Updated Consensus Ranks: Second Base

by
May 9, 2012

Let’s take a minute all sitting right here to tell you how these rankings came to be. In West fantasylandia, born and raised, on fantasy leagues is where we spend most of our days. Chilling out, ranking, adding, dropping, all trading players with the dudes on the playground, when a couple of guys, they were up to no good, started asking “What about rankings for the rest of the season?” We got in one little fight, and the Dark Lord got scared, and he said “You good for nothings gotta get a consensus together.” So we pulled up our own rankings, each with our own methods, and we yelled to Appelman “Yo dude smell you later.” We looked at our blog, we were finally there, we had Rest-of-Season Consensus Ranks for all of our players.

Uh, so yeah, the point is, these are our consensus ranks for the rest of the season. Because of our methodology, they will move slower than popular opinion. They also don’t give a ton of credit for past work. Just enough we think. On to the second baseman.

The top three stay mostly the same, and even the top five look similar, with a notable exception. Standing out like the Fresh Prince in Bel-Air is Ben Zobrist. His BABIP is just totally toast, despite a decent line drive rate and no change to his batted ball mix or plate discipline. Maybe his early-season struggles just ‘reminded’ our systems that he won’t have a great batting average. Or maybe his career-worst fly-ball rate made us worried about his home run power. Can’t speak for the rest of my gang. He didn’t get demoted far anyway.

Jose Altuve gets the award for fastest riser, and for good reason. Starlin Castro at second base sounds pretty good to most fantasy ballplayers. For those that wanted him, or Jason Kipnis, to move more, just remember that RotoGraphs loved those guys from the start. They didn’t have to go far to reflect their value.

And yeah, it looks like Danny Espinosa’s contact issues worry us. And 31 isn’t being as kind as 30 to Ryan Roberts, mostly because of his bad BABIP and power dropoff.

Who do you like better than we do?

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Fangraphs Consensus Rankings
Second Base
New Last Player Name Eno Sarris Mike Podhorzer Jeff Zimmerman Zach Sanders
1 1 Robinson Cano 1 1 1 1
2 2 Dustin Pedroia 2 2 2 2
3 3 Ian Kinsler 3 3 3 3
4 5 Brandon Phillips 5 6 4 4
5 7 Michael Young 4 5 5 7
6 4 Ben Zobrist 6 7 7 6
7 6 Dan Uggla 7 9 6 5
8 8 Howie Kendrick 8 8 8 10
9 10 Michael Cuddyer 11 4 10 9
10 9 Rickie Weeks 10 12 12 11
11 13 Neil Walker 13 11 11 14
12 12 Jason Kipnis 9 13 9 19
13 17 Jose Altuve 12 10 13 18
14 18 Kelly Johnson 14 14 19 8
15 16 Dustin Ackley 17 15 15 13
16 14 Jemile Weeks 15 16 14 17
17 19 Daniel Murphy 19 18 18 16
18 28 Mike Aviles 16 20 24 12
19 15 Danny Espinosa 23 17 17 20
20 21 Aaron Hill 24 19 20 15
21 25 Allen Craig 18 23 21 22
22 20 Ryan Roberts 20 21 22 27
23 11 Chase Utley 25 24 16 29
24 23 Omar Infante 21 29 23 21
25 22 Ryan Raburn 26 22 28 26
26 24 Gordon Beckham 27 27 27 30
27 29 Sean Rodriguez 28 28 26 31
28 31 Alexi Casilla 31 26 34 23
29 32 Darwin Barney 30 31 29 25
30 NA Ruben Tejada 34 33 32 24
31 33 Mark Ellis 32 32 33 28
32 27 Orlando Hudson 37 25 31 38
33 34 Maicer Izturis 33 36 30 33
34 26 Freddy Sanchez 36 30 35 32
35 36 Johnny Giavotella 38 38 25 34
36 NA Steve Lombardozzi 29 35 38 35
37 30 Brian Roberts 35 37 36 37
38 NA Trevor Plouffe 39 34 37 36





 

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.

44 Comments
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BritO
13 years ago

No Robert Andino?

-1
Lucky Jim
13 years ago
Reply to  BritO

Makes no sense to have a DL’d Roberts on the list and no Andino.

0
Eno SarrisMember since 2020
13 years ago
Reply to  Lucky Jim

Not if you have Andino as below replacement going forward. I have him at .250 5/5 and that’s only playable in a 12-team AL-only, and even then only because you have to.

-1
Luis Matos
13 years ago
Reply to  Lucky Jim

Eno: Andino is currently ninth among qualified second basemen in OPS. That should be worth something. Though his BABIP is unsustainable, even at his worst, he is much more valuable to a fantasy baseball team right now than a 35 year old who might never play again, and will be significantly limited if he does.

0