Before we begin, let’s make one thing clear right up front: This is not Jason Parks’ list.

At Baseball Prospectus, we are fortunate to have an amazing prospect team that truly keeps its collective nose to the grindstone both on the diamond and within major-league organizations. We used the research and knowledge of our prospect team judiciously while putting together this feature. However, from there, we used our collective fantasy experience to formulate a list that requires no interpretation for the fantasy player. There’s no work necessary in setting a player’s defense aside in order to figure out his true fantasy value, since we don’t care about the distinction between the defensive skills of Francisco Lindor and Xander Bogaerts. We just care about the “SS” next to their names.

Before we begin, let’s make one thing clear right up front: This is not Jason Parks’ list.

At Baseball Prospectus, we are fortunate to have an amazing prospect team that truly keeps its collective nose to the grindstone both on the diamond and within major-league organizations. We used the research and knowledge of our prospect team judiciously while putting together this feature. However, from there, we used our collective fantasy experience to formulate a list that requires no interpretation for the fantasy player. There’s no work necessary in setting a player’s defense aside in order to figure out his true fantasy value, since we don’t care about the distinction between the defensive skills of Francisco Lindor and Xander Bogaerts. We just care about the “SS” next to their names.

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The Baseball Prospectus fantasy team has been rolling out its positional rankings over the past couple of weeks, and will conclude the process next week. Each team member assigned to cover a position will create an initial top 15 (more for outfielders and starting pitchers) on his own. He will then send that list to the rest of the team for discussion, at which point we will debate the rankings, both in terms of each player’s specific placement and the merits on which he was included in the top 15. This back-and-forth debate will yield the final list, which will be presented by the original author with notes on the pertinent players. We encourage you to bring your opinions into the fray using the comment section below.

Today, we continue the rankings with the second half of our outfielders list, featuring the players ranked 26-50. We released our top 25 outfielders on Wednesday, and you can view that article here.

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The Baseball Prospectus fantasy team has been rolling out its positional rankings over the past couple of weeks, and will conclude the process next week. Each team member assigned to cover a position will create an initial top 15 (more for outfielders and starting pitchers) on his own. He will then send that list to the rest of the team for discussion, at which point we will debate the rankings, both in terms of each player's specific placement and the merits on which he was included in the top 15. This back-and-forth debate will yield the final list, which will be presented by the original author with notes on the pertinent players. We encourage you to bring your opinions into the fray using the comment section below.

Today, we continue the rankings with a look at our top 25 outfielders. Comments on the outfielders ranked 26-50 will follow on Friday.

The remainder of this post cannot be viewed at this subscription level. Please click here to subscribe.

In the coming weeks, the fantasy team here at Baseball Prospectus will be rolling out our positional rankings. Each team member assigned to cover a position will create an initial top 15 (more for outfielders and starting pitchers) on his own. He will then send that list to the rest of the team for discussion, at which point we will debate the rankings, both in terms of each player’s specific placement and the merits on which he was included in the top 15. This back-and-forth debate will yield the final list, which will be presented by the original author with notes on the pertinent players. We encourage you to bring your opinions into the fray using the comment section below.

Today, we continue the rankings with a look at our top 15 second basemen.

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Travis d'Arnaud | Mets

Shallow (30 Keepers): No
Medium (60 Keepers): No
Deep (90 Keepers): No
NL-Only (60 Keepers): Yes
Super Deep (200 Keepers): Yes

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Mike Napoli | Red Sox

Shallow (30 Keepers): No
Medium (60 Keepers): No
Deep (90 Keepers): Fringe
AL-Only (60 Keepers): Yes
Super Deep (200 Keepers): Yes

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Jesus Montero | Seattle Mariners
Shallow (30 Keepers): No
Medium (60 Keepers): Yes
Deep (90 Keepers): Yes
AL-Only (60 Keepers): Yes
Super Deep (200 Keepers): Yes

Some players are willing to accept a designated hitter role on a team, yet others see their production suffer (sometimes greatly) when they don't play the field. It's very early in Montero's career, but he appears to be in the latter camp. Montero received 321 plate appearances as a designated hitter and 230 plate appearances as a catcher last year, and the difference in his slash line was staggering. As a designated hitter, Montero hit a paltry .226/.265/.309 with five home runs. Conversely, he crushed the ball as a catcher, hitting .310/.343/.498 with 10 home runs.

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Salvador Perez | Kansas City Royals
Shallow (30 Keepers): No
Medium (60 Keepers): No
Deep (90 Keepers): Yes
AL-Only (60 Keepers): Yes
Super Deep (200 Keepers): Yes

Owners that patiently sat on an injured Perez or were lucky enough to scoop him off the waiver wire when he was activated from the disabled list were rewarded with approximately half a season's worth of very good offensive production in 2012. It was an impressive follow-up to his eye-catching debut. The 22-year-old catcher has 463 career plate appearances under his belt, and while that's not enough to definitively call him an offensive star at his position, it's a good starting point.

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Brian McCann | Atlanta Braves
Shallow (30 Keepers): No
Medium (60 Keepers): No
Deep (90 Keepers): Fringe
NL-only (60 Keepers): Fringe
Super Deep (200 Keepers): Yes

McCann had a down year in 2012 but still managed to reach 20 home runs for the fifth straight season. He retained his plate discipline but finished with an ugly .230 average. His BABIP was well below his career mark, yet his batted ball data fell right in line with his norms. This would seem to indicate he was unlucky last year and should rebound this year, but it isn't that cut and dry.

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Neil Walker | Pittsburgh Pirates
Shallow (30 Keepers): No
Medium (60 Keepers): No
Deep (90 Keepers): No
NL-only (60 Keepers): Yes
Super Deep (200 Keepers): Yes

Walker won't find his name mentioned with the elite at the second base position, but he's a solid option at the keystone. He brings a well-rounded 5x5 line to the table, though he's not an efficient base-stealer and shouldn't be counted on to steal more than a handful of bags.

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BP Fantasy kicks back into gear today as the football season begins to wane and attentions begin to turn back toward baseball.  For the next few weeks, the BP Fantasy team will spend time examining the keeper league value of various players that may be on the fringe of keepability in certain leagues.  We know that every keeper league is different, so while we’ll talk in broad strokes, we’re happy to answer questions specific to your league or cover a particular player if you ask nicely :)  The analysis, of course, will be focused on each player’s 2013 prospects, so even if you’re not in a keeper league, this should still prove valuable to your draft preparations. We've got some exciting things in the works for the coming season, and I'm happy to be able to kick it off today. —Derek Carty, Fantasy Manager

Matt Wieters | Baltimore Orioles
Shallow (30 Keepers): No
Medium (60 Keepers): Fringe
Deep (90 Keepers): Yes
AL-only (60 Keepers): Yes
Super Deep (200 Keepers): Yes

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