While the New York Mets have produced plenty of slap stick comedy in recent years — Bernazard The Brawler’s WWE alter-ego, Mystery Diagnosis: Carlos Beltran, and Oliver Perez, aspiring (and flailing) $12 million LOOGY — it only feels like the club from Queens has been presided over by Abbott and Costello.

Sandy Alderson has replaced Omar Minaya as GM, and Terry Collins moves from minor league field coordinator to manager, ending Jerry Manuel’s tenure. But a question that so vexed Abbott looms large for the Mets: What’s on second? Luis Castillo got the boot, and 21-year-old Ruben Tejada has been sent AAA after an ultra-aggressive promotion to the majors last year. That still leaves a gaggle of middle infielders vying to be Jose Reyes‘ DP partner. Here’s a quick look at the contenders, listed by fantasy relevance, along with their respective ZiPS projections for 2011.

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As the 2011 Player Rankings outlined, there are a lot of risks at second base this season. Much of these risks are injury related, as Chase Utley, Dustin Pedroia and Ian Kinsler all missed significant time last season. Rickie Weeks finally broke out, but it would be foolish to forget about his past injury concerns. Should you find yourself waiting on a second baseman, here are some $1 options that may provide some value.
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During the week, Paul Swydan covered the marquee move of Dan Uggla in his Top 5 Targets, but there are a few more guys who filled out a change of address form at their local post office this off season.  These guys are definitely more low budget, but perhaps, in their new digs, they’ll be able to provide you with some worthwhile fantasy totals.  Sometimes, all a guy needs is a little change of scenery. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, Jeff rolled out our composite second base rankings and we’ve since looked at Risers, Top Targets, and the bargain bin. All three of the gents featured on today’s “Fallers” list are clustered in our third tier, yet all of them have easily performed like tier 1 talent at least once in their career. Let’s peek at at why they’re not getting more respect from us. Read the rest of this entry »

Not happy with the free agent options, the Twins went abroad to solve their middle infield woes, winning the bidding for and signing 26-year-old Tsuyoshi Nishioka. He’s coming off a huge year with the Chiba Lotte Marines, hitting .346/.423/.482 with 11 HR and 22 SB (but 11 CS). He’s hit at least .300 in three of the last four years, double-digit homers in each of the last three years, and 20+ steals in four of the last five years. That’s all well and good, but it tells us nothing about how he’ll perform with the Twins in 2011 or, more importantly, his fantasy value.

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We debuted our second base rankings this morning and the usual suspects – Cano, Utley, Pedroia, etc – sat at the top. The players I’m going to discuss reside far from the top of the second base mountain and should be available very late in your draft, or on top of the waiver wire once the draft is completed. Either way, they’ll likely have value that outweighs their draft position.

In all likelihood Sean Rodriguez is going to be starting  for the Tampa Bay Rays on opening day. We’re not just sure exactly where. Luckily for us Rodriguez has second base eligibility wrapped up. Last year the Tampa Bay Rays employed a platoon with Rodriguez, Ben Zobrist, and Matt Joyce between second base and right field. That platoon is likely to remain in place, to start the season at least, as Joe Maddon has said he plans on easing Joyce in against left handed pitching.

No matter the position, Rodriguez is going to get his share of at bats. He has extremely good power for second base and mashes left handed pitching. His triple slash line against LHP last season was .292/.375/.442. The Rays will give him an opportunity to prove his worth against right handed pitching as well, and as long as he isn’t completely inept against them he should be a lock to receive 400+ at bats. Strikeouts will limit his average, but 15 home runs is a realistic goal for Rodriguez in 2011.

The Nationals haven’t come out and said that Danny Espinosa is their starting second basemen this season, but the team likes his glove and he is being given every chance to win the job. In 112 plate appearances last year Espinosa racked up only 22 hits, but half of those went for extra bases, including six home runs. His power his legit – his SLG% never dipped under .460 in the minors – and he has decent speed, stealing 29 and 30 bases at AA and AAA.

That power comes at the expense of his batting average, though. He doesn’t make a lot of contact, in face he’s never had a K% lower than 23.2 at any professional level. While the power is legit and makes him an attractive buy low candidate from a traditionally power starved position, he did have surgery over the winter on his hamate bone. From someone who has broken their hamate bone before let me tell you that it doesn’t heal quickly. Having said that, his power potential would be too much for me to shy away from come draft day.

This last hitter may very well go for more than $1 in nearly every league, but he is still being greatly undervalued due to his 2010 season. It is a fact that Aaron Hill was the unluckiest hitter in baseball last season. His BABIP was a paltry .196, lowest for all qualified batters. That lead to a .205 batting average. Our own Eno Sarris gathered the statistics and calculated his expected BABIP (xBABIP) as .250. Don’t ask me how he got that number, just trust in the powers of Eno. Using that figure we can guesstimate that Hill’s average should have been in the .250-.270 range.

