Top 25 Fantasy Second Basemen for 2021 – Week 10

The baseball season is now two months old, and over the first third of the season, what have I learned?

I learned that Marcus Semien was a good signing by the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays didn’t care that Semien wasn’t a second baseman. All they saw was a player who finished third in the American League MVP voting in 2019 was available so they snagged him.

Meanwhile, I have also learned that I didn’t overvalue Whit Merrifield in preseason rankings as he continues to produce and steal bases, which in today’s game makes Merrifield a superstar. I learned not to underestimate Max Muncy. I had him ranked 10th in my final preseason rankings, one spot ahead of Nick Madrigal. Madrigal is nowhere to be seen in the rankings anymore while Muncy is now a Tier 1 second baseman.

Is there anything else I learned? Yep. I should have listened to my gut when it came to DJ LeMahieu. I had a debate with myself when it came to ranking him second overall because I was worried about his age. He seemed too good of a hitter for that to be a concern, but right now, I am looking really silly for ranking him that high.

Is LeMahieu still even ranked? Who has surprised this season and become a Top 10 second baseman? Let’s find out.

Tier 1

Marcus Semien and Whit Merrifield have taken up residence in Tier 1. Semien maintains his hold as the top second baseman while Merrifield moves up to second in my rankings while never leaving the Top 5 this season. Semien entered the weekend slashing .295-.366-.536 while scoring 38 runs, hitting 13 homers, driving in 32 runs, and stealing eight bases. All of those numbers ranked in the top 10 among all second basemen. Whitfield isn’t hitting for a high average this year, but he does have 37 runs scored, 33 RBI, and 17 steals.

While Semien, Merrifield, and Chris Taylor, who somehow is owned in only 89 percent of Yahoo leagues, remain in the Top 5, I now rank Max Muncy and Jose Altuve in Tier 1. Muncy has slaughtered the ball the past two weeks, smashing five home runs while slugging .614. For the season he is now slashing .265-.424-.530 with 13 homers and 30 RBI while also scoring 39 runs. Meanwhile, Altuve is showing that the boos he gets on the road and the turning 31 are not having an effect on him. Since his birthday on May 6, the Astros veteran is slashing .343-.429-.556 with seven dingers and 17 RBI in 26 games.

Tier 2

After a horrid start to the season and fall down the rankings, Ozzie Albies is slowly but steadily climbing back toward being the Tier 1 player he was expected to be all season. Albies is red hot right now, slashing .395-.465-.711 the past two weeks with two homers, 13 RBI, 10 runs scored, and three steals. Unlike the red-hot Albies, Ryan McMahon is slumping a bit at the plate, dropping out of the Tier 1 group into the Tier 2. For the season he still has great stats with a .505 slugging percentage to go with 13 homers and 32 RBI entering the weekend. I’m not selling McMahon, just adjusting his ranking based on his current struggles at the plate.

I’ve been keeping Adam Frazier lower down the rankings all season or not ranked at all. But it is time to move him up the rankings and into Tier 2. Frazier doesn’t have eye-popping power numbers as his two homers prove. However, he is hitting .338 and has a .402 OBP to go along with 33 runs scored. Nearly every fantasy league uses OBP or incorporates it with OPS, so Frazier would be the smart add right now. While he’s rostered in 95 percent of ESPN leagues, he owned by only 74 percent of Yahoo fantasy players, which makes no sense.

Tier 3

Ketel Marte started the season red-hot before suffering a hamstring strain on April 7. Before being sidelined, he was slashing .462-.500-846. Since coming back on May 19, Marte has continued to hit for the Diamondbacks. In the two weeks his hitting .364-.408-.545 and has been even better in the last week, slashing .440-.500-.760 with two homers and six RBI.

After an outstanding 2019 season in which Marte hit 32 homers and drove in 92, he was a mess in 2020. In 45 games, he hit only two home runs and drove in only 17 runners. But Marte is once again looking like the 2019 version. His current exit velocity of 90.8 is a career-high, besting the 90.4 EV he had in 2019. His ISO of .238 comes close to the career-high mark of .264 in ’19 and his hard-hit percentage this year is 50 percent, which would smash his career-best mark of 42.6 set in 2019. IF you can swing a trade for him, I’d do it as I think his struggles of 2020 are behind him.

