End of Season Rankings: Second Base

The 2012 fantasy baseball season has come to a close, so it is time to look back at the season past and determine which players were the most valuable at each position. This week focuses on second baseman, a popular cornerstone of fantasy offenses everywhere.

The players were ranked based on their 2012 production, using the evaluation system explained and updated on this site some time ago. To keep things manageable and avoid skewing the numbers, players were only considered if they amassed 350 plate appearances over the course of the year. The replacement level was also adjusted to account for players eligible at multiples positions. The valuations are built for $260 budgets and traditional 5×5 roto fantasy leagues.

One important thing to note is the premium (or lack thereof) placed on the position a player occupies in your lineup. For example, while a first baseman may be able to accumulate superior overall numbers, the availability of such production lower in the rankings severely dampers the amount the player was worth.

These rankings are meant to reflect a player’s value should he have occupied this spot in your lineup for the entire year. So, a player who missed time due to injury but put up great numbers during his time on the field would be worth less.

With all this in mind, here are your rankings.

Rnk	Name	Pos	AB	HR	R	RBI	SB	BA	$$$
1	Robinson Cano	2B	627	33	105	94	3	0.313	26
2	Aaron Hill	2B	609	26	93	85	14	0.302	23
3	Ian Kinsler	2B	655	19	105	72	21	0.256	18
4	Jason Kipnis	2B	591	14	86	76	31	0.257	17
5	Allen Craig	2B	469	22	76	92	2	0.307	17
6	Brandon Phillips	2B	580	18	86	77	15	0.281	16
7	Ben Zobrist	2B	560	20	88	74	14	0.27	15
8	Dustin Pedroia	2B	563	15	81	65	20	0.29	15
9	Martin Prado	2B	617	10	81	70	17	0.301	14
10	Marco Scutaro	2B	620	7	87	74	9	0.306	13
11	Jose Altuve	2B	576	7	80	37	33	0.29	12
12	Danny Espinosa	2B	594	17	82	56	20	0.247	10
13	Rickie Weeks	2B	588	21	85	63	16	0.23	10
14	Omar Infante	2B	554	12	69	53	17	0.274	8
15	Neil Walker	2B	472	14	62	69	7	0.28	7
16	Howie Kendrick	2B	550	8	57	67	14	0.287	7
17	Dan Uggla	2B	523	19	86	78	4	0.22	7
18	Daniel Murphy	2B	571	6	62	65	10	0.291	6
19	Michael Young	2B	611	8	79	67	2	0.277	6
20	Mike Aviles	2B	512	13	57	60	14	0.25	4
21	Dustin Ackley	2B	607	12	84	50	13	0.226	4
22	Michael Cuddyer	2B	358	16	53	58	8	0.26	3
23	Everth Cabrera	2B	398	2	49	24	44	0.246	2
24	Kelly Johnson	2B	507	16	61	55	14	0.225	2
25	Jeff Keppinger	2B	385	9	46	40	1	0.325	2
26	Chris Nelson	2B	345	9	45	53	2	0.301	1
27	Gordon Beckham	2B	525	16	62	60	5	0.234	1
28	Trevor Plouffe	2B	422	24	56	55	1	0.235	1
29	Darwin Barney	2B	548	7	73	44	6	0.254	0
30	Chase Utley	2B	301	11	48	45	11	0.256	-1
31	Jamey Carroll	2B	470	1	65	40	9	0.268	-1
32	Ryan Roberts	2B	439	12	51	52	10	0.235	-2
33	Mark Ellis	2B	415	7	62	31	5	0.258	-3
34	Ruben Tejada	2B	464	1	53	25	4	0.289	-5
35	Logan Forsythe	2B	315	6	45	26	8	0.273	-5
36	Ryan Theriot	2B	352	0	45	28	13	0.27	-5
37	Steve Lombardozzi	2B	384	3	40	27	5	0.273	-7
38	Cliff Pennington	2B	418	6	50	28	15	0.215	-8
39	Jemile Weeks	2B	444	2	54	20	16	0.221	-9
40	Daniel Descalso	2B	374	4	41	26	6	0.227	-12
41	Robert Andino	2B	384	7	41	28	5	0.211	-12

As you can tell from the values earned by the top players at the position, second base was pretty strong this year, but it’s very hard to find five-category contributors in the middle infield.