When I told Grey and JayWrong that I was going to do a deep league sleeper post on Dustin Ackley, the first thing they said was ‘Simpsons did it! Simpsons did it!’. It’s true, Dustin is a bit of a sloppy seconds here on the site for me as Jay already waxed both poetically and his taint when he wrote his own Dustin Ackley Sleeper post back in 2013. And what did we learn from this post? Well, one don’t get overly excited about Ackley and two, don’t wax your taint. It’s painful and no one goes down there enough to care what it looks like. Yeah, make all the excuses you want. You’re reading a fantasy baseball site, you ain’t getting busy any time soon, nerd. But where was I? Yeah, Ackley…ooph, this is gonna be a hard sell. It’s not a sexy call but then again, we’re talking about getting to Second Base. Trust me when I say, there’s very little heavy-petting available there in 2014. To put it kindly, 2B is a rancid cesspool of disease-riddled zombie maggot death. In fact, if the question is 2B or not 2B, I’ll take the latter. But to put this 2B angle of my fantasy dangle in perspective, we’re gonna need a new paragraph. So let’s find out why I think Ackley is a good get at second base for deep leagues for the 2014 Fantasy Baseball season…
Yadda, yadda, yadda, here. And with that I’m done. *Drops mic*. Hrm, maybe I didn’t need a second paragraph for this…neverthewho! I’ll fan this info out a bit more like I do my farts at parties. I used to be a farmer, it’s how I learned how to cropdust so good! Why did I direct you back to the end of season ranks of second basemen from 2013, you ask? Simple, really. Go look at those gawd awful stats. Sure, there are some good guys to get this year at 2B – Jedd Gyorko being the apple of my adams at this point, personally – but in deep leagues you gotta be prepared. Sometimes you have to take two at the same position in a 12 teamer or maybe you have a 20 team league. I mean, your 19th best second baseman last year was a platooned RF who mainly played against lefties. There’s no other way to look at it: that’s just bad. But of course, all these things don’t necessarily make Ackley good by any stretch of the imagination but here’s the secret: I’m not here to tell you he’s good. WTF! 400 words of you trying to sell this guy on me to tell me he’s not actually good! Get the eff out my computer, grainy-faced boy! I get it, you’re angry. But for you deep leaguers, I’m merely trying to apprise you of the simple fact that you shouldn’t be competing for the best 2Bs this year. See that Mike Aviles line? Ackley can do that. Sure, it might take 200 more at-bats than Aviles got but from what I’ve read, Ackley is considered the starting day centerfielder and possibly batting leadoff for a team that just went and got Robinson Cano. Maybe he doesn’t make you swoon but if Ackley can get 550 leadoff at bats, keep at least part of his second half LD percentage gains of 26.7%, and give us a 10/10 or 12/10 season while hitting between .250 and .260, you’re probably looking at the 11th or 12th best 2B if those 2013 stats ring true moving forward. Basically, instead of worrying about getting the cream of the crop, take the cream of the crap and take it as cheaply as you can while you bulk up elsewhere. There’s just too much value at other positions in deep leagues to overspend on 2B for 2014.
Sky Sperling is a contributor for Razzball Football and Razzball Baseball. He’s also a lover of fine beer, fine women and fine-toothed combs. You can follow him on twitter @Sky_Razzball and in your most sweetest of dreams.