Jean Segura fell out of the rankings due to an injury before re-entering two weeks ago. I’ve moved into Tier 3, which pretty much means he should be a starter for a fantasy team, due to the fact he is now hitting .320 with a .451 slugging percentage with six steals – five of which came in the last two weeks. Segura is rostered on 88 percent of ESPN rosters and only 74 percent of Yahoo rosters. If he’s out there, he’s certainly worth the effort to add him right now.

Tier 4

If you’ve been reading these articles, you know how I feel about Gavin Lux. Since last doing the second baseman rankings two weeks ago, my position on him has not changed. Lux hasn’t had luck when it comes to his batting average the last two weeks, hitting .205. But he has found his power stroke, slugging .451 with three homers and seven RBI. For the month of May Lux slashed .286-.346-.490 with 5 homers and 19 RBI in 27 games. Over 162 games that is 30 dingers and 114 RBI. Only 68 percent of Yahoo players and 72 percent of ESPN players have Lux on their teams. If he’s out there, grab him. If you are in a dynasty league, there is no reason to not add him if he’s available.

As for Torres, I’m still buying him right now, despite the fact he still is not hitting for power right now with two homers this season.  And his exit velocity is nearly four points below the MLB average while his ISO of .074 doesn’t come close to the average of .171. But in the last two weeks, he is hitting .310-.383-.357 with seven RBI. At the end of April Torres was slashing .234-.327-.287. He turned that around in May with a line of .292-.363-.389 with two homers and 15 RBI in 20 games. We all want to see him hit more homers, but an average of .75 RBI per game translates to 122 RBI over 162 games. Who doesn’t want that kind of production on their team?

Tier 5

Three players enter the rankings this week. One of them, Jonathan India, has previously been ranked before hitting a wall. Jorge Polanco and Jonathan Schoop are breaking into the Top 25 for the first time.

India is looking like the player he was when he first was recalled by the Reds and inserted into the lineup. In the last two weeks he is slashing .407-.543-.667 with two home runs and four RBI and two steals. Overall, he now has four homers and 23 RBI entering the weekend. Over the past 28 days he is hitting .290-.413-.468. Considering he is rostered on only 12 percent of rosters in both Yahoo and ESPN, he is probably available to be added. If he’s sitting on the waiver wire, grab him.

Polanco has had a nice two-week run, slugging .632 with three homers and six RBI while his numbers over the last 28 days are .274-.347-.500 with four home runs and 19 RBI. With depth at middle infield also a question mark, Polanco is a solid add. Meanwhile, Schoop is on a pace to hit 27 homers and drive in 78 runs thanks to a two-week stretch in which he hit six homers and collected 12 RBI while slashing .396-.467-.792. Will he keep that production going? No, but if you are looking for a player who can play second base, first base, middle infield, and corner, you can do a lot worse.

And before you comment about ranking Brandon Lowe 25th, I want as many well-rounded players on my team. Lowe is not a well-rounded player. Yes, the 10 homers are great, and the 25 RBI are nice. But he is simply killing fantasy owners with his slash line of .201-.316-.387. I have him on one of my fantasy teams and he sits on the bench more often than not because I have no idea when he might actually hit the ball. I know everyone strikes out now in the MLB, but he’s at 30.3 percent this year. If he didn’t have power, he wouldn’t sniff a fantasy lineup.

One player I left out of the rankings but took a long look at is Ty France. Once ranked as high as fifth before forgetting how to hit, France has enjoyed a nice two-week stretch in which he slashed .326-.354-.435 with seven RBI. I’m not fully buying into the recent turnaround, but I’m certainly keeping my eye on him for the next two weeks.

Dropped Out

Yep, I finally did it – I dropped DJ LeMahieu out of my Top 25. There is simply no excuse to keep him ranked when he is barely a top 35 second baseman. How bad is LeMahieu right now? Outside of runs scored, where he ranks 12th among second basemen, he is outside the top 30 in homers, RBI, steals, and slugging percentage while ranking 30th in batting average (and he is worse if I had a minimum number of at-bats needed) and 22nd in OBP.

Right now, LeMahieu isn’t that good. Yes, his exit velocity of 89.7 is above the MLB average of 88.5, but it is at its lowest point since 2017. His hard-hit percentage is basically at the MLB average and his ISO of .071 is .062 below his career average and .085 points below the MLB average. In his career, his average strikeout rate is 14.9 percent. This year it is at 17.8. He runs 33 in July, and while I didn’t think this at the start of the season, maybe Father Time is catching up to him.