Top 25 Fantasy Second Basemen for 2021 – Week 8

At the start of the season, I was certain Ozzie Albies was the top fantasy second basemen, followed closely by DJ LeMahieu. I was so smart to rank them there and I knew it. Filling out my top five were Whit Merrfield, Keston Hiura, and Brandon Lowe all ranked in my Top 5.

I wish I could say I was spot on about all five players. But if there is one thing that I should have learned in my lifetime, it is that what I am certain about in baseball is not always the way things turn out.

My initial Top 5 currently has only one player still there. Thanks, Merrifield, for living up to expectations so far. The rest of you, ugh. Albies, LeMahieu, and Lowe all struggled out of the gates but have since shown signs of life at the plate. And if you are an owner of Hiura, I’m sorry. I hope you enjoyed the two-run homer he hit for the Triple-A Nashville Sounds the other day. So outside of Merrifield, my Top 5 was completely wrong.

So who is now in the Top 5 and fills out the rest of the rankings? Has Albies done enough to crack the Top 10? Has LeMehieu or Lowe? Let’s find out.

TIER 1

When Marcus Semien joined the Toronto Blue Jays and it was announced he would play second, fantasy owners rejoiced since it meant a second position for Semien to play. But now fantasy owners who have Semien on their team are singing and dancing in the street as the veteran has turned his poor 2020 season into a distant memory. He leads second basemen in slugging at .540. His 11 homers are tied for the lead and his 28 RBI rank third while he is tied for third with eight steals. In the last two weeks, all Semien has done is slash .365-.421-.731 with four homers and 12 RBI.

It is easy to see why Semien’s numbers are looking more like his 2019 season, when he finished third in MVP voting. His ISO is .253, beating his career-high .237 set in 2019, while his average exit velocity of 90.3 is also beating his career-high of 89.4 set in ’19. And if you guessed his hard-hit percentage of 44 percent is also at a career-high pace, you are correct. The only possible worrisome stat is the fact that Semien has a 25.4 strikeout percentage, up 4.2 from last year and 11.7 percent from 2019. But considering strikeout rates across baseball are through the roof, I don’t think too many fantasy owners are worried about that number.

Moving into the Tier 1 group is Eduardo Escobar. No, he is not helping any fantasy owners in average (.230) or on-base percentage (.274), but he is making owners plenty happy with 11 homers and 32 RBI, which leads all second basemen. He is also slugging .466 while adding 24 runs scored. For some reason, he is owned by only 73 percent of Yahoo teams, so if he’s available in your league, go get him. Meanwhile, Chris Taylor moves up to third in the rankings thanks to a two-week stretch in which he slashed .333-.476-.576 with 11 runs scored and seven RBI. While White Merrifield still leads the majors in steals with 12, he has been struggling at the plate with a .214 average the last two weeks with only three RBI.

TIER 2

Two veterans have jumped back into Tier 2 thanks to a torrid two-week stretch – and those veterans are not Albies and LeMahieu.

Max Muncy has found his groove at the plate over the past two weeks with three homers and nine RBI while slashing .447-.563-.737. That last number is his SLUGGING percentage the last two weeks, not his OPS. For the year Muncy is now hitting .277-.450-.504 with eight homers and 23 RBI. Meanwhile, Jose Altuve jumped nine spots to 10th thanks to a 16-game hitting streak entering Sunday’s games. In the last two weeks, he’s hitting .389-.459-.593 with three homers, seven RBI, and 11 runs scored to spark an Astros lineup that features five .300 hitters. For the season Altuve is now hitting .308, up from a .247 mark, with five homers and 19 RBI.

While Muncy and Altuve have hit their stride over the last two weeks, Nick Solak has hit a rough patch. Since rising to the top of the rankings, Solak has hit .176 with a .333 slugging percentage with only five RBI to tumble to sixth.

