2026 Positional Power Rankings: Second Base

I imagine some of our PPRs are going to be controversial, but not this one. He might’ve spent some time on the IL last year, he might be entering his age-32 season, and the Diamondbacks might’ve put him on the trade block this winter, but none of that changes the fact that Marte is the best all-around second baseman in baseball. Since 2019, he’s hit .289/.363/.510; he has two seasons of 6.3 WAR and a 150ish wRC+ and two others of at least 4.3 WAR and 120 wRC+. Accept no substitutes.

And the Diamondbacks have some depth at this position in the alliterative duo of Tim Tawa and Tommy Troy, as well as the well-traveled Vargas and the occasionally positionless Lawlar. Most likely Troy and Lawlar, both recent first-round picks and serious young talents, will be used to fill holes elsewhere on the diamond, but it’s nice to have those guys around in case the Cadillac of second basemen goes into the shop.

Speaking of elite second basemen who got dangled in trade talks this winter: These projections probably underrate Hoerner slightly. Based on his performance since moving to second base in 2023, a full season of Hoerner’s glove produces another half-win of value compared to what’s predicted here. But that’s what happens when a good defensive shortstop takes up residence on the southern side of the keystone.

The glove is Hoerner’s calling card, but the Stanford alum has been a bastion of reliable competence on offense. Since 2021, he’s neither posted a wRC+ lower than 102 nor higher than 109, and he’s stolen at least 20 bases in every full major league season.

Hoerner, who’s played 150 or more games three years running, shouldn’t need too many days off, but the Cubs are well-covered just in case. The signing of Alex Bregman relegated Shaw, the incumbent third base starter, to luxury utilityman status. He played second base at Maryland and presumably still remembers how to do it. As for Triantos and Cowles, seven plate appearances apiece feels like a good estimate; if either gets more playing time at second base, the Cubs are in real trouble.

But I thought Semien was washed! Turns out, he can decline quite some distance and still be one of the better second basemen in the league. Semien’s normal routine is to post a 6-WAR season and finish third in AL MVP voting in odd-numbered years, with a change of team in between. That didn’t happen in 2025, suggesting the streak has ended, but maybe he stayed in Texas too long. A change of scenery could jog loose one more superstar season from the veteran.

If not, that’s fine. With Francisco Lindor and Bo Bichette to his right, Semien won’t be required to be anything more than a supporting character. He should be able to manage that, and be a steady hand at a position that got a little chaotic last year.

Speaking of: After the Mets traded Jeff McNeil and Luisangel Acuña, Baty and Mauricio are the survivors of last year’s second base rotation. Baty finally looked good at the plate after parts of two godawful seasons, and his defense up the middle was merely below average, rather than abominable. Polanco is capable of playing second as well, and might see the odd game there if he gets lost on his way to first base.

Chisholm started his career playing second base with a little shortstop mixed in, then did a tour of the whole defensive arrangement, moving to center field, then third base, and now back to where he started. After playing an even 100 games at second in 2025, it looks like he’ll stay at the position long enough to unpack.

Apart from Marte, Chisolm is probably the best offensive second baseman out there, and his 31-31 campaign makes him one of the best power-speed guys anywhere. It’s good to see a player who started out as an aggressive, sometimes undisciplined hitter mature gracefully into middle age. In addition to setting career highs for home runs in each of the past two seasons, Chisholm has also set new career highs in walk rate. He still strikes out a ton, but the overall offensive profile is excellent.

Caballero endeared himself to Yankee fans quickly in his 40 games in pinstripes; mostly, I think, because they were getting sick of Anthony Volpe. In 95 plate appearances after he was acquired from Tampa Bay, Caballero posted a 134 wRC+ and 15 stolen bases. If that weren’t a small-sample mirage, it would make Caballero one of the best infielders in the league.

Caballero will remain at short until Volpe’s busted shoulder heals, and then serve as a luxury utilityman until he’s needed elsewhere. Rosario could also see time at second, but as with the Cubs and Hoerner, the more time Chisholm spends here, the better.