Despite the poor BABIP and batting average Hill managed to hit 26 home runs in 580 at bats. There was one extremely noticeable change in Hill’s game from 2009 to 2010; he stopped hitting line drives. His LD% dipped from 19.6 to 10.6. The Blue Jays’ hitting coach installed a swing-as-hard-as-you-can philosophy in the players, which lead to an amazing number of home runs but little else. There is no way Hill can be that unlucky two seasons in a row. That alone should be enough to propel him back toward the upper echelon of second basemen.

Second base is a deep enough position these days that even if some teams double up, everyone in a 12-team league should end up with a decent-to-good second sacker. Having said that, the cream of the crop here creates just as much separation from the rest of the pack as it does at other positions.

Keystone King: Robinson Cano

Robinson Cano takes the mantle for the first time in his career after an other-worldly 2010 season, which is a season he could very well duplicate in 2011. The good – Cano has only missed eight games the past four seasons, which is interesting in that that’s the same number of games Nick Johnson misses every time he sneezes. Also good is the fact that Cano has lowered his GB% in each of the past four seasons, with his GB% of 44.2 last season equaling his career low. The bad – his ISO was so high last season, his .214 mark was second to only Dan Uggla, it may have nowhere to go but down. Certainly his Marcel forecast thinks so – it only forecasts him for a .176 ISO, which would actually be lower than his 2009 mark as well. Cano was also a teensy bit BABIP-lucky last year, as he had a .326 BABIP compared to a .313 xBABIP. Still, Cano’s health, and the chance that he could duplicate his four category dominance from 2010 place him at the top of the heap.

Don’t Call It A Comeback: Chase Utley

After holding the brass ring from 2005-2008, Utley was – in terms of WAR – dethroned by Ben Zobrist in 2009 and again last year by Cano (and Rickie Weeks and Kelly Johnson). But whereas the Zobrist dethroning had the tinge of Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson, the Cano-Utley duel could resemble the classic Ali-Frazier battles – if that is, Utley can stay healthy. At 120-125 games, Utley is a solid second round pick, as even in his limited time last season he still ranked top 10 among second basemen in R, HR and RBI. At the 155+ games that he played in three of the four seasons prior to 2010, he’s a no doubt first-rounder. Whether or not you believe in his ability to stay healthy and productive will largely be a function of your risk tolerance, but certainly if he slides to the second round, you’ll want to snap him up.

Laser Show Returneth: Dustin Pedroia

When he went down with his foot injury last season, Dustin Pedroia was on his way to being more deserving than ever of his moniker “Laser Show.” Had he kept up his 22.2% line drive rate for the rest of the season, it would have paced all second basemen and have been eighth best in the Majors overall. One thing to watch with Pedroia is that last season he seemed content to trade strike outs for home runs – his ISO and K% both jumped to previously unforeseen levels – albeit in a small sample. Even if that doesn’t continue, expect Pedroia to once again be a five category monster. And if it does continue, perhaps lil’ Dustin will put together his first 20-20 season.

Mr. “I Can’t Even Beat Pedroia In Gratuitous Fantasy Rankings”: Ian Kinsler

Consider the man who has constantly been in Pedroia’s shadow to be the start of a very healthy second tier. If Utley doesn’t test your risk tolerance, Kinsler certainly will. As we saw in 2009, a full season of Kinsler can be all sorts of spectacular. Unfortunately, 2009 was the only season of his five in the big leagues in which he topped 600 plate appearances. As a result, Kinsler is starting to slip on draft boards. We’re a glass half-full lot, so we still have him ranked fourth overall. But ESPN and Yahoo! both have him as the fifth second baseman coming off their draft boards (49th overall on ESPN, 37th on Yahoo!), and Mock Draft Central has him as the seventh second sacker off the board, at an average 54th pick. That’s a wide enough ADP variance that it’s something of which you should be mindful. One item of note – last season Kinsler hit about the same percentage of ground balls as he did fly balls, something that hadn’t happen before and partially explains his drop in home runs. Neither his Bill James nor Marcel projection see that as a continuing trend, as they have his ISO rebounding from his career-low .125 back into the .170’s, but it is also worth keeping an eye on.

