2018 Positional Power Rankings: Second Base
Throughout the week, we’re publishing our positional power ranking series. If you’re unfamiliar with the process or concept, Jeff explained the series on Monday. Today, I’ll be addressing second base. What fun!
Every position has its theme. You have the bright young things who play shortstop, the fly-ball revolutionaries occupying first base, the catchers who aren’t Buster Posey.
Second base has, in the past, been defined by the veterans at the top, but these rankings portend change in the form of young upstarts. Jose Altuve wrested the top of the rankings from Robinson Cano last year and has only widened the gap between himself and his keystone compatriots; he’s projected to be more than a win better than second place Brian Dozier. And as mentioned, the middle and bottom bits of the rankings feature names like Ozzie Albies, Ketel Marte, Yoan Moncada, and Luis Urias, all of whom could outperform their projections and shift their teams’ positions.
Calling it a “youth movement” is too strong; perhaps it might be better described as an “infusion.” Last year, just two of the top-10 players played the whole season while under the age of 30; this year it’s four. An infusion, indeed.
Meg is the editor-in-chief of FanGraphs and the co-host of Effectively Wild. Prior to joining FanGraphs, her work appeared at Baseball Prospectus, Lookout Landing, and Just A Bit Outside. You can follow her on Bluesky @megrowler.fangraphs.com.
Zack Cozart got a donkey from Joey Votto for being an All Star. Scooter got a scooter from the team for hitting 4 home runs in a game.
This wrong has been righted! Order has been restored! Thanks for the note!
Just doing my civic duty.
A sleepy author appreciates it.
Given how much Yoan Moncada has to work on, and given his OBP of .338, I don’t like the idea of putting him in the leadoff spot. Is that where they think he is going to hit long-term?
(Now I look over at their page, and apparently no one on the White Sox has a decent OBP except Abreu. Still seems like a distraction for him, but at least it makes more sense from a competitive perspective)
It gives him the most reps.
If Altuve is one of the best things about baseball—and I agree that he is—it’s worth reiterating the role that tanking played in creating the room for him. Altuve’s minor league career was pretty spotty before 2011, when his hitting profile went through the roof. Except it was driven by comically high BABIP numbers (.443 in 52 games at high A, .373 in 35 at AA) and there wasn’t much reason to think those were real. But the Astros didn’t care about winning then, so here comes the little man to the majors, where he scuffed out a marginal existence for three years on a team that won 56, 55, and 51 games.
And then a year later he became one of the best players in all of baseball. Does he get three years to play like that if the Astros are actually trying to win? Seems unlikely.
Thanks, tanking.
I don’t think it’s as “out of nowhere” as the legend has made it. He had some pop in the low minors and a 102 WRC in his first full season. The Astros were going nowhere so it wasn’t like giving him playing time was blocking a better option. That the player he was in 2011 turned into an MVP is shocking, but the idea he couldn’t be a MLB player was based on his stature not his output.
I think that’s true, but his stature remained concerning precisely because his output did not look good at the MLB level. A player whose stature created concerns reached the majors and proceeded to put up 80 (57 games), 102, 84 over his first three years.
For comparison: David Eckstein was a better player than we remember, but Altuve’s output in his first three seasons was worse than Eckstein’s early years as both a hitter and runner. And it was MUCH worse than Eckstein’s as a fielder (and still is). “Eckstein but noticeably worse” isn’t something you trot out as an everyday second baseman after 2.5 seasons if you’re trying to compete, at least not without trying to find someone better first.
So my point isn’t that Altuve didn’t look good or had no track record at all; it’s that his track record plus his stature, combined, would have made it a perfectly rational choice to look for a better alternative entering the 2014 season. But the Astros didn’t, and because they didn’t, he had the opportunities to become the superstar that he became.
Age 24
Jose Altuve (MLB): .341/.377/.453, 7 HR, 56 SB, All-Star, Silver Slugger
David Eckstein (AA): .313/.440/.416, 6 HR, 32 SB
Age 25
Jose Altuve (MLB): .313/.353/.459, 15 HR, 38 SB, All-Star, Gold Glove (?), Silver Slugger
David Eckstein (AAA): .257/.378/.342, 4 HR, 16 SB, put on waivers by Boston and picked up by Anaheim
Age 26
Jose Altuve (MLB): .338/.396/.531, 24 HR, 30 SB, All-Star, Silver Slugger
David Eckstein (MLB): .285/.355/.357, 4 HR, 29 SB, 4th in ROY voting
Bonus:
Age 22
Jose Altuve (MLB): .290/.340/.399, 7 HR, 33 SB, All-Star
David Eckstein (University of Florida): .341/.441/.514, 8 HR, 35 SB, SEC Academic Honor Roll, 581st overall pick in MLB draft
I think you forgot that Jose Altuve was 20 years old in 2010 playing full season ball.
His numbers: .308/.365/.445 (130 wRC+) 11 HR/39SB. He was promoted to A+ and still held his own with a .276/.333/.457 (104 wRC+) line. BABIP was .329 at A and .295 at A+.
At the age of 21, he was crushing AA with a K-rate of less than 10%. He never struck out and had both speed and power. Basically, he was playing at the same levels as Gleyber Torres at the same age and putting up better numbers.
Sure, he made it to the MLB earlier because the Astros were tanking. But even if the prospect lists ignored Altuve, the Astros certainly did not. That they promoted him to A+ at the age of 20 and to AA at 21 was evidence that they had become EXTREMELY sanguine about him at that point.