Torres landed in Detroit before the 2025 season on a one-year pillow contract, hoping to rebuild his reputation after a tough end to his Yankees tenure. It started out great, as Torres hit .281/.387/.425 in the first half and made his first All-Star team since 2019. But he went cold down the stretch (.223/.320/.339 after the break). You could blame that on the sports hernia he played through in the second half. I would. I’ve never tried to swing a bat with a hole in my abdominal muscle wall, but I hear it’s painful.

Nevertheless, Torres was not confident enough in his market to turn down the qualifying offer. Thus he remains in Detroit on another one-year deal.

The names under Torres’ on this list illustrate the fact that it should be very easy for someone to take his job. That is, if there weren’t questions about the other contenders. Is McKinstry actually a good hitter, as he was in 2025, or will he revert to hitting like a pitcher? Báez, like Torres, looked rejuvenated early but faded badly late (108 wRC+ in the first half, 46 in the second half).

McGonigle came up idolizing Chase Utley, which makes sense given that he’s a stocky, left-handed-hitting middle infielder from eastern Pennsylvania. That comp looked ambitious during his draft cycle, but three years later it looks conservative, if anything. Still, he’s a rookie, and likely to start the season at shortstop, not second base.

Thus, Torres remains for another year. And that ought to work just fine for the Tigers, until they find someone better.

Six months from now, all your friends will be climbing over each other trying to convince you that they noticed Keaschall first. The 2023 second-rounder out of Arizona State was terrific in a 49-game rookie season, hitting .302/.382/.445 and giving Twins fans (at least those who could stand to watch this team after its trade deadline fire sale) some reason for optimism heading into 2026.

However (to invoke a famous Minnesota poet) it’s one thing to start it with a positive jam, and another thing to see it through. Keaschall outpaced his xBA and xSLG by 39 and 67 points, respectively, so job no. 1 will be finding a way to continue to hit ’em where they ain’t.

Behind Keaschall, the Twins will get help from former Vanderbilt standout Austin Martin, now a utilityman, and a bevy of Quad-A guys: Gray, Arcia, Clemens, and Kreidler. Clemens is a nice lefty bench bat; the Twins acquired him from the Phillies last April, where he was buried on the depth chart, and the second-generation big leaguer produced 19 home runs in just 386 plate appearances. Clemens has his limitations (namely, not enough walks to make a career .206 batting average palatable), but he offers some punch and positional flexibility to a team on the rebuild.

Holliday, the former no. 1 overall pick and no. 1 overall prospect, bounced back from a terrible (and brief) rookie season with a mediocre sophomore campaign. Any hope of a normal, low-stress 2026 season ended when Holliday broke his hamate bone in February. Spring training is a writeoff, but he could be back in the Orioles’ lineup not long after Opening Day.

Speaking of writeoffs, it’s too early to do that to Holliday. Frustrating as his first 209 big league games have been, he’s still only 22, and younger than the first college shortstop taken in last year’s draft, Aiva Arquette. There are advantages to breaking into the big leagues while still a larva.

The Orioles, otherwise known as the team with more shortstops than it knows what to do with, are also without Westburg, who took a PRP injection for a partially torn UCL in his throwing elbow. That leaves Diamondbacks castoff Alexander in the starting lineup. Suffice it to say, this is not how Mike Elias drew it up. Behind Alexander, there’s Jackson, who had a pretty nifty 48-game rookie season himself (.276/.328/.447), and Estrada, who was so terrible last year he couldn’t stick with the Rockies.

Brewers fans will probably be aggrieved to see their team this low, but it speaks to how impressive Turang’s breakout season was. He ended 2024 as a slap-hitting ground-and-pound speed guy. A year later, he’d more than doubled his career high in home runs while also adding more than 30 points to his batting average and bumping his walk rate from 8.1% to 10%. It’ll take a projection system a minute to catch up to that.

Even if there’s some regression with Turang, he’s still an elite basestealer with legitimate on-base chops and double-digit home run power. That’ll work almost anywhere.

