Welcome to Second Baseman Rankings Week! … or maybe more accurately … Couldn’t Cut It at Shortstop Rankings Week! Or even, We Will Try to Hide Your Terrible Defense at Second Base but Second Base is Actually Hard to Play and an Important Position so It Won’t Work and Then We Will Pretend You Are a Corner Outfielder Rankings Week! That last one’s catchy … but no matter how you got to the position, or where you’re going from the position, right now, you are a second baseman. Here is the 2026 Positional Dynasty Baseball Rankings: Top 97 Second Baseman:
CLICK HERE TO JOIN MY PATREON FOR THE REST OF THESE RANKS & TONS OF EXCLUSIVE CONTENT ALL OFF-SEASON, INCLUDING:
-A TOP 132 SNEAK PEEK OF THE 2026 TOP 1,000 DYNASTY BASEBALL RANKINGS
–2026 DEEP POSITIONAL RANKS: Top 80 C–Top 91 1B–Top 97 2B
–END OF SEASON 2025 TOP 450 DYNASTY RANKS
–END OF SEASON 2025 TOP 325 PROSPECTS RANKS
-TOP 60 2026 FYPD RANKS w/ Analysis & Prime Projections for every player (Full Top 130 FYPD Ranks coming soon)
-HALP’S DYNASTY BASEBALL PODCAST: END OF SEASON MAILBAG!
–SPREADSHEETS
–OFF-SEASON CONTENT: Dynasty Team Reports (Top 10 Prospects/Interesting MLB guys/Strategy of the Day), Deep Positional Rankings, Predicting Future Prospect Lists, Position by Position Targets, 2026 & Prime/Peak Projections, Top 1,000+ Dynasty Rankings, Top 500+ Prospects Rankings, Top 100+ FYPD Ranks + much more
Previous Dynasty Team Reports on Patreon (free ones listed in parenthesis)
Arizona Diamondbacks—Atlanta Braves—Baltimore Orioles—Chicago Cubs (free)—Cincinnati Reds (free)—Cleveland Guardians—Colorado Rockies—Detroit Tigers—Houston Astros—Kansas City Royals—Los Angeles Angels—Miami Marlins—Milwaukee Brewers—Minnesota Twins—New York Yankees (free)—Pittsburgh Pirates (free)—Sacramento Athletics—Seattle Mariners—St. Louis Cardinals (free)—Tampa Bay Rays—Texas Rangers—Toronto Blue Jays—Washington Nationals
1) Jazz Chisholm – NYY, 2B/3B, 28.2 – It’s all about Games Played for Jazz. I mean, it’s all about Games Played for everybody I guess, but Jazz is one of the more injury prone hitters in the game. You know I lean towards taking on more risk than average, so I’ve been high on Jazz for the last two seasons, and that has paid off in a major way with him following up his 24/40 season in 2024 with his first 30/30 season (31/31) in 2025. Here is how I closed out his Top 1,000 Blurb last off-season, “Staying healthy one season is good, but he needs to go back to back healthy seasons for me to take “injury risk” off his resume, or at least have it downplayed. If not for injury risk, Jazz has an argument for Top 15 status, so this ranking (27th overall) does factor in a bit of risk.” … and the good news is that he mostly stayed healthy in 2025, playing in the 2nd most games of his career at 130, but 130 is not quite a full season. He missed a little over a month with an oblique injury and he got banged up here and there throughout the season with various injuries. Despite going 30/30, he still finished 52nd overall on the Razzball Player Rater. A low BA is another risk that contributed to that with a .242 BA, a 27.9% K% and a 32.2% whiff%. I feel like I’ve straddled the line perfectly the last few years between his upside and his risk, and I’m going to continue to straddle that line. I can’t quite call him an elite dynasty asset despite the elite power/speed combo, but he remains in the tier right under that. – 2026 Projection: 78/28/82/.246/.330/.468/33
2) Ketel Marte – ARI, 2B, 32.6 – Marte wasn’t quite as good in 2025 as he was in 2024 (36 homers with a .932 OPS in 136 games vs. 28 homers with a .893 OPS in 126 games), and he wasn’t able to fully sustain the elite Hard Hit explosion (94 MPH EV with a 53.8% Hard Hit% vs. 90.8 MPH EV and 47% Hard Hit%), but he still solidified himself as one of the best hitters in the game. He made up for the reduced hard hit by lifting and pulling more than he ever has (14.8 degree launch with a 23.5% Air Pull%), and it actually resulted in an even better Barrel% (13.5%) and xwOBA (.400) than 2024. Combine those quality of contact metrics with an elite 14.9/11.5 K%/BB% and near elite bat speed (74.6 MPH), and you get one of the safest studs in the game at a position that has been causing dynasty manager fits for the last few years (2B). The only thing he doesn’t do is run with 4 steals, and he’s getting up there in age at 32. Marte is the safer choice over Jazz as the top 2B in dynasty, but Jazz has the upside and youth edge. – 2026 Projection: 95/31/82/.281/.371/.520/7
