May 14, 2017

The third part of our updated fantasy baseball second base (2B) rankings, tiers and auction dollar values for May. Nick also looks at some rankings risers and fallers.

The time for chalking things up to “just April shenanigans” has come and gone, and we here at RotoBaller felt that it was time for a rankings update with roughly 20 percent of the season in the books. Kyle Bishop and I felt that the world needed to know what we thought after a month-plus of baseball, with this being the result after much hair-pulling and wondering what alternate reality we had slipped into.

The keystone world is an intriguing one, as many useful-but-not-elite types live here. We haven’t really seen any one of them “take over” and provide first-round utility yet, though Murph-dog is knocking on the door and it isn’t as though Altuve has been bad by any means. Remember, we’re not here to overreact, simply to reassess.

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2017 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: Second Basemen (May Updates)

Second Base Rankings Analysis: May

We’re holding fast with our top tier again, though Daniel Murphy does leapfrog Robinson Cano at the No. 3 slot. Murphy’s hot start does seem to be an overperformance considering how amazingly he’s swung the bat over roughly the past two calendar years. I realize that Trea Turner is in the midst of a little slump, but the opening month of his largely reflected the talent flashed last season and that ceiling needs to be respected.

Rougned Odor’s six homers and three steals are nice to see this early, but his four caught stealing’s and paltry .201/.252/.369 triple slash are quite frightful. It isn’t even his contact that’s the issue -- those are holding steady with last season -- but his soft-contact rate has soared from 15.4 percent to 21.9 percent to open 2017. When you rely on power to make value and have a fly-ball heavy profile (47.8 percent), then you can’t generate that many weakly-struck balls and expect to have a good showing.

I am officially worried about Jason Kipnis and I would tie a rock to his stock here and chuck it into a lake if I could. I know full well that he won’t finish the season batting .155, but he has just two extra-base hits (both doubles) in 74 plate appearances with only two walks against 20 strikeouts. His chase rate is up four percent, line-drive rate down five percent and soft-contact up nearly 10 percent. He’s upping his aggression at the dish with horrible results. He’s pressing and it’s not working. He’s talented, but he needs to reverse course quickly here. Or put up another 30-steal season like in ’12 and ’13, which would help too.

Cesar Hernandez and Starlin Castro have both shot up in the rankings, and deservedly so. Hernandez’s power has (predictably) slowed, but he continues to make consistent contact and score from atop Philly’s lineup. He’s also now six-for-seven on steal attempts after going a blah 17-for-30 on the basepaths in ’16. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns in a 100-10-45-25-.300 season. Castro has simply upped his zone-contact rate nearly six percent -- back to his 2011 levels when he hit a career-high .307 -- but he’s kept his power. Yankee Stadium gets the assist in that department, but between that and a career-best 22.5 percent line-drive rate thus far, I can back Castro in ’17.

I still believe in Devon Travis’ ability to bounce back here (also true for much of Toronto’s lineup, including Steve Pearce) but he’s been safe to move along from in 12-teamers for a while. I will say that his eight doubles in his last 60 PAs is encouraging, but he’s only logged five hits aside from those for a .232 average over that span. He’ll need more than two steals in that timeframe to compensate.

Also, Javier Baez has actually done fairly well for himself in 116 plate appearances, but I still find it too difficult to back him and his .243/.281/.458 slash line. He’s absolutely hit better of late after hitting just one long ball in April, but I have a hard time trusting this. I think he was rather unlucky in April and is riding a 30.8 percent HR/FB rate in May despite an unspectacular batted-ball profile. But hey, at least it helps him stay in the lineup and creep up toward the six-hole.

And yes, I disrespected Matt Carpenter with my ranking. Mea culpa -- he deserves to be higher.

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