Prospect Positional Review: Second Basemen
In or around last year’s holiday season I wrote a piece for FanGraphs+ that ranked the Top 50 Fantasy Prospects for 2015 by position. Because it’s in the middle of the offseason, it’s often an exercise in futility to properly project playing time for rookies — especially considering the large number of free agent signings and trades that have yet to take place. It’s quite fun, nonetheless, and still serves as a good starting point for understanding who might be turn into a unexpectedly valuable fantasy player for the coming year.
And with every preview, must come a review. With the regular season now behind us and the heart of the postseason underway, I present to you a review of the projected Top 50 Fantasy Prospects for 2015. I started with the catchers and first basemen last week and today is a review of the second basemen.
Actual Weighted Runs Created (wRC+) Results
135 — Devon Travis, Blue Jays
119 — Kelby Tomlinson, Giants
105 — Cory Spangenberg, Padres
91 — Tim Beckham, Rays
Marc’s Top 4
1. Jose Peraza, Braves
2. Rob Refsnyder, Yankees
3. Devon Travis, Blue Jays
4. Dilson Herrera, Mets
Honorable Mentions
Alen Hanson, Pirates
Sean Coyle, Red Sox
Tony Kemp, Astros
Travis’ promising rookie season was cut short by injury and he appeared in just 62 games. Despite the stunted season the Jays rookie was still worth 2.3 WAR — mostly due to his unexpected offensive contribution but he was also better than expected on defence. Still, his injury opened a door for Ryan Goins to absolutely dazzle on defence and even his bat got better as the year progressed.
The Jays now have some depth to work with going into the offseason and could look to one of the second basemen for trade bait to improve the pitching — or perhaps Travis could be moved to left field, allowing the Jays to free up money (for more pitching) by cutting bait with Michael Saunders and/or Ben Revere. Anyone who watched Travis game in and game out in 2015 was likely convinced that the young hitter has excellent potential.
A former first round draft pick, Spangenberg has pedigree but he’s also had a pretty modest pro career to date — mainly due to lofty strikeout rates for someone who’s never going to hit for much power. He’s shown a tendency for whiffing more than 20% each year, while offsetting that with a decent number of walks but not enough to get too excited about. In other words, his value is tied almost solely to his ability to hit for average because he doesn’t really do much else at the plate. On defence, Spangenberg played five positions, which gives him attractive versatility. He’s not the most attractive second baseman in the world but he also wasn’t terrible — especially given the freshmen second baseman class of 2015.
Tomlinson was perhaps the most surprising rookie to see playing at second base in The Show in 2015. Not only was he absent from top prospects lists but I’m not even sure the Giants baseball operations staff knew who he was (OK, it wasn’t quite that bad). Tomlinson did have a nice 2014 season at Double-A where he hit more than .300 and stole 49 bases. He was off to a pretty average season at Triple-A in ’15 and then Joe Panik got hurt and the Giants’ depth was challenged… which resulted in the lucky break for the rookie. Oddly, Tomlinson didn’t show off his base running abilities very much and his offence was definitely aided by a health BABIP. He might want to spend the offseason working on his versatility in preparation for Panik’s return to a healthy status.
Three of the four players on my pre-season list fell victim to the numbers game and were pushed aside by more appealing (???) options. Peraza didn’t look all that great in Triple-A and Atlanta kept giving opportunities to another rookie — Jace Peterson — who really shouldn’t have played as much as he did (80 wRC+). In New York, the Yankees were clearly not sold on Refsnyder’s defensive potential and instead gave at-bats to strong defensive players in Stephen Drew and Brendan Ryan. The rookie finally weaselled his way into some playing time at the end of the year and it will be interesting to see if he opens 2016 as the in-house favorite. Herrera watched the Mets given second base time to a bunch of guys while he just kept on hitting in the minors — but that kind of worked out for them OK, didn’t it? He might get an opportunity in 2016 if Daniel Murphy finally moves on.
Not one of my “honorable mentions” received even one at-bat in The Show in 2015.
Marc Hulet has been writing at FanGraphs since 2008. His work focuses on prospects and fantasy. Follow him on Twitter @marchulet.
Curious to hear what people think about Tomlinson. Put up solid numbers but just looks like a utility guy at best and most likely as someone headed for a AAA return. Want to believe since I have him cheap though.
As a fan who follows the team, I think he’ll be back as the Giants’ 5th infielder. I’ve also heard some rumors that they may try him out in OF in spring training to increase his versatility.
By the end of the season, Tomlinson was no worse than the second toughest out on the team and it was a tossup between him and Matt Duffy. Those two know how to grind out AB’s. They will attack early in the count, but then work it back in their favor if they fall behind. They keep fouling off 2-strike pitches until they get one they can handle. They use all 90 degrees of the field.
Tomlinson was a no-stick defensive SS until he became teammates and friends with Duffy in AA. Their approach is so similar, I’ve got to believe they have spent a lot of time talking about hitting and working on it together. We know that Duffy gets his inspiration from a book called The Mental Side of Hitting and reads from it every day. I’ll bet that Tomlinson either reads it too or else Duffy passes on the ideas to his friend.
As for his future, he is working on playing OF this fall in preparation for a super-utility role, but if Panik’s back does not bounce back, I would have confidence in Tomlinson’s ability to take over the position.