3) Kevin McGonigle – DET, SS/2B, 21.8 – You know I’m not shy to take a victory lap when I hit on a player that everyone else (or almost everyone else) was low on, so I also have to take my lashes when I miss on a player that everyone else but me was super high on. Truth of the matter is, when you rank with a mind of your own, which I pride myself on and preach to others (and preach to you as dynasty owners too), you are going to end up looking like a genius on your unique hits, and a moron on your unique misses, when in reality, you are probably not a genius or a moron. You are just trying to block out the noise and give a raw, unfiltered opinion. My favorite rankings, and the ones I find most valuable, are the ones that aren’t mostly the same as the consensus/general perception, and are also backed up by solid reasoning and analysis, whether you agree or disagree with the ranking. So with that as the backdrop, Kevin McGonigle is who I consider my biggest miss in 2025. I had him ranked 54th overall, which I mean, is a pretty good ranking in general, and I called him a souped up Steven Kwan, which is really still an accurate “comp,” but the vast majority of other spots had him in the Top 25 range at least, or higher. I’m generally lower on hit tool first guys for fantasy (I was also lower on Angel Genoa and Starlyn Caba, both of whom took steps back in 2025), but when a hit tool first guy hits his ceiling, it looks exactly like what McGonigle just did. He slashed .305/.408/.583 with 19 homers, 10 steals, and a 11.6/14.9 K%/BB% in 99 games at High-A and Double-A. He’s not a big guy at 5’10”, but he can lift and pull, and he hits it very hard with legit plus raw power potential. He’s less a souped up Steven Kwan, and more in the mold of Mookie Betts and Jose Ramirez, if you want to dream on his tippy top ceiling. He wasn’t good on the bases this year (10 for 17), and he’s not a true burner, but he was much better last year (22 for 24), so I would would expect a bounce back in 2026 there. You won’t hear me doubting him ever again. Konnor Griffin is my top dog, but McGonigle is my #2 prospect in baseball. – 2026 Projection: 53/12/45/.268/.337/.434/10 Prime Projection: 111/24/91/.290/.370/.485/20
4) JJ Wetherholt – STL, 2B/SS, 23.7 – Wetherholt was exactly who we thought he was. It’s exactly who he’s been since his freshman year of college. It’s exactly who he’s been since his pro debut in 2024. And now it’s exactly who he’s been through the upper minors, slashing .306/.421/.510 with 17 homers, 23 steals, and a 14.7/14.5 K%/BB% in 109 games split between Double-A and Triple-A. He crushes the ball with a 91.4 MPH EV and 49% Hard Hit%, he’s got speed, and the plate skills are near elite. He’s not a huge lift and pull guy, but he doesn’t have to be for this type of profile. The 12 degree launch and 13.6% Air Pull% aren’t too bad, and he can easily improve on those over time. The 24.3 whiff% at Triple-A wasn’t quite as good as the K%, so he might not truly be an elite contact guy, but the hit tool is clearly plus at least. He was projected to be a .280/20/20 type coming out of the draft, and that is now cemented with his excellent first full year of pro ball. He’s also expected to break camp with the big league club as their starting 2B or 3B. Proximity, safety, upside … he’s got it all. This is an elite prospect. – 2026 Projection: 76/16/68/.262/.331/.425/19 Prime Projection: 103/21/82/.284/.369/.473/24
5) Jackson Holliday – BAL, 2B, 22.4 – The not knowing is the hardest part. Doing just enough to keep us on the hook, but not enough to actually make an impact. We want our prospects to either explode into elite dynasty assets immediately, or be so horrific that we have no internal struggle about moving on. But dynasty wouldn’t be so fun if it was so easy all of the time. Someone once said that Hell is a Utopia where every desire is instantly fulfilled. It’s the not knowing that makes life fun and interesting. So thank you, Jackson Holliday, for having the type of season that leaves us scratching our head if this guy is eventually going to be the elite dynasty asset that was promised to us, or just a solid across the board player who doesn’t make a huge impact. He improved massively from his rookie year, but he put up a 62 wRC+ with a 33.2% K% in his his rookie year, so that’s not saying much. Finishing 198th on the Razzball