After a long, cold, frustratingly slow offseason, MLB’s regular season begins on Wednesday, March 20, with the Dodgers and Padres squaring off in Seoul (the 28 other teams will get things started on Thursday, March 28). With precious little time to go until Opening Day, now is the time to start cranking up your fantasy baseball drafts — and we’re here to be your one-stop shop for all things draft prep. We just recently unveiled our top 300 overall for redraft leagues in 2024, as well as top prospects to know, full positional previews and sleepers at every position.
Now, however, it’s time for something a little less fun: players to avoid at every position. Next up: second base, a position that seems superficially strong (11 players with an ADP inside the top 120, plus several early-round options) but gets far dicier with a peek under the hood. There are some very enticing players at the keystone in 2024, but there are also plenty that could sink your team’s chances.
Fantasy baseball busts: Second base
Ha-Seong Kim, San Diego Padres
ADP: 85
Kim’s quality of contact didn’t come close to backing up his apparent growth as a hitter, with his hard-hit rate and average exit velocity both dropping from 2022 to 2023. Of course, much of his fantasy value was tied up in his 38 steals last season, but that’s another place where it’s fair to be skeptical – he had just 12 steals in 2022, after all, which is a massive jump even given the new rules. It’s not hard to imagine a world in which Kim backslides to something more like a .250, 12-homer hitter at the plate, meaning he’ll have to really, really run to recoup top-100 value.
Ketel Marte, Arizona Diamondbacks
ADP: 94
A recurring theme in this series is trying to avoid drafting a player at their ceiling. If you’re taking Marte inside the top 100, it feels like doing exactly that. The 30-year-old finally stayed healthy last year and delivered a bounce-back season, with 25 homers, eight steals and an .844 OPS. The problem, however, is that those numbers … don’t move the needle all that much in fantasy, especially at this price point. They also represent pretty much the best-case scenario for Marte at this point: Given his injury history, he hardly runs anymore, and his ground ball- and line drive-heavy approach will always limit his power upside. Marte’s .485 slugging percentage drastically overperformed his expected mark of .427; it’s really hard to bank on this profile for more than 20-25 homers. So you’re left with good-not-great power numbers, middling steals and a good-not-great average … and again, that’s the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is that the injury bug once again rears its head, and Marte struggles through another lost season. There’s simply not enough power and speed here to justify that risk, or this ADP.
Luis Arraez, Miami Marlins
ADP: 121
This is largely an argument against one-category contributors, especially ones whose category is as tough to pin down as batting average. For example: While Arraez put up a top-10 fantasy finish last year on the back of a .354 average, he hit “only” .314 after the All-Star break — and if he’s merely good there rather than the elite of the elite, he very quickly becomes a fringe starter. Combine that with what should once again be a middling Marlins lineup, and it’s hard to justify him at this point in the draft.
