2016 Free Agents: Second basemen

For the third installment of this series we are looking at second basemen.  The following two baggers can reach free agency after this season ends.

This is a pretty sad group we are looking at, so i'll sift out the garbage first and see if any golden nuggets are left afterwards.

Joaquin Arias, Mike Aviles, Jeff Baker, Gordon Beckham, Emilio Bonifacio, Stephen Drew, Kevin Frandsen, Maicer Izturis, Cliff Pennington, and Skip Schumaker aren't owned in fantasy mainly because they aren't good baseball players.  This group contains players who will retire, players who are now utility players, and a player named Stephen Drew who makes me cry every time he's inserted in the Yankee lineup.  Out of respect I didn't put Chase Utley with the rest, but to be brief, I think he's done with being a starting fantasy baseball player, regardless of him presently being en fuego.

Courtesy of SB Nation

The next tier is comprised of one player.  Asdrubal Cabrera, who is fantasy spackle, plugging holes when your real second baseman goes down.  He'll be respectable as his 265/314/414 indicates, but the lack of power or speed makes him tough to be a regular starter.

Courtesy of WaitingForNextYear.com

Lastly there is Howie Kendrick, Daniel Murphy, and Ben Zobrist.  Kendrick is still Kendrick.  At 32 he is on pace for another 10 homer, 10 steal season with a nice average.  His value is connected to his run and RBI totals, but the career .293 hitter consistently places himself in prime position to score and drive runs in.  Similar to Kendrick, Murphy is still Murphy.  He's had some unfortunate batted ball luck with a .284 babip, 30 points lower than his career average.  His ground ball, fly ball, and line drive rates are all in line with his career, and his hard hit rate is actually up this year, with the exchange of new hard hit balls being pulled from his soft hit average.  Murphy might be a bargain next year at the draft table.  Last is Zobrist, who is becoming an ageless wonder.  At 34 he has raked, hitting .280/.371/.465, he's managed this line despite a 284 babip.  He's also improved his already very strong plate discipline and now has the second best strikeout to walk ratio in major league baseball of anyone with over 300PA (1.42).

Courtesy of MLB.com

Remarkably, none of the top group are top options, ranking #10 (Kendrick), 18^th (Zobrist), and 29^th (Daniel Murphy) on the ESPN second baseman's player rater, but all have had stretches of very good play, and are likely owned in most leagues.  Going forward into 2016 that should not change.

Next week I shall be reviewing the hot corner.  If you have any questions on your second basemen, please feel free to shoot me a message here or on twitter.