RotoGraphs Consensus Ranks: Second Base
We know y’all are starting to draft, so we’re going to pump the rankings out two at a time. We even started over the weekend, you might have noticed. The first baseman were first, the catchers were second, and now we get to the second basemen.
I’m partial to these guys — as a bad glove, no-bat youngster, I usually ended up at second base when I played. And it’s one of those positions that teams seem to find. There, among the failed shortstops and slightly athletic former tweener third basemen, they find a guy that works for them. And no, Matt Carpenter is not ranked here yet, (I might put him around 22nd), because you can’t play a guy in a position where he’s not eligible.
No matter where you find your second baseman, though, you need to find one. On to the ranks.
Just because I’m partial to second basemen doesn’t mean I’m slightly horrified by this list. Even in twelve-team leagues, it gets iffy near the bottom of the rankings. Once you take away the guys that will probably play at shortstop, you’re looking at Michael Young or Daniel Murphy as your worst mixed-league starting second basemen. And those two both showed up in the bottom five in the league last year in combined home runs plus stolen bases for a player with more than 600 plate appearances. Maybe it’s worth picking in the middle of that top twelve just to avoid that fate.
(Here are the catchers and first basemen. The projections are from Steamer, and our analysts did not necessarily use them to inform their rankings.)
| RotoG | ES | JZ | MP | ZS | Name | PA | AVG | R | HR | RBI | SB |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Robinson Cano | 671 | 0.293 | 88 | 25 | 98 | 3 |
| 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Dustin Pedroia | 663 | 0.29 | 92 | 17 | 77 | 15 |
| 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 5 | Ian Kinsler | 685 | 0.263 | 98 | 21 | 75 | 17 |
| 4 | 4 | 6 | 4 | 3 | Jason Kipnis | 680 | 0.253 | 85 | 16 | 70 | 19 |
| 5 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 10 | Jose Altuve | 684 | 0.275 | 84 | 10 | 59 | 26 |
| 6 | 5 | 5 | 7 | 8 | Brandon Phillips | 660 | 0.276 | 84 | 18 | 69 | 10 |
| 7 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 6 | Martin Prado | 642 | 0.294 | 85 | 13 | 66 | 8 |
| 8 | 8 | 9 | 8 | 4 | Ben Zobrist | 676 | 0.262 | 89 | 19 | 77 | 11 |
| 9 | 9 | 8 | 5 | 7 | Aaron Hill | 641 | 0.268 | 84 | 20 | 73 | 10 |
| 10 | 12 | 13 | 11 | 12 | Kyle Seager | 628 | 0.254 | 68 | 16 | 68 | 9 |
| 11 | 13 | 14 | 12 | 9 | Rickie Weeks | 619 | 0.243 | 80 | 20 | 64 | 9 |
| 12 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 19 | Josh Rutledge | 556 | 0.279 | 74 | 15 | 63 | 14 |
| 13 | 11 | 11 | 15 | 13 | Neil Walker | 636 | 0.273 | 79 | 16 | 64 | 6 |
| 14 | 14 | 16 | 14 | 11 | Howie Kendrick | 526 | 0.275 | 60 | 10 | 56 | 8 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 17 | 14 | Michael Young | 569 | 0.288 | 63 | 12 | 62 | 2 |
| 16 | 17 | 12 | 21 | 16 | Daniel Murphy | 626 | 0.286 | 75 | 9 | 57 | 6 |
| 17 | 16 | 15 | 20 | 18 | Dustin Ackley | 699 | 0.241 | 81 | 13 | 58 | 10 |