Hamilton’s a standard utility guy, and Rengifo is penciled in as Caleb Durbin’s replacement at third base, though he’s capable of playing second. In the event of a long-term absence from Turang, we could see Williams, a top 100 prospect acquired in the Freddy Peralta deal, get a look as well.

Stott is a very good defender and one of the most efficient high-volume basestealers in the game, but he has frustrated onlookers over four seasons with the Phillies. He’s got great plate discipline and contact skills, and at 6-foot, 200 pounds, he isn’t a small guy. But Stott has struggled to hunt his pitch and get his money’s worth out of his swings.

He took a big step forward in that respect in 2025; after an anemic first half, he hit .294/.368/.487 after the break. Anything like that kind of beefed-up offensive performance would be welcome to the Phillies, who have talent up and down the lineup, but have struggled to find consistent production from the bottom half of the order.

Sosa has quietly become one of the best fifth infielders in the league; by all rights he should be starting somewhere at least as a platoon guy. Moore is perfectly acceptable minor league depth. The hype around Miller is enormous; not only has his bat adapted to the pro game, his defense and baserunning are on a level I did not foresee at all when he was in high school. He’s the Phillies’ best position player prospect in 15 years, though when he breaks in, it will probably be elsewhere on the diamond.

It’s not often you see a presumptive major league debutant in the top 10 in these rankings, but Wetherholt is not your average prospect. He was in the mix for the no. 1 pick when he came out of West Virginia in 2024; folks weren’t sure he’d stick at short, but he was a good athlete overall and a special line drive hitter.

So it came to be; last season was Wetherholt’s first full professional campaign, and in 109 games across Double- and Triple-A, he hit .306/.421/.510 with 17 home runs, 28 doubles, and 23 stolen bases in 26 attempts.

Wetherholt falling to the Cardinals at seventh overall was a gift, and he’s the kind of player who makes you feel OK about trading Brendan Donovan.

St. Louis does not lack for depth here. Urías has been a valuable utility player and part-time starter for both Baltimore and Houston. Fermín has put up some good minor league numbers and posted a .377 OBP in 70 big league plate appearances in 2025; if nothing else, he can take a walk. Saggese, himself a former prize prospect, struggled badly in his first extended taste of major league action in 2025. He should still get at least semi-regular action as the rebuilding Cardinals figure out what they have in him.

I like Edwards a lot; he was a 2.5-WAR player last year, even with an ISO of .070. His combination of plate discipline and contact skill is special, and if he can do, like, 50 more push-ups a week, he could turn into a superstar. Even the current zero-power version of Edwards is a good player. He doesn’t strike out, and he walks quite a bit for a guy with so little power. In a 70-game campaign in 2024, he hit .328/.397/.423 thanks to some ridiculous batted-ball luck, but he also stole 31 bags in 35 attempts in less than half a season.

Sanoja got into 120 games last year, playing six defensive positions. If he plays that much in 2026, I’m sure the Marlins would want him to raise his OBP from .287. Still, he doesn’t strike out much and has enough pop to hit six dingers in about half a season’s worth of at-bats; you could do worse for a utilityman.

Acosta came to Miami in the 2024 trade that sent Jake Burger to Texas. He got a very brief taste of major league action in 2025 (19 games, in which he posted a 91 wRC+), but is probably a depth piece at this point. There are other guys who fit better in the Marlins’ long-term middle infield plans, including Aiva Arquette, but Acosta’s already on the 40-man roster, so why not give him a shot?

McNeil finds himself back in California, where he was born and played his college baseball. Ironically, this was a salary-dump trade that involved one of the league’s cheapest franchises taking on an unwanted contract from one of the league’s richest teams.

McNeil’s time in New York had run its course; he played five positions last year, plus DH, as the Mets tried to piece together a lineup that was heavy on guys who should be playing first base. He’s no longer the freakish bat control guy who made two All-Star teams and won a batting title in 2022. But he’s still a decent player; he posted a .335 OBP in 2025, with a strikeout rate of 11.9%. That’s a minuscule figure in this day and age. And he fits well, alongside Wilson, as contact hitters in a lineup that’s otherwise populated by guys who swing from their heels. I think he’ll do well in Sacramento.

