Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Draft Strategy and Rankings Detail: Second Base

The peak of the second base mountain is agreed upon. Cano, Pedroia, and Kinsler are all worthy candidates. Cano hardly has any holes in his game, outside of a lack of steals. Pedroia's disconcerting season last year can be put aside since his possible production is so elite. Kinsler's batting average has been a liability the last two years, but he makes up for it with his runs, home runs, and steals.

Things get interesting with Ben Zobrist and Aaron Hill. Zobrist is eligible at shortstop and outfield, which gives your roster a lot of flexibility. Hill is a confusing player. In the last 2 years he decided to become a base stealer. He stole 23 bases his first 6 years combined. In the last 2 years he stole a combined 35 bases. That combined with his power and run potential makes him one of the players I'm targeting.

Omar Infante is one player I have ranked higher than many other websites. He does nothing particularly well, but he also has no great weakness. He has a chance to hit over .300 and provide decent value in all other categories. Don't expect him to steal as many bases as last year since he spent half the season with Ozzie Guillen. (who would make Miguel Cabrera into a base thief)

When drafting, it is important to have tiers for players. That way you know when a certain level of player is off the board and you can decide to wait until the next tier starts going off the board. Below are my tiers.

Tier 1
Robinson Cano

Tier 2
Dustin Pedroia
Ian Kinsler

Tier 3
Brandon Phillips
Ben Zobrist
Aaron Hill

Tier 4
Jason Kipnis
Danny Espinosa

Tier 5
Omar Infante
Neil Walker
Jose Altuve
Marco Scutaro
Rickie Weeks

Tier 6
Dan Uggla
Howie Kendrick
Daniel Murphy
Chase Utley

*stats are from http://www.baseball-reference.com/

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