| 18 | 15 | 21 | 13 | 22 | Chase Utley | 420 | 0.267 | 55 | 13 | 51 | 9 |
| 19 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 20 | Danny Espinosa | 562 | 0.234 | 58 | 17 | 62 | 11 |
| 20 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 15 | Marco Scutaro | 578 | 0.284 | 72 | 7 | 51 | 5 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 16 | 17 | Dan Uggla | 571 | 0.237 | 65 | 22 | 71 | 2 |
| 22 | 23 | 22 | 22 | 21 | Omar Infante | 470 | 0.282 | 55 | 8 | 51 | 8 |
| 23 | 20 | 19 | 26 | 25 | Jeff Keppinger | 532 | 0.28 | 62 | 10 | 53 | 2 |
| 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 23 | Everth Cabrera | 443 | 0.237 | 44 | 3 | 32 | 30 |
| 25 | 25 | 26 | 23 | 24 | Emilio Bonifacio | 346 | 0.258 | 38 | 2 | 29 | 20 |
| 26 | 27 | 25 | 28 | 29 | Darwin Barney | 555 | 0.263 | 50 | 5 | 48 | 6 |
| 27 | 28 | 28 | 30 | 26 | Gordon Beckham | 490 | 0.251 | 55 | 13 | 53 | 4 |
| 28 | 26 | 31 | 31 | 28 | Cliff Pennington | 394 | 0.253 | 37 | 5 | 37 | 9 |
| 29 | 19 | 27 | 35 | 36 | Jedd Gyorko | 391 | 0.269 | 42 | 13 | 59 | 4 |
| 30 | 30 | 30 | 35 | 30 | Jamey Carroll | 485 | 0.275 | 51 | 1 | 37 | 7 |
| 31 | 29 | 29 | 35 | 42 | Jurickson Profar | 345 | 0.232 | 38 | 6 | 34 | 11 |
| 32 | 35 | 42 | 25 | 34 | Maicer Izturis | 254 | 0.263 | 27 | 3 | 24 | 7 |
| 33 | 41 | 35 | 27 | 33 | Kelly Johnson | 419 | 0.227 | 45 | 11 | 44 | 6 |
| 34 | 41 | 37 | 34 | 27 | Donovan Solano | 411 | 0.248 | 34 | 3 | 34 | 5 |
| 35 | 40 | 40 | 29 | 31 | Adeiny Hechavarria | 397 | 0.235 | 32 | 5 | 34 | 6 |
| 36 | 31 | 46 | 35 | 32 | Brian Roberts | 137 | 0.255 | 16 | 2 | 12 | 3 |
| 37 | 34 | 32 | 32 | 46 | Chris Nelson | 304 | 0.274 | 33 | 8 | 37 | 2 |
| 38 | 38 | 36 | 35 | 37 | Steve Lombardozzi | 298 | 0.252 | 27 | 4 | 27 | 6 |
| 39 | 41 | 38 | 33 | 38 | Mark Ellis | 403 | 0.248 | 40 | 6 | 34 | 4 |
| 40 | 39 | 34 | 35 | 44 | Jemile Weeks | 362 | 0.253 | 39 | 3 | 30 | 9 |
| 41 | 41 | 45 | 35 | 39 | Alexi Casilla | 234 | 0.246 | 23 | 2 | 20 | 10 |
| 42 | 41 | 41 | 35 | 43 | Daniel Descalso | 380 | 0.247 | 34 | 4 | 35 | 3 |
| 43 | 37 | 46 | 35 | 45 | Ryan Roberts | 286 | 0.236 | 30 | 7 | 29 | 5 |
Also ranked by one analyst: Tyler Greene, Ramon Santiago, Ryan Raburn, Chris Getz, DJ LeMahieu, Jerry Hairston, Jordany Valdespin, Logan Forsythe, and Sean Rodriguez.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
It is predictable as the sun rising in the east: Ben Zobrist getting ranked absurdly on a second base list (RotoG consensus). I agree with Zach Sanders in this case, he is no worse than fourth.
At the very least, I’m not sure how altuve could be higher than hill, phillips, prado, and zobrist, let alone second overall. Is 10-15 steals and maybe .25 in ba worth everything you lose with him?
No kidding. Sometimes people overvalue categories as opposed to the overall talent of a player. Zobrist is easily the 4th best secondbaseman….maybe ahead of Kinsler even.
I think you are not giving Altuve much credit at all in terms of BA. His past performance makes even the projects for his BA seem low, and you are randomly projecting him even lower to be a 0.250 BA? Seems very low indeed.