Player Rater was not exactly the big improvement we were hoping for, but he showed enough to keep us on the hook. The plate skills showed huge improvement, going from a 34.1% whiff% and 27.2% Chase% to a 24.5% whiff% and 22.3% Chase%. He still only hit .242 with a .251 xBA, so he’s not exactly Ichiro Suzuki out there, but much better than 2024’s .189 BA. And nothing else really improved. The Hard Hit numbers actually took a step back with a decent 40.8% Hard Hit%, he didn’t lift and pull more with a 8.9 degree launch and 10.7% Air Pull%, and he wasn’t good on the bases with 17 steals in 28 attempts. He was actually worse in the 2nd half than he was the 1st half, so we can’t say he was improving as the year went along. And he was bad vs. lefties with a .572 OPS. All of these numbers have to be taken with the context that this was a 21 year old kid though. If he went .242/17/17 at 21 years old, it seems pretty reasonable to say that will rise to at least 20+/20+ with a good BA when he’s in his prime. Is it guaranteed to happen? No. But there is a good enough chance it happens that you have to keep valuing him as an extremely valuable dynasty asset. He’s not making it easy on you, but you’re welcome. – 2026 Projection: 81/20/72/.264/.329/.427/19 Prime Projection: 95/25/80/.282/.358/.470/21
6) Brice Turang – MIL, 2B, 26.4 – Turnag had the largest Hard Hit% increase amongst qualified hitters in the history of Statcast, and it’s not even close. He had a 17.7 point increase and the next highest since 2016/17, which is when Statcast came on the scene, was 13.5. This excludes the 2020 season because that was a much smaller sample of games, but even including 2020, 18.1 was the highest increase, still putting Turang near the very best to ever do it. I just thought it was interesting to put it into context that this wasn’t just a “power uptick,” this is one of the biggest power upticks we’ve ever seen. He did it on the back of a remarkable 4.5 MPH increase in bat speed, which you guessed it, is also the largest increase in bat speed since bat speed came on the scene (not that long ago, just since 2024 but they added in 2nd half 2023 bat speed later too). It obviously resulted in a breakout season, hitting .288 with 18 homers, 24 steals, 97 Runs, and 81 RBI. The only real red flag in his profile is the 7% Air Pull%. That is the 5th lowest mark in baseball. It surely caps his homer upside, but Yandy Diaz is actually lower than him at 5.8%, and he just hit 25 homers. Yelich is also in that area at 8.1%, and he hit 29 homers, so if Turang can actually keep up these Hard Hit gains, he’s capable of hitting plenty of homers even without pulling more in the air. And if he does start pulling more in the air, watch out. I’m buying the breakout, but factoring in some hard hit regression, and taking into account the super low air pull, he’s more of a Top 100 dynasty asset for me. – 2026 Projection: 89/17/71/.272/.339/.428/30
CLICK HERE TO JOIN MY PATREON FOR THE REST OF THESE RANKS & TONS OF EXCLUSIVE CONTENT ALL OFF-SEASON, INCLUDING:
-A TOP 132 SNEAK PEEK OF THE 2026 TOP 1,000 DYNASTY BASEBALL RANKINGS
–2026 DEEP POSITIONAL RANKS: Top 80 C–Top 91 1B–Top 97 2B
–END OF SEASON 2025 TOP 450 DYNASTY RANKS
–END OF SEASON 2025 TOP 325 PROSPECTS RANKS
-TOP 60 2026 FYPD RANKS w/ Analysis & Prime Projections for every player (Full Top 130 FYPD Ranks coming soon)
-HALP’S DYNASTY BASEBALL PODCAST: END OF SEASON MAILBAG!
–SPREADSHEETS
–OFF-SEASON CONTENT: Dynasty Team Reports (Top 10 Prospects/Interesting MLB guys/Strategy of the Day), Deep Positional Rankings, Predicting Future Prospect Lists, Position by Position Targets, 2026 & Prime/Peak Projections, Top 1,000+ Dynasty Rankings, Top 500+ Prospects Rankings, Top 100+ FYPD Ranks + much more
Previous Dynasty Team Reports on Patreon (free ones listed in parenthesis)
Arizona Diamondbacks—Atlanta Braves—Baltimore Orioles—Chicago Cubs (free)—Cincinnati Reds (free)—Cleveland Guardians—Colorado Rockies—Detroit Tigers—Houston Astros—Kansas City Royals—Los Angeles Angels—Miami Marlins—Milwaukee Brewers—Minnesota Twins—New York Yankees (free)—Pittsburgh Pirates (free)—Sacramento Athletics—Seattle Mariners—St. Louis Cardinals (free)—Tampa Bay Rays—Texas Rangers—Toronto Blue Jays—Washington Nationals
By Michael Halpern (@MichaelCHalpern)
Email: michaelhalpern@imaginarybrickwall.com
Twitter: Imaginary Brick Wall (@DynastyHalp)
Blue Sky: Dynasty Halp (@ImaginaryBrickWall)