Second base, 2025

NOTE: Our preseason Market Pulse column is an exercise in identifying the valuation gaps between the "popular" market (as reflected in Average Draft Position, or "ADP") and BaseballHQ.com. This is an exercise in relative valuation, not absolute. 

Each hitter is being considered at his scarcest qualified position (in order: C/DH, 2B, 1B, 3B, SS, OF), as it is the scarcest eligible position that typically drives fantasy value. If a player is not listed here, it's likely that he qualifies at a scarcer position, or he's not in the ADP Top 500-600 (it's a bit fluid). The rankings are a risk- and position-adjusted estimate using current BaseballHQ.com projections. It is a purely quantitative ranking, with no specific consideration of "upside" (aside from reliability scores). The BaseballHQ dollar values are position adjusted, with some adjustment for risk. Average auction values are approximate. These are not the "official" BaseballHQ.com straight draft rankings, but they should be close.

New for 2025! At the bottom of this each edition of the pre-season Market Pulse, you'll find the positional rankings table for the week. We continue to leverage our new datatable format to provide the most useful and accessible representation of the positional rankings. They are sortable, filterable, and downloadable to CSV format. 

A positive number in the "Diff" column indicates a player that BaseballHQ.com ranks higher than the "market," and a negative number indicates we have the player ranked lower, based on Average Draft Position (ADP). Use the “Over/Undervalued” filter to quickly split the table into lists of players that HQ values higher than the marketplace, or vice-versa. ADP is based on National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) Draft Champions leagues over the past (approximately) six weeks. We may extend the number of weeks to get a minimum number of drafts. Any references to number of rounds assumes a 15-team mixed league.

 

NFBC ADP | Unofficial Rankings

Second base features few high-end options—the highest-ranked 2B (Ketel Marte) just sneaks in to the end of the second round, and may face some regression (though his 2024 was well supported, skill-wise). If the draft follows ADP, someone will be taking their first 2B in the 15th round or later. Aside form Nolan Gorman (2B, STL), the later rounds are littered with cromulent choices and cheap speed.

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Ozzie Albies (2B, ATL) is going a full four rounds earlier than the BaseballHQ projections (we'll remind you here that the rankings are risk-adjusted), after an injury-marred season. Before assessing his 2025 value, we need to answer two questions. The first is how much his injuries affected his 2024 production, aside from missed PT. if you divide his season into four parts: Pre-Foot Injury, Post-Foot, Pre-Wrist Injury, and Post-Wrist (the middle two are somewhat arbitrary), some trending emerges:

	BBE	90% EV	EV50	Avg EV	Avg LA	Brl%	HH%	xSLG
Pre-foot	53	95.3	97.7	87.3	10.9	7.5%	35.8%	.500
Recover foot	102	92.7	95.7	89.0	25.5	2.9%	28.4%	.411
Pre-Wrist	147	90.9	97.5	88.7	18.0	7.5%	32.7%	.478
Post Wrist	34	96.2	99.8	86.9	11.7	8.8%	32.4%	.441

These are all small samples, but you can clearly see how he struggled when he came back from the foot injury, and to a lesser extent, when he came back from his wrist injury. But even when he was presumably healthy, his power numbers were average at best. The good news, such as it is, is that aside from the first part, which is a very small sample, we can't know how healthy he was at any point. We're willing to mostly give him a pass for 2024.

The second question is bigger and badder: how reliable is he? He's now broken four bones in three seasons, something that feels like more than just dumb luck. And there's the rub. There's not much upside from his early-5th round ADP, and you're taking a big risk that his injury luck is just that. So while we can see a return to his 2021 or 2023 form, the risk is just too high. 

Jordan Westburg (2B/3B, BAL) had his breakout season curtailed by a broken hand in August. Otherwise, he was on course for a 20/10 season (maybe 25/10, even). His “UP” notice in the Baseball Forecaster (25/20) is also appealing, though we'd bet more on the HR than the SB. Platoon split isn't a worry, as he hit RHP better than LHP (and has most of his career). His odds of sneaking into the top 100 are decent, so his 97 ADP doesn't look all that bad, but there's probably not a lot of upside from there. Slight edge to the market here.

Yes, we know Luis Arraez (2B/1B, SD) has little power and not much speed, so that lofty BA (with a decent number of Runs) has to carry his value. The good news is that his hiStory says he can do it. While his 2024 BA was 23 points higher than his xBA, that's been consistent throughout his career. Sometimes, expected stats don't work as well at the extremes, and that may be the case with Arraez. You need to plan your strategy a bit more carefully when taking a low-power, high-BA guy that early, but Arraez has the BA to make it work. He looks like a steal at his ADP, and is a good guy to target around the 8th-9h round.

If we ignore Maikel Garcia's (2B/3B, KC) surface stats and focus on his expected stats over the past two seasons, a full-time gig should pretty easily produce a ~.255 BA with 8-10 HR and 27 SB. That's Andrés Giménez territory (169 ADP). However, with the Royals' acquisition of Jonathan India (2B, KC), we can expect Garcia's playing time to be diminished. The market hasn't really caught on to this, as his ADP only fell six slots (209 to 215) after the trade. Garcia's only real fantasy value is his speed, so it's very sensitive to PT. The market hasn't caught on yet (or feels someone else, like Paul DeJong, will see the PT hit), but right now, Garcia is mostly downside risk with very little upside. That's a hard pass.

We don't usually quibble about where prospects are being drafted, but there's little reason to take Kristian Campbell (2B/SS/OF, BOS) in the top 300. As good a prospect as he is (consensus top 5), he's theoretically blocked at 2B by David Hamilton, Vaughn Grissom, and possibly Alex Bregman (who remains a likely Red Sock). He's also blocked at SS by Trevor Story and Ceddanne Rafaela and in the OF by Roman Anthony, at the very least. It's possible the stars align and he's up in May or something, but then you're also facing the normal prospect risks. There are good players and there are good prices. He's clearly the former, but the price is just too high.

Thairo Estrada (2B, COL) had a down year in 2024, highlighted by a couple of injuries that really shouldn't have affected his speed. There are risks here: declining bb%, lack of quality contact, and his 2024 SB fall-off. But he also had two seasons (2022-2023) of .250+ xBA and 20+ SB, and we want to avoid recency bias. He's in a scrum for playing time, but his competition (the yet-to-launch Adael Amador) isn't awe inspiring. His glove should give him and edge, and with PT we can expect steals. He has 10th round upside, but is available in the 22nd round, on average. He's a solid upside choice in the late teens.

Caleb Durbin (2B, MIL), Hyeseong Kim (2B, LA)—not to be confused with Ha-Seong Kim (SS, FA)—and Richie Palacios (2B/OF, TAM) are all late-round speed options. Kim (a KBO signing) has the clearest path to playing time, though his projection is more speculative than the other two as he's never played on this side of the Pacific. Palacios is mainly competing with Christopher Morel for OF time; he has the defensive advantage, while Morel is the better hitter. Durbin is in a scrum with mostly superior players, like Brice Turang and Joey Ortiz (and maybe even Sal Frelick). If you're speculating, that's the order we'd do it in: Kim, Palacios, and then Durbin.

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