The following is a transcript of a segment from this week's Fantasy411 podcast, hosted by MLB.com lead fantasy writer Fred Zinkie and national editor Matthew Leach. To hear the rest of Zinkie and Leach's catcher discussion, subscribe to the Fantasy411 podcast by clicking here.
On this week's pod, Fred and Matthew break down the fantasy second basemen landscape heading into draft season. We'll pick up the discussion with them identifying the Tier 2 second sackers for 2017.
Leach: We move to Tier 2, and as is often the case, you get a wide range of different profiles here. Robinson Cano, Rougned Odor, Daniel Murphy, James Dozier. I like Cano a lot, and I think it's possible he could still be undervalued because of that one year bump. He's so steady. He's a little bit to me like a Jose Cabrera in that he's just such a solid provider of base hits. He's gonna hit for some power. You just know that this guy -- there's an expression in soccer that form is temporary, class is forever, class is permanent. I kind of feel like that applies to Cano. Cano is just such a good hitter that I really feel safe with him, and I feel like in some places there is still some sort of overly strong conservative feel about him because of basically one down year.
Zinkie: Yeah, I agree with that. I also think that Cano gets kind of victimized by that whole theory of things being new and exciting and him never being that guy anymore. And it's not even within second base, it's just overall in a draft there'll be young players that people expect to take a big jump. Or there'll be players who had one great year and people expect them to follow it up. People are chasing that incredible season so much that they just overlook the value in getting your roughly 30 homers, 90-100 RBIs, .280-.300 average from Cano. I think that Miguel Cabrera gets victimized by the same thing, where every year he is good, but people get caught chasing the Charlie Blackmons and the Trea Turners and then just overlook someone who's good every year.
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Leach: There's a lot to be said for a guy who you're really confident isn't going to disappoint you. The other interesting guy on this list to me is Daniel Murphy, because going into last year, I think there were a lot of people excited about what he could do, coming off his big year the year before, and particularly his big postseason, and then he outdid everything. It was a rare case where there's hype and people were excited, and then he went out and exceeded the hype. He was better, I think, than even optimists were about him. To me, I can't help shaking the idea then that he falls back a little bit. How much of his 2016 do you think Murphy sustains in 2017?
Zinkie: Yeah, I do think that he falls back a little bit, but I wonder if some of his personal fall back could be offset by Bryce Harper having a much, much better season and then also getting a full year of Trea Turner around him in the lineup. I feel like those two things together -- where he might personally play a little worse, but not lose as many runs and RBIs as people think because of them. I will say, overall, I actually love Tier 2 at second base. I think that those four options, they're all a little different, but I think that's one of the nicest Tier 2s of any position that we'll cover.
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