Gelof just got back to Cactus League action last week after offseason shoulder surgery. If you can remember this far back, he tickled 30/30 pace as a rookie, but it’s been all downhill since. In 2024, we found out that, yes, that strikeout rate is going to be an issue going forward. Last year, Gelof only played 30 games thanks to a broken hamate bone, a stress reaction in his rib, and the aforementioned shoulder surgery. If McNeil falters or declines, Gelof will surely be nipping at his heels, desperate for another shot.

Ibáñez and Hernaiz are around in case things go south for McNeil and Gelof at the same time; I wouldn’t expect either to be especially productive.

I expect Blue Jays fans will be unhappy to see their team listed this low, given how high Clement’s stock is after he hit .411 in the playoffs. Certainly, this is going to be an extremely fun second base group.

Clement is a terrific all-around defensive infielder whose versatility has made life much easier on manager John Schneider and GM Ross Atkins. When Toronto needed a third baseman last year, he played there. When Toronto signed Kazuma Okamoto this winter, Clement was able to slide over to second. Last year, he made at least six starts at all four infield positions.

Clement is a very good contact hitter; last year, he was among the 10 best qualified hitters in both Z-Contact% and strikeout rate. But he doesn’t walk, and he doesn’t hit for power, and there are limits to how valuable a hitter can be if he hits .270 and it’s mostly singles.

Schneider, the stocky, bespectacled-and-mustachio’d New Jerseyan, does have plenty of pop. He’ll see platoon action, mostly in left field, but he stood at second base for more than 100 innings last year and didn’t produce any mortifying blooper clips.

Jiménez had a ridiculous 2024 season, in which he got plunked an astounding 16 times in just 210 plate appearances. He only got into 18 games for Toronto in 2025, but I support him in his quest to become the Panamanian Ron Hunt.

I know you’re all shocked to see Altuve starting at second base for the Astros. Altuve made his first Opening Day start for Houston in 2012, which is so long ago J.D. Martinez and Carlos Lee were on that team. Back then, the Astros were still playing in the National League and wearing their Craig Biggio-era brick red uniforms.

Oh, hey, speaking of Biggio, Cavan Biggio is in Astros camp on an NRI. He turns 31 next month. There’s probably a 100% chance he gets a call-up at some point, just for sentimental reasons, but he won’t be Altuve’s primary backup.

That’d be Allen, who came back the other way in the Mauricio Dubón deal this winter. Dubón isn’t a great hitter, but he looks like Mickey Mantle next to Allen, who hit .221/.284/.251 in 135 games for the Braves last year. (Oh, that’s how they finished 10 games under .500.)

Should the Astros need even a scintilla of offense apart from Altuve, they have Matthews, as well as Paredes, who’s currently the starting third baseman while Jeremy Peña’s finger heals. But once that happens, Paredes will still be the fifth man in a four-man infield, and he could see some work at second.

The great ABS-related height inflation reckoning has hit the Mariners hard. Emerson is listed at 6-foot even, and he’s the tallest of the six guys on the depth chart. Mastrobuoni is only 5-foot-9, while Rivas and Bliss are listed at 5-foot-7. These guys are like the early astronauts, who had to be tiny to fit comfortably into a 1960s space capsule. (Did you know Yuri Gagarin was only 5-foot-2?)

In four seasons with the Cardinals, Donovan (5-foot-11) played every position except pitcher, catcher, and center field. He spent more time at second base than anywhere else, but the plan is to use him at third. That’ll give the 5-foot-10 Young, Seattle’s 2022 first-rounder, first crack at the starting job at second.

Young had a poor start to his major league career, ending up just below replacement level in 77 games, but he’s got a long track record of getting on base in the minors, and his 2025 stats were bogged down by some truly dreadful defensive numbers. That can only improve, unless he starts using a pewter glove or something.

Rivas worked his way into the lineup off and on in 2025, including in the playoffs, where he drew four walks in 21 plate appearances. That’s not just a blip; he’s put up walk rates in the high teens and low 20s throughout his minor league career, but we’ll see if he’s capable of contributing elsewhere in the bigs.