Table Test-er No More? Dan Uggla

Bill Simmons’ creation of the “Table Test,” for the guy who brings a lot to the table but also takes a lot off the table (as typified by point guards like Rajon Rondo) would seemingly apply very well to Dan Uggla. Uggla brings power and big shiny runs scored and RBI totals, but at the same time doesn’t steal bases, is awful defensively and doesn’t hit for average. Or make that, didn’t hit for average. Last season’s breakthrough of a .287 batting average has taken Uggla to another level. Was it for real? Well, Uggla’s 2010 BABIP of .330 was nearly identical to his xBABIP of .327, so he certainly wasn’t lucky in that sense. But Uggla does have an on-again, off-again trend with his BABIP numbers in general. In the on-years, his BABIP is over .300, and his AVG is .260 or better. In the off-years, his BABIP is in the .270’s, and his AVG the .240’s. Whether or not this is the on-year or the off-year average-wise, one thing that will certainly continue is the power. In baseball’s integration era (1947-present), there have only been 24 seasons where a second baseman hit 30 or more homers, and of them, Uggla has the most with four seasons – the last four seasons. The average may come and the average may go, but Uggla will reliably provide that thump.

Earlier today our second base rankings were released with a bunch of familiar names in the top five or six spots, but let’s look at some guys who are poised to the climb the rankings this season…

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For 2011, second base actually seems like a position of depth compared to some other positions such as short stop and third base. The main problem I see with second basemen is that several of the players are qualified at 2 or more positions. Fantasy league managers may look to raid the depth at this position to fill other holes on their roster.

The following is a composite list from all the authors here at RotoGraphs. Here are the second basemen in the order we ranked them and divided into tiers.

Tier 1
Robinson Cano
Chase Utley
Dustin Pedroia

These 3 are for sure the cream of the crop, but each comes with a possible issue. Cano was a stud in 2010, but his low walk rate is a concern because pitchers may expand their strike zones on Cano giving him less good pitches to hit. Utley’s and Pedroia’s wart is their health after spending time on the DL last year.

Tier 2
Ian Kinsler
Dan Uggla
Brandon Phillips
Rickie Weeks
Martin Prado

Of this list Kinsler and Phillips are the most rounded with positive contributions in all 5 categories. Uggla should be great in the counting stats (HR, RBI, R), but his batting average will be a drag. If you draft him, you will want to make sure that you don’t have too many other players with low batting averages (Dunn or Reynolds) to drag down the category. Weeks finally had a healthy in 2011 and he finally showed what he could do. He will probably get drafted too early for my tastes. Prado has decent value, especially for a manger looking for a nice boost in BA.

Tier 3
Ben Zobrist
Kelly Johnson
Brian Roberts
Aaron Hill
Ryan Raburn

This group should all be drafted in any league. The real sleeper for me in this group is Ryan Raburn. He is not available in all formats, but he could be a steal come draft day for owners not looking to fill their 2B needs with him.

Tier 4
Gordon Beckham
Howie Kendrick
Chone Figgins
Neil Walker
Mike Aviles

Each of these players have several bad aspects, but if one or more could put together a good season they could be a top 10 2B at the end of the season. The one person not to forget about is Figgins and his SB. At the end of the draft with your entire team full, Figgins may be a great pickup, even if you don’t need SB. Someone else will later in the season and trade him for voids on your team.

The Rest
Omar Infante
Juan Uribe
Ryan Theriot
Danny Espinosa
Orlando Hudson
Placido Polanco
Sean Rodriguez
Bill Hall
Freddy Sanchez
Reid Brignac
Eric Young Jr.
Clint Barmes
Tsuyoshi Nishioka
Mark Ellis
Carlos Guillen
Alberto Callaspo
Ty Wigginton
Will Rhymes
Alexei Casilla
Dustin Ackley
Chris Getz
Blake DeWitt
Skip Schumaker

This group is pretty ugly, but there are some names I would definitely take a chance with in deeper leagues like Nishioka, Barmes, Young and Infante. The one stat I look for with backup or fill in 2nd basemen (or any player up the middle, CF, SS, 2B and C) is batting average. If the player’s average is higher than your team’s, pick them up for plug and play when other hitters have a day off. Some examples are Polanco, Callaspo, Sanchez and Infante. They will help your team raise its average, while possibly adding to the counting stats. If they have another trait like speed or power, all the better.

Well, there are the 2011 rankings for 2nd basemen here are Rotographs. Let me know if you have any questions on any of the particulars.

Following a standout rookie season in 2009 that featured a .270/.347/.460 batting line with 14 homers and 63 runs driven in, expectations were understandably high for Gordon Beckham last year. Instead of continuing on the path to stardom, Beckham struggled out of the gate and was staring at a .182/.285/.234 batting line with just five extra base hits (four doubles and a homer) on the morning of May 22nd. Many fantasy owners jumped ship, but those that stuck with him were rewarded.

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