Pretty sure ManwichMan is saying that Altuve gives you about a 0.025 BA advantage over those other guys, not that he’s going to hit .250.
Altuve is being moved to second in the order (he led off most of the time last year. That, along with the move to the AL and DH means he should bump up his RBIs considerable.
When you consider his age, his improved plate discipline and the decent power he showed in the high minors, I’d say his ceiling in 2013 is markedly higher than in 2012.
fun fact 1: according to this, there are 11 top 10 second basemen and kyle seager (the consensus number 10) is not one of them.
fun fact 2: all 4 of the writers could draft one of his top 3 second basemen and ian kinsler would still be left.
absurdly low* (I’d kill for an edit option in the Fan/Roto/NotGraphs comment section)
Note: while no pop no speed guys like Young/Murphy make wonder bread seem zesty their R/RBI/AVG contributions are positive in 3 out of 5 categories in 5×5….won’t kill you
just in case the writers need article ideas, i would be interested in knowing how these rankings were arrived at on a per-writer basis. I know Mike and Zach have documented their projection/ranking processes in the past, but to what extent is Mike using his Pod projections to dictate his player rankings by position, and what projection system is Zach using if he is relying on fVAR to dictate his rankings? Or are all of these mostly/partly gut-driven?
I find when there are consensus rankings where one person is much higher or lower on a player than all the others, the entire consensus is thrown. It’s easier to find the writer whose philosophy most closely mirrors my own and use their rankings as the basis.
All the Pod Projection posts I publish are my actual projections. They are what drive my rankings. I then take the projections and use a valuation method to derive dollar values. Sort in descending order of value, and bam, a ranking order.
right i guess my meaning is more i’d be interested in reading, after all the rankings are published, each writer (you included) responding to the rankings overall. What you think of your rankings compared to consensus, what your process was in deriving your rankings, etc. Who you think everyone else is too high or low on, a ranking you were ambivalent about or don’t really believe in enough to argue it, etc.
Also i’d be interested in knowing who of your 10-way tie for 35th you would actually prefer to get as an MI/util in a standard league.
Especially when there isn’t a common mission statement.
I’d like the rankings to be consistent for either:
A. Individual contribution value (so less projected AB = less stats = lower ranking)
B. Expected draft/roto value (where replacement stats even out AB gaps)
At 2B Rutledge is 10th, 10th, 10th, 19th. Is that 19th rank due to performance or playing time? Makes a difference.
If I’m in an OBP keeper, should I consider keeping Pedroia over Bautista and Price? I’ve got a full outfield already and no pitchers.
Seems like a good place to ask.
Dynasty, keep indefinitely, no salary
Would you trade Cano for Pedroia and Bundy?
Yes. I don’t think you’re getting that much of a drop-off from Cano to Pedoria, plus you’re getting the #1 pitching prospect in a keep indefinitely league.
How many games is Chase Utley gonna play this year?
O/U 115.5?
Hmm so I guess no one’s got faith in an Ackley turnaround, huh
Altuve ranking 2nd in 2B is the worst ranking Ive ever seen, and CBS, ESPN, and YAhoo have some doozies….Altuvites just seem to think its a lock he is a .330 MLB hitter, I dont get it….
Thanks.
Sorry Jeff, even though i was offensive, I meant no offense….some people just can’t hide their love for Venezuealan little people…..its not your fault!! I do like to see people go out on a limb ranking guys they really like, better than the consensus 1,2,3,4 stuff you can find everywhere and I guess maybe subconsciously im slightly biased against the whole Venezuealan Little people movement …. I think the rest of your 2b rankings are dead on, ok maybe I’d move Zobrist up, maybe i just like tall strapping multi-eligibillians
rutledge and altuve were zach’s high school bullies
Altuve couldn’t bully Stuart little
One note to consider is the value of one SB > one HR
Just looking at 2B, who are not exactly power hitters, they hit more HRs than SB.
Of the top 20 2B, Steamer projects over 307 HRs and only 208 SBs.