McLain had a tremendous 89-game rookie season in 2023; it would’ve been reasonable at the time to say that while Elly De La Cruz was the greater talent, McLain was actually the Reds’ best young infielder. Then came the season-ending oblique strain, and the shoulder injury that cost McLain all of 2024, and a truly horrendous offensive performance in 2025.

We’re now looking at a 26-year-old who’s going to hit arbitration after the season, and hasn’t posted a wRC+ over 80 in two full seasons. The talent is obviously still in there, but it’s taken him a disconcertingly long time to knock off the rust.

Should the Reds need additional help, they can rob Peter to pay Paul, sliding Stewart or Steer over from elsewhere on the diamond. There’s also the 22-year-old switch-hitting Arroyo, whose bat probably isn’t up to major league standards, but you never know.

Cincinnati has also retained the services of Garrett “Have Legs, Will Travel” Hampson. I love a random fast guy, and so do the Reds, who have historically been one of baseball’s greatest collectors of speed off the bench. Let’s remember some fast Reds. I’ll go first: Lonny Frey. Hans Lobert. Bobby Tolan…

I don’t think Dave Roberts actually lays out a defensive alignment before each game. He just picks the nine guys he wants in the batting order, writes their names on index cards, and tosses them at random on his office desk.

That’s a luxury he has, because so much of his roster comprises players who have lined up all over the place: Not just the six players on this depth chart, but Mookie Betts and Max Muncy as well.

Edman and Hernández are both recovering from injuries at the moment, though the former has been taking batting practice and should be building up to a return. He’s probably the Dodgers’ best second base option, at least until there’s a random injury in the outfield and he’s needed there. Hernández is probably nearing the end of his time as a useful big leaguer, but the Dodgers like having him around and he always seems to inveigle his way into big moments in the playoffs. So too Rojas, last year’s Game 7 World Series hero.

Espinal is well-traveled, having bounced around the infield picture in Toronto and Cincinnati. He hasn’t posted a productive offensive season since 2022, but this is exactly the kind of guy who signs with a team like the Dodgers and wins NLCS MVP.

Truthfully, the Dodgers would prefer to see more and better from Kim in 2026. The stature of the club’s successes in the Asian free agent/posting market upped the hype around Kim to unreasonable levels last year, but even with that said, it’d be nice to get a full season of starter-level production from him.

I’m more pessimistic about the Giants’ second base situation than I’d like to be. I love Arraez; stylistically, I’d rather watch a low bat speed guy who puts the ball in play all the time than yet another uppercutting swing-from-his-heels hitter. I want the weird dude to succeed, and for a while, Arraez did.

But last season, after years of hitting well over .300, Arraez’s average dropped to .292. That’d be miraculous for almost any other hitter, but it’s a bad sign for a guy who brings nothing to the table but batting average. He doesn’t hit for power, he doesn’t walk — almost literally never walks — and while the Giants seem determined to throw him out at second base, that’s categorically not the choice I would make. Arraez was four runs below average at first base last year; I wouldn’t give him a glove of any kind unless I had a fire blanket handy.

So even though Arraez does the most important thing better than any other hitter in the league, in the aggregate he’s not much better than Schmitt, who’s as orthodox and white-bread a mediocre infielder as you’ll find. Koss, who got his first taste of major league action last year at the age of 27, hit .264 but without much patience or pop; DRS loves his glove, but the Statcast-based metrics are lukewarm.

Cronenworth is somehow already 32 years old, but he’s still a productive starter at second base, a line drive machine with elite in-zone contact figures. After a couple down years with the bat, the former Michigan two-way player goosed his walk rate to a career-high 13.4% in 2025, resulting in a 117 wRC+. That tied the career high he set in 2021. I don’t know if he’s an ideal second base defender at this point, but you could do worse.

