As we move into the dog days of summer, we called upon the resident gurus to take up pens and pencils, keyboards and abacuses and put together our annual mid-year positional rankings. The rankings in the table below are the composite rankings of our staff, and for each position a couple of us will profile some risers, fallers, and names to know.

RISER: GLEYBER TORRES, DETROIT TIGERS (PRESEASON: 21, CURRENT: 8)

In the offseason, following the 2024 playing year, Gleyber Torres signed with the Detroit Tigers and has immediately seen a resurgence in his production, despite playing in a super pitcher friendly home ballpark. Just purely from a statistical standpoint, he has improved in many key areas and that has in turn seen him produce his highest wRC+ of his career, 126. He also has his second highest walk rate of his career, along with his lowest strikeout rate by far which has really driven up his numbers of balls in play. His savant page is now glaring red in a lot of categories, especially whiff rate (80th percentile) and chase rate (98th percentile). He is also squaring up the ball more than usual. This has led to a batting average of .273 and a great OBP of .369. Those two categories to go with potentially 20 home runs have seen his value jump up, accounting for his rise in our rankings. He comes in at 8th on our mid-season list and was 21st before the season. There might not be much room for further rise, but an xBA of .297 and xSLG of .515 shows his numbers could still improve overall. He is definitely worthy of a riser in the second base position.

FALLER: LUIS RENGIFO, LOS ANGELES ANGELS (PRESEASON: 19, CURRENT: 29)

For an obvious faller in the second base position group, the player that has stood out the most has been Luis Rengifo. I think the main reason for the drop has been just a failure to even duplicate the statistics he posted last year, much less show any improvement. In 2024, he was a .300 hitter, approached a .350 OBP, stole 24 bases, and hit six home runs in 304 plate appearances. If he could have built on those numbers he would have been a bona-fide serviceable second baseman. Unfortunately, he has dropped in the rankings from 19th before the season to 29th in the mid-season update. In 401 plate appearances this season, he has hit five home runs, stole just four bases, with a .247 batting average, and a .293 OBP. It has been a season far from what many had hoped for. His sprint speed is almost identical to last season at the 39th percentile versus the 37th. He has only attempted 10 stolen bases compared to 31 in 2024. Injuries may have impacted his running game and with the bat just bad luck may be pulling his numbers down. His xBA this year is actually higher than last year by .18 points. The big drop in almost all of his stats has resulted in his plunge down the rankings, but there could be a bounce back if his numbers improve positively in the remainder of the season.

PLAYER TO WATCH: MICHAEL ARROYO, SEATTLE MARINERS (PRESEASON: 38, CURRENT: 16)

It seems the Seattle Mariners are moving slowly with their 20-year-old phenom prospects, who are climbing their way through the minor league system and Michael Arroyo is the name to watch out of that group. He has improved and showcased his skills from High-A Everett to Double-A Arkansas this season and is making a case for a possible major league opportunity in 2026. He is small in stature, listed at 5-foot-10 and 160 pounds, but he can pack a punch with the bat when he gets a pitch he likes. He has hit 15 home runs at High-A in 2025 and added two more in a short stint at Double-A. He may not have big power projections down the line in the big leagues, but a 20 home run bat could be feasible. The standout area of his game is his contact skills. He has hit .275 between High-A and Double-A and in 31 games with Double-A Arkansas has only struck out 10.9% of the time, while walking at a 13.1% rate. He gets on base, can do damage with the bat, and consistently makes good contact. He will be a big riser in the coming months and heading into 2026.

(Daniel Labude)

RISER: OTTO LOPEZ, MIAMI MARLINS (PRESEASON: 52, CURRENT: 17)

Otto Lopez has had himself a solid season and it has propelled him up the TDG consensus positional rankings. He’s moved from 52 in the pre-season rankings, to 17 in the mid-season update. Through August 5th, he had a slash line of .244/.316/.375 and has shown some pop in his bat, adding 11 home runs and 14 doubles. He is even showing above average base running, stealing 11 bases. His boost in overall play has been aided by much improved plate discipline. From the 2024 season to 2025, he has increased his walk rate up to 9% (a 3.2% bump) and decreased his strikeout rate down to 14.3% (a 3% drop).