Jeff, I recall Zach used a similar argument when presenting his fVAR system a few years back. The idea he had was to find zscores for rate stats at position, which lead to positions where 1 rate was rarer (an SB for a 2b, for example) being overvalued. A 2b who steals 30 bases is worth more than a 2b who steals 10 bases only if the 10-base 2b doesn’t make up for that deficit in other stats. And a stolen base is worth 1 stolen base whether it is from your 2b or your OF.
Case in point, Ackley ends up on Zimmerman’s 1B list as 19th best (surrounded by Mauer, Teixeira, Trumbo, C.Davis) and 15th best on 2B list (Seager, Weeks, Kendrick, M.Young). I believe that the strong 1B showing is due to the SBs that he provides from that position.
You just need to lump all of the players together and attack it that way. Or your playing with flawed logic.
Zach’s calculator compares to the general public and then to the position at question. The standard deviations above the mean are compared to the general population, and then the value is compared to people at the position. So we do both, we don’t ignore that some positions don’t traditionally give you certain stats, and we don’t ignore comparing a player to the gen pop of players. http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/basebal-fantasy-value-above-replacement/
right, i forgot to mention that Zach updated fVAR to fix this. Thanks for pointing that out, I think it makes a huge difference in successful valuation and I know I have tried working with fVAR for my own rankings/valuations to some success.
One note to remember is that it all depends on your league settings as to the value of one SB vs. one HR.
In H2H leagues, there may be more home runs hit than bases stolen over any given week, but that doesn’t mean incremental SB’s are more valuable than incremental HR’s. SB’s from any source in your lineup rely on a few random events lining up–did the guy get on base, was he blocked from a SB by a runner ahead of him, etc. A HR is completely random based just upon the outcome of the AB.
In the research I’ve done on my H2H league, SB’s are a lot more random from week to week vs. HR’s. Part of drafting is building consistency. SB’s just aren’t reliable in a H2H league unless you build a full team of speedsters.
Sleeper of the position is….NEIL WALKER!
Nobody ever gets excited about Walker. Consider he only got 530 PA last year, missing most of September. But if you pro-rate his 2012 stats with the 630 PA projected for this year, you get:
2012: 74R, 17HR, 83RBI, 8SB, .280 avg
That looks remarkably similar to his 2011 season (662 PA):
2011: 76R, 12HR, 83RBI, 9SB, .273 avg
With zero growth, you’re looking at a very steady player who would likely place in the top-8 of the position (looking at the Steamer stats). He’s also coming into his age-27 season; that doesn’t mean a breakout is imminent, but even incremental growth this season would produce a near top-5 season.
Others in the industry appear to have him pegged very similarly as above. From LABR results this weekend for 2B eligible players:
AL/NL leagues (auction): 12th-highest priced
Mixed (snake): 11th (pick 108)
Good call on Walker. He’s a big reason I won’t even glance at earlier picks like Phillips or Hill. Not that he’ll exceed their value, but for the price he’s not that far away.
Now shhh. 😉
R. Weeks is a close runner-up.
Normalized to 650 PA’s:
2010: 97 R, 25 HR, 72 RBI, 9 SB, .269
2011: 97 R, 25 HR, 62 RBI, 11 SB, .269
2012: 82 R, 21 HR, 63 RBI, 16 SB, .230
2nd half 2012: 101 R, 26 HR, 68 RBI, 20 SB, .261
At age 30, he may be due for a decline. But you may be able to get him at a discount if folks are over-penalizing him for his awful 2012 1st half.
Note: Compare that trend of production (minus 1st half 2012) to Kinsler’s projection. You may be able to pencil in a few more SB’s from Kinsler, but the rest looks pretty similar. Kinsler scares me at his ADP. I feel much better about drafting Weeks where he’ll likely go.
“Normalized to 650 PA’s”
… aaannnd you lost mel
Right on
“Rickie Weeks maybe undervalued too” would suffice
Johnny Giavotella should be in there, somewhere between 20 & 34…
Remember when Dan Uggla was good?