The Padres also splashed $15 million over four years (plus the posting fee) to pry Song from the Kiwoom Heroes of the KBO. The 29-year-old hit .315/.387/.530 in Korea last year, with 26 homers and 25 stolen bases, and he had a solid start to his Cactus League campaign (4-for-16 with a home run and three walks) before an oblique injury shelved him after just seven games. Song will play somewhere when he comes back, but like Cronenworth, he’s a left-handed hitter, which makes a traditional platoon impossible.

France is a right-handed hitter, and I guess the Padres could play him at second base if they wanted to. The government won’t save you from your own bad decisions.

I like Meidroth on the White Sox because he’s a weird player, and I find it more than a little insulting when bad teams are also boring. He’s got an unusual combination of bat-to-ball ability and plate discipline, distinct from but related to Edwards on the Marlins. That makes him compelling, because now all he has to do to truly break out is start hitting the ball harder.

So far, that’s been a nonstarter. He was OK as a rookie, posting 1.3 WAR in 122 games, but his OBP was higher than his slugging percentage, which paints a pretty clear picture of how much power he’s working with.

Sosa will get action here, because he’s been Chicago’s backup everywhere for what feels like 100 years. Acuña had a terrific two-week big league debut in 2024, then got exposed badly in extended playing time last year (that .040 ISO is ugly). His youth, athleticism, and name will probably land him another look in the big leagues somewhere.

Antonacci had some great moments in the WBC; he homered and scored two runs against Team USA. We’ll see if the hot streak continues once he’s separated from the paisans.

I don’t know what happened to Albies. After back-to-back 24-homer, 100-run seasons in 2018 and 2019, I thought his contract extension with Atlanta was genuinely outrageous. How had the Braves locked up such a good player at so young an age for such a pittance? The worst part was a pair of team options that allowed the Braves to lock in Albies’ age-29 and age-30 seasons for just $7 million each. This for a player whom I’d only known to produce 4-WAR seasons or better.

The Braves picked up the first option this past winter, but it wasn’t a slam dunk. Albies hit just .240/.306/.365, for a wRC+ of 87, and his defense (never his calling card to begin with) was four runs below average. There have been quite a few injuries along the way, but I never thought we’d get to a point where a full season of league-average performance would be a relief.

Atlanta’s injury crisis has thinned out the reserve crop; Dubón, acquired for a utility role, is now the presumptive starting shortstop thanks to Ha-Seong Kim’s torn finger ligament. Mateo has never been a good hitter, but he was a strong defender and basestealer when pressed into a starting role for Baltimore. Wisely is like Mateo without the speed.

I loved the Lowe trade for Pittsburgh. He strikes out a lot, and doesn’t hit for a high average anymore, but he slugged 31 home runs last year, and is at least theoretically capable of playing up the middle. And the Pirates were able to get him, plus Jake Mangum and Mason Montgomery for a pitcher they didn’t need. I understand why the Rays didn’t want to pay Lowe $11.5 million this year, but the Pirates were so hard-up for offense that salary figure looks like a bargain.

Why did the Rays give Lowe up? Well, he’s getting old and creaky, and while I said he’s “theoretically” capable of playing up the middle, I’m “theoretically” capable of climbing Half Dome. Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

Past Lowe, the Pirates have Gonzales, who’ll be starting at shortstop most of the time, at least until Konnor Griffin’s major league career begins in a manger in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Then there’s Yorke, who can pick up the crumbs across the infield until he forces his way into an everyday lineup spot. Perhaps by taking Triolo’s job at third.

Brandon Lowe’s replacement, Lux, will probably never become the star shortstop the Dodgers hoped he’d be, but last year, he posted a .350 OBP in 503 plate appearances, which is great in almost any context. Even with next to no power in a hitters’ park, that was still good for a wRC+ of 102. Unfortunately, he gave most of that value back on defense, as he butchered left field, a position where 102 is a less acceptable offensive output than at other positions.

Back on the dirt, he’s a better athlete than Lowe, and most likely a better defender and on-base guy, though he lacks Lowe’s middle-of-the-order power. On balance, it’s probably a minor downgrade, though, crucially for Tampa Bay, Lux is almost $5 million cheaper this year.