As for the “marginal existence” – he was 21, 22, 23-years old at the time. His age peers were still in AA. If the Astros were a contending team, maybe he’s just crushing minor league pitching and fighting his way onto top 100 prospect lists.
Jose Ramirez had a similar path as a very young minor leaguer without any power who managed to become a star after several years.
Ramirez is a very under rated player.
Great point.
Yeah, that’s a good point.
There are many people scouting the box score now who weren’t watching the games then. Altuve wasn’t ‘scuffing out a marginal existence’ as a 23 year old in the big leagues. He was good and improving, then hurt, then good and improving again. That’s why Luhnow rushed to sign him to the greatest contract extension ever drafted in pro-sports history.
Hmmm, wasn’t it Zack Cozart that got the donkey, not Scooter?
Was Future MVP Max Shrock originally in the Cardinals depth chart or added by one editor at FanGraphs?
Surprised by the Padres PA distribution. It looks like they’ll start the season with either Asuaje or Spangenberg (my money’s on Asuaje, someone’s starting in AAA) getting the bulk of the starts with Pirela picking up starts against tough lefties. Urias could be a mid-season call-up, but he isn’t even on the 40-man yet, so it’s a bit presumptuous.
Asuaje should get about 400 PA’s, then maybe 200 to Pirela and 100 to Urias.
3.1 WAR at 3rd base would rank 13th. But at 2nd base it ranks 3rd. Interesting…
Wow Meg you are an awesome writer. This was so much fun.
This is nitpicking at the bottom of the rankings but I fell very confident in saying that Nick Ahmed will get zero PA anywhere other than SS (well, except probably PH of course). Ahmed hasn’t played 2B since 2014 and that was a handful of games merely because the Dbacks had too many SS (Gregorious and Owings) and he was low man on the totem pole in his call-up that year. Ahmed is in the majors for one reason and one reason only – he’s an elite defender at SS. He can’t hit and probably never will hit, but he can pick it.
If his defense slips and he’s merely average with the glove then he’s out of baseball, not sliding over to 2B.
Nitpicks welcome! Depth chart adjusted.
“Cliff Pennington played 87 games, which seems impossible to me, as I could have sworn he started a modestly successful chain of shoes stores in 2015.” is a funny sentence. I laughed at it.
And Nolan Fontana had better look long and hard at that franchising option, what with his projected negative zero WAR. Negative zero is the worst kind of zero.
The little turns of phrase in this article make me happy as a former creative writing major. Keeping the readers engaged with more than just information is key even in journalism. Meg is great.
Not sure about Engelb Vielma and John Flaherty, but when the Angels were looking for a second baseman we definitely did “expect eight years younger”. (Albert Pujols, same.)
(Just light teasing about the typo, the writing is fresh, colorful and mercifully short on cliches. Cistulli and Sullivan should be proud.)
That was a lot of fun, and pretty informative; I feel like Cliff Pennington is the backup for every team!
Agreed that Ceasar Hernandez should grade out a little better – back to back over 370 OBP seasons is regressed a lot. Have to think he’s over 360 this year.
And it does seem, however, that the Cozart/Gennett donkey/scooter conflation persists in the story.
I see no reason to project Culberson stealing 105 PAs from Albies this year. Albies played 154 games last year. He’ll be right about there this year, too, unless he gets hurt. And I don’t see some special reason to think he’s more likely to get hurt than all the other second basemen who are projected for more PAs.
So what goes into the PA projections? None of the projections on Albies’ player page are this low.
I’m curious what Seattle’s projection might look like with Gordon at 2B. He isn’t likely going to see any time there this season, but Cano and Gordon would seemingly be one of the best 1-2 punches a team could field at 2B.
I tend to forget how good Brian Dozier has been. In my biased mind, I still think of him as Mr. Wallscraper, and thus mostly ignore him. He put up a .339 xwOBA in 2017, tied with David Freese, DJ LeMahieu, and Joc Pederson; but while those three ended up as league average hitters, Dozier posted a 125 wRC+. That’s back to back years of really good production now. I don’t know how he does it, but he manages to make it work even in that massive ballpark.
2B really illustrates the divide between fantasy and real baseball.
The Rotographs guys, rationally, prefer #28 and #29 (Scooter & Villar) over Kipnis (#3ish). Numbers 6, 7, and 11ish (Pedroia, Wong, Walker) barely register in Rotographs’ rankings, deemed inferior to Asdrubal Cabrera and Starlin Castro.
I’m glad we have Rotographs, and very glad we have Fangraphs.
Love the style of writing, Meg. Very enjoyable.
Hope to see an update or two during/after the season!
Fun comparison:
Marwin Gonzalez 2017: 134 GP .303/.377/.530 144 wRC+
Jose Altuve 2017, July Excluded: 133 GP .318/.388/.511 144 wRC+
Of course, you can’t just pretend that July didn’t happen. And Gonzalez had a career year last year.
Meg – this was fantastic. Really enjoy your writing. For most of these I admittedly start skimming after the top 10 or so. Yours I read all the way to the bottom. Great stuff!
Re: Schoop
“I know what you’re thinking: regression. ”
Why would we assume that a 25-y.o. had already peaked?
Should Altuve keep up this production.
The HOF is a lock.
Great player,wonderful to watch.