Updated Consensus Ranks: Second Base
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?
| 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.
No Robert Andino?
Makes no sense to have a DL’d Roberts on the list and no Andino.
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.
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.
Phillips at #4? Seems high. The guy doesn’t steal bases any more & I’d worry since he “got paid” he lacks motivation.
Are you an old, white, male sports reporter?
Lol, nice.
Phillips doesn’t have the green light until the weather warms up a little bit more and they are sure his hamstring is 100% according to Dusty Baker, which should be soon.
Phillips had made 27 million before his extension. if he was going to lose motivation because of money, he would have already done so.
So, despite the fact Pedroia has more hits, more home runs, more doubles, more stolen bases, more runs, more RBI, more walks and less strikeouts, Cano still gets the nod?
I know historically, Cano’s the stronger power guy, but he’s exhibited this sort of inconsistency before and Pedroia’s having a pretty typical Pedroia season (Some extra slugging aside, he’s right around his usual BA and OBP numbers and he’s actually hitting better on the road than at home, a rarity for him).
I’d love to see some rationale for Cano managing to hang on to the top spot, even if it’s not a huge sample size. His main draw over Pedroia has always been his power and he’s managed all of two extra base hits in the last two weeks.
Pedroia may have been better so far, but these are consensus rankings for the rest of the season
Kelly Johnson more, Roberts less (2011 was a fluke.)
Kelly Johnson is definitely too low.
Mark Ellis gets no respect! All he does is get on base and score runs. .275/.350/.380 over a full season with 80 runs/15 sbs will always be useful. More so than Mr(s). Espinosa, Barney, et al.
I agree. Mark Ellis is definitely a better baseball player than Mrs. Espinosa.
I agree too. Especially hitting in front of Kemp and Either, dude scores tons of runs. He’s even mixed in a few steals.
Kipnis at #12 seems quite low. He is having a fine season w/ no peripherals suggesting he is due to collapse.
Agree. Can someone (Mr. Sanders) discuss why he’s ranked this low (behind Neil Walker…seriously)?
Kipnis’ ranking was my issue too. Neil Walker over him? I have Kipnis, and I could get Neil Walker for him in a heartbeat, but I wouldn’t even THINK about doing that. Hell, I wouldn’t trade him for Kendrick either; not sure what Howie’s (Howard’s?) done to deserve sure-thing billing above Kipnis.
Not sure what the point of a supposed update is when there’s little shift in the rigid preseason views largely. Anyone?
To remind you that most players did not fundamentally change in the first month of this season with respect to the rest of their careers?
So the consensus is that one should trade Kipnis for Walker straight up? I should trade Craig for Espinosa straight up and call myself lucky?
I’m sorry, past value certainly has a place in these rankings, but not when it leads to rankings that are silly as far as RoS value goes.
Usually I would agree with Enos in that you shouldn’t jump to totally changing your opinion on guys based on a month’s numbers. The only thing I’ll point out is that 2B seems like a deep but fluid position outside of the top 3. I could see 4 through about 14 or 16 change a ton- a lot of them seem pretty even overall with differences more in the categories the players get than the overall value.There also seems to be a lot of young but unestablished talent lurking (Kipnis, Ackley, Weeks, Altuve, hell even Kendrick could end up anywhere on this board) mixed with good older players that some people might fear regression due to age (Phillips, Young, maybe Uggla or Cuddyer).
I could see people’s lists displaying a lot of diversity at second base this year. Because these guys were all pretty close (outside the top 3), yeah, I might be a little more “reactionary” towards a hot or cold month.
Agree. Curious as to what projection system Zach is using.
How did omar infante drop?
My question as well. Espinosa and Roberts above him? Really?
There seems to be enough faith out there that Espinosa can resurrect his HR/FB ratio, which has been declining every year (18.2%, 13.5%, 5.3%). I mean, if he can, then 19th, sure. But if he can’t…?
That ‘Fresh Prince’ passage was borderline cringeworthy. Next time, I’d resist..
Oh yeah, way too conservative on Jose Atulve in my opinion. Being reactionary isn’t necessarily a bad thing when a player forces a change in his (probably overly pessimistic) initial projections. Do any of the ‘panel’ truly believe that Atulve & Neil Walker will yield similar value over the next 4 plus months?
