2025 Position Previews: Second Base
An in depth look at the second base position ahead of 2025 fantasy baseball draft season.
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You have heard it many times by now, but the second base position is weak this year. There is nobody being considered in the first or second round, and you very quickly run out of guys who have elite fantasy upside.
This is a good example of the different kinds of deep that I talked about on the shortstop podcast. A position can be “deep” because it has a lot of really good players. It can also be “deep” (although that’s not a very good word to describe this) if there aren’t great players at the top. The depth of a position should be judged by the comparison between the early-round names and the later-round names. If there’s not a huge difference between the two, you have a “deep” position. That would be a spot that you’re fine waiting a bit longer to get into.
At the beginning of draft season, I was targeting the top tier at second base because I didn’t want to fall into picking one of these guys who aren’t very good. And that’s a fine way to look at it. After completing all of the player reviews, however, I realized that I don’t really like any of the guys at the top of the list all that much, either. With that being the case, and knowing that most of the managers in a fantasy league won’t come out of the draft feeling great about their second base situation, I’m more likely to wait awhile at the position.
I think we’ve seen some of the prices on the top guys become too high because of the lack of options after them. And we’ll see that below.
I also find a lot of guys to like very late in the draft at this position. Plenty of those names will fail this year, but I do feel pretty good about getting a few gems from the later tiers.
My general strategy for now is to wait. Let’s target some of the sneaky names in the later tiers that our competition isn’t aware of, and then hope for the best. If the guys at the top go off this year, then so be it!
Tier One
#1 Ketel Marte (ADP Rank #1)
Reminder: Each player’s full write-up is linked under their name. Click that to be taken directly to my full analysis of them.
I don’t think I’ll have a single Ketel Marte share this year. The ADP is 31, which makes him a third-round pick. His 2024 season justified that and then some (93 R, 36 HR, 95 RBI, 7 SB, .294 AVG). But if you look back any further than that, you get uneasy about using a top pick on him.
2021: 90 G, 52 R, 14 HR, 50 RBI, 2 SB, .318 AVG
2022: 137 G, 68 R, 12 HR, 52 RBI, 5 SB, .240 AVG
2023: 150 G, 94 R, 25 HR, 82 RBI, 8 SB, .276 AVG
You would be either disappointed or majorly disappointed with all three of those outcomes if that’s what you get from Marte this year.
He’s clearly the best player at the position. I don’t think there’s any question about it, but the price is too high for me.
#2 Ozzie Albies (ADP Rank #3)
Albies fell flat last year both with the health and with the performance. He hit just .251 with 10 homers and eight steals in 99 games. That has pushed his ADP down to 61. I’m not necessarily saying that’s too cheap, but it does make him decently appealing if you’re drafting for upside.
Don’t forget that Albies has two massive fantasy seasons in the last four. He went for 103 runs, 30 homers, and 106 RBI in 2021. He did more of the same in 2023 with 96 runs, 109 RBI, 33 homers, and a .280 batting average. The ceiling is fantastic with the guy. What he doesn’t offer is consistency, and he’s missed a lot of time due to injury in these last three.
All things considered, Albies is my preferred 2B option if I’m one of my earlier picks on a guy.
Tier Two
#3 Jose Altuve (ADP Rank #2)
He’s turning 35 this year (in May), so age is really becoming a concern. That said, he had another very nice fantasy season last year, hitting .295 with 20 homers, 22 steals, and 90 runs scored.
I think we’ll see Altuve topping out around 20-25 homers for the rest of his career, but it is nice that he’s brought the steals back (18, 14, and 22 the last three years) after that wasn’t a part of his game for a few seasons there. He’ll play as much as he can, and I don’t think anybody is taking his spot at the top of the lineup. We can still feel fine about Altuve, and I think he’s priced correctly.
#4 Marcus Semien (ADP Rank #5)
It’s a lot of the same names we’ve been seeing for years! Semien is 34 and actually didn’t play 162 games last year! He missed three full games - sound the alarms!
The trouble we have is that he was pretty bad last year. Let’s check the three-year trend:
2022: .248/.304/.429, 26 HR, 25 SB
2023: .276/.348/.478, 29 HR, 14 SB
2024: .237/.308/.390, 23 HR, 8 SB
That’s pretty scary stuff. His K% was still great (15%), and the xBA was better at .248. But I think we’re seeing some physical degradation, and that makes him a risky pick in the top 100. The reason I feel okay about him is the volume. It’s tough not to have a pretty decent R+RBI season when leading off 160+ times, but overall, I think I’m out on Semien.
#5 Matt McLain (ADP Rank #6)
We covered him in the shortstop preview already, so I’ve said my peace about him! He’s a riskier pick as a guy with very little MLB experience and a high K% in that time, but the ceiling is great.
#6 Jordan Westburg (ADP Rank #4)
The skills are there, and NFBC drafters believe in him. They are now drafting him ahead of Semien. I get it. The power is there (11.8% Brl%, 106.3 EV90), and he turned in a very competitive K% of 22%. He also has some untapped foot speed. We could see him have a huge season in Baltimore.
I hesitate a bit due to the fact that he has just about one full season’s worth of MLB playing time. And he didn’t come out of the gates very hot either, with just a .409 SLG in that 2023 sample. Maybe we should throw that out, but I can’t quite do it!
I suppose he’ll be fine, but I just can’t shake the lack of sample size.