I think MDC’s numbers are closer to where these 2B should be drafted, about one round later.

– Danny Espinosa and Neil Walker are lower at Yahoo compared to MDC. I am guessing it is because everyone has already participated in a run on the over-ranked 2B earlier in the draft. The pair has been taken 100% of the time on both websites.

– Kelly Johnson is loved and Aaron Hill is hated by Yahoo compared to MDC. At MDC, they are being taken at almost the same clip. Johnson was taken 71% of the time with a ADP of 235. Aaron Hill was taken 81% of the with an ADP of 233. Aaron’s ADP drops 21 places to the lowest value among 2B at Yahoo. Johnson’s ADP jumps 24 spots and is the last 2B taken 100% of the time at Yahoo. Owners know that Hill has the ability to produce and are taking him late in 83% of the Yahoo leagues.

– Jason Kipnis is the biggest dropper from MDC to Yahoo of the 2B. His percentage drafted is similar (92% vs 97%), but is being taken almost 6 rounds later in the draft.

– I would not use the preset rankings for reference at all at Yahoo, especially later in the draft. If a person was to go off the percentage drafted, the ranking of the players are much improved.

Exactly fifty players stole at least 20 bases last season, but only six of them did it in fewer plate appearances that Eduardo Nunez. The Yankees’ reserve infielder swiped 22 bags (in 28 tries) in 2011 while only coming to the plate 338 times, and only four of those steals came as a pinch-runner. The six guys who stole at least 20 bases in fewer plate appearances fit into two basic categories…

Everyday Players in 2012
Dee Gordon (24 SB in 233 PA)
Jason Bourgeois (31 SB in 252 PA)
Desmond Jennings (20 SB in 287 PA)

Non-Everyday Players in 2012
Tony Campana (24 SB in 155 PA)
Eric Young Jr. (27 SB in 229 PA)
Jordan Schafer (22 SB in 337 PA)

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Marco Scutaro

Marco has been handed the 2B job of the Rockies after being traded by Boston for Clayton Mortenson. Scutaro has put up decent numbers averaging about 10 HRs and a 0.285 AVG with Boston over the last 2 seasons. While the 36-year-old is not a spring chicken, he projects to hit around 0.275 with 9 HRs.

While he is not an offensive power by any means, he is better than what the Rockies recycled through the 2B spot in 2011. They tried 7 different players at 2B last season. The seven players had a 0.256/0.304/0.351 triple slash line compared to the N.L. average for 2B of 0.258/0.319/0.380. Scutaro looks to be a significant improvement at 2B for the Rockies.

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So we’ve done a pretty thorough bludgeoning of the recent reader mock draft, looking at almost every round except for the fliers, and covering several of the positions along the way as well. Second base has me particularly concerned headed into 2012, so let’s break down how the readers handled the challenge of staffing their squads at that position.

The following chart is pretty self explanatory – where the player was selected in the reader mock, what their average draft position is over at Mock Draft Central, and the difference between the two to the right:

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If you’re over on Mock Draft Central checking out recent ADP numbers, one of the more helpful tools they have is the ADP trend chart.  It gives a detailed look at each player’s rise and fall in the ADP ranks over the last two weeks which in turn helps you see whether or not you can actually wait on a particular guy in your draft or if you may have to act on him a little earlier based on a recent spike in popularity.  One player who is garnering recent attention and is shooting up the ADP rankings is Minnesota second baseman Alexi Casilla.

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Mock Draft Central is currently running mock drafts and I will look at how second basemen are being taken in those drafts. Besides the data Mock Draft Central provides, I have added in the approximate round the player would have been taken in a 12-team draft and the difference between the earliest and latest the player was drafted. First, here is a list of the second basemen with their draft stats:
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