Haha yeah my bad. Just having a little fun, these intros get tough.
Thing about Altuve is that we loved him for a .290 10/30 type season, and yes he’s banked enough that he’ll out-do that, but I don’t see an underlying change that says that he’s very different from that the rest of this year. Walker should have more power, eventually.
Would it be possible to add a column for “Previous Ranking”? I don’t know about others, but I definitely like to take where a player is trending into account, and doing so usually requires a little bit more information than, “upward” vs. “downward” movement.
That’s the ‘last’ column. Used to say ‘previous’ but that’s a lot of letters for a little column header.
I like these rankings. Best rankings on the net.
No Marco Scutaro?
Man fellas don’t get so jazzed over someone’s ranking, that’s exactly what it is; Someone else’s rankings! Ifyou worked here, it’d be your opinion, and still somebody else’s and not mine. It’s ok to debate over who you think should be 22nd over so and so….
Get your act together Zobrist!!! I just got you and Car-Go in a trade based on the fact you’re a late bloomer!!!!
It seems to me Zach is a bit more reactionary to stats in the bag with his positional rankings than the rest of you guys, especially in the cases of Johnson, Aviles and Hill.
How is Cuddyer one spot behind Kendrick in the second base rankings but 7 spots ahead of him in the first base rankings?
It’s a violation of the independence of irrelevant alternatives axiom! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives
This made me laugh but it’s also fixed now.
Fixed and thanks
I appreciate that these rankings are meant to be more objective, less reactionary, etc., but I think it may be at the expense of accuracy. Yes, small sample size, but the recency of the first month of the season makes the data it contains particularly relevant, as do other bits and pieces of info learned during that month. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.
I wonder if this might be worth some sort of test. It wouldn’t be that hard to do. Maybe a reader poll of the most underranked players… and see if the readers are correct 5 months from now?
I’ve got kipnis at 2b and altuve at MI andnot sure I would take anybody outside the top 5 for either. Very happy with them especially the high ROI on a late draft pick (kipnis) and a pre-season waiver add (altuve).
It makes me wonder if the guys who work at Fangraphs even read the stats on this website…
Kipnis at 12? Phillips at 4?
Not only are Kipnis’s fantasy numbers just that much better than his, but the underlying numbers support Kipnis’s improvements over an already excellent cup of joe last year. Every single batted ball stat is improved; he’s turned into a not-even-that-poor man’s version of Ian Kinsler. This is while Brandon Phillips hasn’t stolen a single base and has a third as many home runs and an OBP nearly 100 points lower.
Unless you Fangraphs guys play in defensive-oriented leagues, cause then I can at least understand ranking Phillips so high.
Sometimes you have to make bold predictions to stand out in an industry like baseball, but quite frankly it’s not bold at all to knock down a guy like Phillips who’s ranked in the double-digits on name-value alone right now while an “unknown” like Kipnis is tearing the cover off the ball and only half of you can even muster to put him at 9 for the rest of the season.
Bold prediction: Jason Kipnis is a top-5 second basemen in 2012, and beats Brandon Phillips in every single category in a standard 5×5.
This is really strange to me. The industry is full of people making bold predictions, that doesn’t seem like the way to set yourself apart. We at RotoGraphs preach patience and are less reactionary than most — that seems to me to be much more outside the norm than what you’re asking for.
And further, these rankings aren’t the place for boldness. We wrote many blog posts about how we liked Kipnis, found him a sleeper, thought he was a better pick than Dustin Ackley, that he was likely to be undervalued on draft day. We even had a series called ‘bold predictions’ in which Kipnis showed up. So, we play the part and make bold predictions from time to time — in our blog posts and our analysis.
But here, in our rankings, we’re trying to show people that one month rarely tells you more than the rest of their careers. We use projections and a value calculator to stack players up against each other as precisely as we can. And as much as I like Kipnis, he hasn’t shown the speed of a Phillips, and until he does, that’s a known unknown in the rankings, and better speculated upon in the blog posts.
If/when Kyle Seager is 2b eligible, where would you rank him?