TIER 3

Ozzie Albies stumbled so badly at the start of the season he fell all the way to 24th in my rankings. But even though I nearly dropped him out of the rankings, this is what I wrote about Albies one month ago – “Right now, the Baseball Gods are not smiling upon Albies. His strikeout rate is only 16.4% while his walk rate is at a career-high 9.6%. His hard-hit percentage of 38.5% and average exit velocity (AEV) of 89.8 mph are also career highs at this point. So if the fantasy owner of Albies is not paying attention and is shopping him, then take advantage of that and trade for Albies.”

The Baseball Gods have obviously had their fun with Albies and are now letting him be the hitter we all expected. Since dropping to a slash line of .177-.274-.403, Albies now sits at .224-.297-.455. He slugged two more home runs Saturday to raise his season total to nine and his RBI total to 24. While Albies is making the slow climb up the rankings, Jake Cronenworth makes a huge jump from Tier 5 into this tier after an impressive two-week stretch, slashing .438-.491-729 with three home runs, eight RBI, and 14 runs scored.

I have not always been on the Cronenworth bandwagon, even dropping him into the Tier 5 rankings after starting the season ranked 16th overall. But he is now hitting .314 for the season with a .384 OBP and .479 slugging percentage to prove that last season’s 60-game stretch wasn’t a fluke.

TIER 4

Adam Frazier doesn’t have eye-popping numbers this season with only one home run and 14 RBI. But unless you play in a league that doesn’t have batting average or on-base percentage, then Frazier is providing a lot of help to owners in those categories. For the season he is now hitting .339 with a .402 on-base percentage. In the last two weeks, his slash line is .463-.500-648. In deep leagues, you can do a lot worse at the middle infield position. Only rostered on 62 percent of Yahoo rosters, I think it is worth adding him.

Another player you should snap up is Nico Hoerner, who is only on 33 percent of Yahoo rosters and 34 percent of ESPN rosters. After missing time with a forearm strain, Hoerner is now hitting .349-.425-.460 for the Cubs with nine RBI and three steals and extended his hitting streak to six games Saturday.

TIER 5

I’ve pretty much chronicled the struggles of Brandon Lowe this year, but there are signs of a turnaround for the Rays second baseman. Over the past two weeks, he is hitting .270 with a .622 slugging percentage, four home runs, and eight RBI. The four dingers are nearly half his season total of nine while the eight RBI are more than a third of his season total of 22.

Another player showing signs of life at the plate is Gleyber Torres of the Yankees. I expected Torres to be one of the top second basemen (I can’t help it if Yahoo still lists him as second base eligible) this year only to see him stink it up at the plate the first month of the season with a .234-.327-.287 slash line with zero home runs and only four RBI. But May has been much kinder to Torres. He has already collected eight RBI with two homers and his slash line this month is .300-378-450.

Jean Segura isn’t the player he used to be, but he is still producing, hitting .327-.358-.478 with three home runs and 11 RBI. He isn’t going to rack up the steals he used to, but if deep leagues he would be a good add as he can play three different positions in Yahoo leagues (2B, SS, 3B)  and two (3B, 2B).

I had Gavin Lux ranked 20th in the preseason rankings and gladly welcome him back into the rankings. A slow start and a stint on the IL dropped Lux out of the rankings. But Lux has shined in May, hitting .323-.380-.477 with two home runs and 12 RBI. He is owned by only 62 percent of Yahoo owners and 60 percent of ESPN owners. I’d snatch him up if you can. He may not put up amazing power numbers, but he will continue to produce and should be added to your roster.

Ty France’s time in the spotlight may have come to an end. Like so many Seattle hitters, France seems to forgotten how to hit. At the end of April, his slash line was .289-.386-.464 with three homers and 13 RBIs in 27 games. But May has been brutal for France, hitting .059 with a .088 slugging percentage and only one RBI in 39 plate appearances. Now he is on the IL with a wrist injury.

Luis Urias owners didn’t like the news of the Brewers trading for Willy Adames. Urias has been shaky at the plate and in the field for Milwaukee and it is very possible he will be headed to Triple-A now that Adames is with the Brew Crew and likely to take over the job at shortstop.