Rest of Season Ranks - Second Base
A summer series of posts re-ranking players by position
Second base! This one was a pretty easy one to get done. There’s not a ton of fantasy goodness at the position, and it’s quite top-heavy. There is plenty of room for dispute about what I have here after the top two tiers or so, so feel free to get that going in the comments. Here we go.
Tier One
Marcus Semien
Mookie Betts
There are three players I considered for tier one, and some people could probably argue that there are four players that could be here, but this is what I’ve settled on.
Semien and Betts are two of the best fantasy players for volume. They both play every day at the top of the lineup and are on super great offenses, so to me - they’re the clear cream of the crop.
Tier Two
Ozzie Albies
Nico Hoerner
Jose Altuve
The two that could enter tier one here are Albies and Altuve. That’s weird because I have Hoerner above Altuve. But I’m a little bit worried about Altuve with his 53% GB% and .433 SLG. He’ll probably get better as the year goes on, and I think he’s easily a top-five second baseman if drafting today. I put Hoerner there ahead of him just because the steals are so secure. We saw his upside in the first month there when he was just racking up base hits, runs, and steals with the best of them - so I’m fine with him over Altuve - it feels safer.
Tier Three
Max Muncy
Ketel Marte
Jonathan India
Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Thairo Estrada
Brandon Drury
Luis Arraez
If Chisholm was currently healthy and hadn’t had such a bad K% (33%) before getting hurt, he’d be at the top of this tier, but there are real concerns about the strikeouts and the health so I’m knocking him down.
I’m a bit high on Muncy probably given that he’s currently on the IL, but the power was so good prior to the injury and it’s a nice spot to be in that Dodgers lineup behind Betts and Freeman.
I think it’s probable that Marte or India or Estrada really outdoes Muncy overall, but I could see all three of those guys falling pretty flat for fantasy-purposes. India is the best of the trio, and it’s hard to really poke too many holes in what he’s doing this year - but the barrel rate is low and who knows, there are a lot of really good infielders on that team - if he struggles for a bit he could find himself losing some playing time.
We talked about Arraez yesterday at first base. The batting average is great but it’s completely empty.
Tier Four
Christopher Morel
Ryan McMahon
Tommy Edman
Gleyber Torres
Andres Gimenez
Nolan Gorman
Jorge Polanco
These are your single-skill guys, pretty much. Morel is electric but goes on these stretches of doing absolutely nothing and losing his starting job. McMahon’s power is for real but he doesn’t do much else and the Rockies are terrible. Gorman is pretty Morel-like but without the speed.
The other guys here just don’t do anything super well, but play every day and have their share of fantasy success in the past, and that’s meaningful.
Tier Five
Isaac Paredes
Whit Merrifield
Orlando Arcia
Brandon Lowe
Jeff McNeil
Edouard Julien
With Paredes, Merrifeld, McNeil, and Arcia - it’s like, I don’t really want to rank them high, but they’re putting up numbers so it’s hard to argue and keep them out of the top 25.
For Lowe, he had an awesome April and then did nothing for weeks and is now hurt, so he’s tough to rank - but he has real upside if he gets healthy.
And then Julien has the upside as a hitter who was awesome in the minors and is in the Majors now. He’s getting benched a lot and seems to be in a platoon, but I’d definitely take his upside over plenty of the other names below here.
Tier Six
Luis Garcia
Brendan Donovan
Miguel Vargas
Bryson Stott
Chris Taylor
Ji Hwan Bae
Michael Busch
Jake Cronenworth
Adam Frazier
Taylor Walls
And this is kind of the “do nothing, but they play a lot” or the “do one thing” group of players. I still have hopes for Garcia and Vargas, but they aren’t doing much for us this year so maybe they’re more interesting for fantasy purposes further down the road than 2023.
That’s second base for you, back next week to finish up the hitters and then we’ll get to the beast that is SP at some point before the all-star break!