We have Lux in a platoon with Williamson, who came over from Seattle in the Donovan deal. Williamson is a good defender, but the kind of hitter whose at-bats you skip so you can grab a soft pretzel. In other words: We have José Caballero at home, except, wait, we don’t, because we traded him to the Yankees. Meet the new José Caballero, then.

Walls is capable of manning second when he’s not starting at short; beyond him, it’s a series of interchangeable Quad-A utility guys.

García has been at least a semi-regular starter for the Nationals at second base since 2020, when he won the job at age 20. This year, he’s taking reps at first base, which I think will be a disaster (García posted a wRC+ of 91 last year), but that’s a problem for another PPR post.

The 5-foot-8 Nuñez has been OK (.238/.329/.343) in 90 games and 170 plate appearances across parts of two major league seasons. He was a prolific basestealer in the minors (he purloined 70 bags in just 123 games in 2022), and he’ll take a walk, but there’s not much there in the way of power or average. And to my everlasting frustration, you still can’t steal first base.

Tena came to Washington in the Lane Thomas-for-Alex Clemmey-and-friends trade of 2024. At 5-foot-10 and 195 pounds, he’s somewhat less diminutive than Nuñez, but there’s still little in the way of pop in his bat: He hit zero home runs in 169 major league plate appearances in 2025. Probably an OK utility infielder, but the kind of player who only starts regularly on a last-place team.

I suspect that we’re going to be able to tell a lot about how this season went for the Guardians based on how the playing time shakes out at second base. Rocchio is a barely-above-replacement-level infielder who wouldn’t be getting starter minutes on a team that had invested a dime into second base since Jason Kipnis left. Schneeman is Rocchio, but solely left-handed-hitting.

Brito was the no. 32 prospect in the Guardians’ system in the latest update; he could offer Cleveland yet another second base option with an 80 wRC+.

The real prize here is Bazzana, a stocky left-handed hitter who does nothing but scald the baseball to the pull side. He hit .407/.568/.911 his junior year at Oregon State, with 28 home runs against 37 strikeouts. On the strength of that performance, Cleveland selected him first overall, making him the first Australian to have that distinction. Bazzana was supposed to be a fast riser, but he got sidelined by an oblique strain last summer, and his overall performance has not quite lived up to the draft position. (Wetherholt, Chase Burns, Nick Kurtz, and Konnor Griffin all went later in the Top 10, though Bazzana was certainly viewed as a strong pick at the time.)

Eric and Brendan dropped Brian Dozier’s name in their section on Bazzana in the Guardians’ prospect list. I like that comp a lot. He might not be the unholy terror he was in college, but the instant he arrives in Cleveland, he’s going to be the second-best Guardians infielder of the past five years.

Mayer has the inside track on this starting job, even though his rookie season was not what the former no. 4 overall pick would’ve hoped: a .228/.272/.402 slash line with a 30.1% strikeout rate in 44 games before a wrist injury ended his season. If at first you don’t succeed…

The major competition for playing time was supposed to be Gonzalez, who was quietly terrific in 96 games for Boston last year (.305/.343/.483). The defense was only OK, but the bat played. Unfortunately, Gonzalez just underwent arthroscopic shoulder debridement, and even now that his joint has been de-gunked, it’s going to take months for him to return to play.

Kiner-Falefa, Monasterio, and Sogard are useful backups, but not the kind of player a contender wants to rely on too much. (The Red Sox presumably learned this by watching last year’s playoffs, if they weren’t aware already.) Durbin and Rafaela are both capable of playing second, but are penciled in to start elsewhere.

So too Campbell, who was supposed to be Boston’s second baseman of the future, with a long-term contract to match. His rookie season, unfortunately, was a nightmare on both sides of the ball, and Campbell is currently re-training as an outfielder.

I cannot sufficiently appraise Julien’s future without asking a question that gets Davy Andrews’ most notorious musical composition stuck in my head.

For one glorious year, we were teased with the vision of a French-Canadian guy with a 15% walk rate, but Julien hit .208/.299/.324 over his final two seasons in Minnesota. The cause seemed hopeless.

