If you’ve been playing fantasy baseball for over a decade, you’ll remember when first base was 25 players deep and you wanted to pack as many of them into your lineup as possible. Meanwhile, second base was barren of talent and you cringed at the thought of using the eighth best player at the position. Oh, how times have changed! I wouldn’t mind carrying four second basemen in 2019, including my utility spot. There is so much fantasy talent at the position this year that you don’t need to reach for the one or two guys you especially like. Rather, be patient and see which of Adalberto Mondesi, Whit Merrifield, Daniel Murphy, Scooter Gennett, Jonathan Villar, Robinson Cano or Rougned Odor fall to you. I’ll get to my rankings in a moment, but first, I’ll tell you about the two second basemen I’ve been landing on most of my teams.

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Daniel Murphy (COL): 6th Round Target
Jose Altuve is going in the second round and for good reason, as he has batted .334 over the last three seasons with 20 bombs and 80 RBIs a year. There used to be steals, which is why he was a top-five pick, but now that he has had knee surgery, we can expect those numbers to plummet. Essentially, he is Daniel Murphy. In those same three years, Murphy batted .326, nearly 20 points above #3 on the list. And despite playing 80 fewer games, he has just as many homers and RBIs too. Now that Murphy will be playing half his games in Coors, it would be fair to expect him to surpass Altuve in homers, RBIs and perhaps even batting average. Stolen bases and runs might not be far behind either if he can stay healthy.

Rougned Odor (TEX): 11th Round Target
Around June 1st last year, I was furious. I drafted Odor everywhere, full-well knowing he was coming off a rough season, but even then, his floor was 30 homers and 15 steals. Odor was batting .205 with 1 homer and I was contemplating dropping him. From that point on, Odor returned to his power/speed combo with a 29 homer, 19 stolen base, 110 run pace with a .267 batting average. We will likely get somewhere in between this year, but he seems to have turned the corner by blossoming into a much more patient hitter, so perhaps we will see the best version of Odor yet. He is just 25 after all.

Other Rankings: C | 1B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP (To be posted this week)

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