But inasmuch as Colorado is the employer of last resort for ballplayers on the decline, I can’t think of a better place for an extreme TTO guy like Julien. Especially now that the Rockies are at least thinking about installing a modern front office.

Last year, Ritter hit .303/.405/.610 with 16 homers in 55 games at Triple-A, but only .241/.296/.337 with one homer in 60 major league games. That last step is a doozy, isn’t it? He’ll chip in somewhere, including occasionally at second. So too Castro, Julien’s former Twins teammate. A couple feisty seasons in Minnesota led many to wonder if Castro was a poor man’s Ben Zobrist, but an offensive dip in 2025 made him look more like a rich man’s Reid Brignac.

Amador is on Colorado’s 40-man roster but not on the projected 26-man. Perhaps that has something to do with his career .176 batting average despite playing his home games in Coors Field.

There was a time when you could squint at Massey and see an average regular, but you really had to want it. He’s never posted a .300 OBP in a season of 200 or more plate appearances, he’s a career .243 hitter, and he’s neither a great athlete nor a standout defender. He did hit 14 home runs in just 356 plate appearances in 2024, though.

But that power went away in 2025, and if he performs now as he did then (.268 OBP, 57 wRC+, -0.4 WAR), even the Royals will lose patience quickly. The hope, I guess, was that Massey would turn into a left-handed-hitting India, who’s also just average across the board, with mid-double-digit pop. Except he’ll draw a walk, and he gets a free extra 30 points of OBP because he gets hit by 15 pitches a season.

I don’t much believe in Tolbert’s bat, as he walked just once in 57 plate appearances in 2025, and slugged just .323 in his most recent full minor league season. But he went 21-for-23 in stolen bases last year, having reached base just 18 times on his own and 28 more times as a pinch-runner. Willie Wilson would be proud.

Assuming this is the Josh Smith I think it is, he hit .251/.355/.366 last year, which comes to a wRC+ of an even 100. The defense wasn’t great, but that’s still 1.8 WAR. “Competent” is the most glowing praise I can muster.

Freeman’s another guy who struggled to cross the chasm between Triple-A and the major leagues. He hit .336/.382/.549 in 97 minor league games in 2025, but just .228/.258/.342 in 36 major league games. Even accounting for the fact that Triple-A plays like Coors Field in the Steroid Era these days, that’s a big drop-off. He’ll probably get another look once he recovers from a stress reaction in his back.

Duran, who is the second-best current major league infielder named Ezequiel, failed to reach .300 in any of the triple slash categories last season. Haggerty has mostly been an outfielder in the majors, though he did feature in a total of eight innings at second base for the Rangers in 2025. Wade is the utilityman’s utilityman, with six major league seasons of at least 100 plate appearances and none of more than 160 plate appearances.

Moore really needs to grab this position and make it his own. He was the no. 8 overall pick in 2024 after a star career at Tennessee under Tony Vitello. As you might now, Vitello is known for producing balls-out, dinger-crushing players with big feelings and an even bigger motor. And even by that standard, Moore stood out as particularly hair-on-fire.

The Angels, as is their custom, moved Moore quickly, and he kept his head above water until his 53-game major league cameo, in which he hit .198 and struck out 33.7% of the time. Having a full season of major league spring training should do him good, to say nothing of the fact that he hasn’t spent more than two months at one level since he turned pro. We don’t know how he’ll do the second time around the league because the last league he went around twice was the SEC.

The players who will be holding down the fort for Moore give a good indication of where he might end up if he doesn’t stop striking out. Frazier and Taylor have been good superutility players in the past, but not the recent past. Well, maybe more recent than the time when trendy contrarians said maybe Grissom, and not Michael Harris II or Spencer Strider, was the best player in the 2022 Braves’ rookie class. I wouldn’t say that Peraza, who hit .164 with even worse secondary numbers in 2025, was ever a “super” utility guy. But he can hold a glove and stand on the dirt.

Madrigal, the former no. 4 overall pick and one of the best contact hitters in recent college baseball history, finds himself at the bottom of the pile.

Please, Christian, just be good. Contemplating the alternative is making me sad.