Doing a deeper dive into the underlying numbers from Lopez, they show a hitter whose statistical profile looks to be sustainable. His in-zone contact rates are now up to 90.4% on the season and he’s chasing less, with only a 26.3% chase rate. One of the biggest improvements from him is his average launch angle. In 2024, it was down at 5.4 degrees, but this season he has it up to 8.8 degrees. He is also topping the ball at a much lower rate, 35.5% compared to 41.9% in 2024.

Overall he has the looks of a player who can maintain his rankings for a number of years. He may never make it into the top 10 of second baseman, but he has proven his rise this season is not a result of a down year at the position or an outlier year from him.

FALLER: COLT KEITH, DETROIT TIGERS (PRESEASON: 11, CURRENT: 23)

Colt Keith was once one of the premier prospects in baseball. Unfortunately, his major league career has not lived up to the hype and his play this season has contributed to his fall down the second base rankings. After hitting 27 home runs and having a .302 batting average between Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo in 2023, Keith only managed to hit 13 home runs, with a .260 batting average in 2024. This season he has seen just a slight improvement, but mostly it’s been more of the same. His batting average is nearly identical at .261, but he has upped his on-base percentage and slugging. His fantasy baseball stat line is unfortunately about the same. He’s got nine home runs on the year and his RBI total has plummeted down to just 33. Until he can regain his prospect shine, his value will continue to drop, especially when there are a number of second base prospects waiting in the wings to jump over him.

Keith’s underlying Statcast data do show someone making improvements. His hard hit, strikeout, and walk rates have all improved, as has his barrel rate and exit velocities. However, the gains are not showing up for the stats that count. He might be someone who can breakout in a few years, but that is too far down the line even for dynasty players and it has fueled his fall in the rankings.

PLAYER TO WATCH: JOSH ADAMCZEWSKI, MILWAUKEE BREWERS (PRESEASON: NR, CURRENT: 60)

There are plenty players to watch at the second base position, but not many of them are still flying under the radar and even fewer have as high of a ceiling as Josh Adamczewski. 2025 is his second full season in professional baseball, but as of August 9th, he still hadn’t played 50 games in either year. In 2023, he started off at the Rookie-Level before moving up to Single-A Carolina at the end of the season. This year he started at Single-A, but a back injury cost him much of the season. Even though he hasn’t played in a ton of games, his stats and profile show some insane upside.

In 2024 Adamczewski had a slash line of .322/.459/.486 and this year he has been even better, .349/.440/.564. In his 38 games at Single-A this year, he has hit five home runs and added 11 doubles. During that span, his plate discipline is near elite, with a 12.1% walk rate and a 19.7% strikeout rate. His ISO of .225 and wRC+ of 184 show someone producing at all levels of the game.

If Adamczewski can finish this season at these same levels, he will start to soar up prospect rankings and then ultimately the second base rankings as well. Someone with such a high upside is why he is a player to watch for me, his value has the potential to soar up from unranked in these lists to ranked rather quickly.

(Brian Labude)

RISER: BRANDON LOWE, TAMPA BAY RAYS (PRESEASON: 29, CURRENT: 21)

The second base position has been rather static, with few risers popping up during the 2025 season. One player who has made a sizable jump is Brandon Lowe, who has proven to be a reliable bat among a group with a lot of questions. While his ceiling is capped due to his relatively strict strong-side platoon role, he has still managed to hit 22 HRs already this season, a career best aside from his monstrous 2021. He is hitting the ball harder than ever, with a career best 92.2 average exit-velocity, which has been necessary considering his BB% has slipped from 11.5% in 2023, to 7.8% in 2024, and 6.6% in 2025. There are whiff concerns with Lowe, which have been with him for awhile, and his glove has really slipped this past year. Given the whiff and lack of defensive safety, this could be a profile that craters fast. Truthfully, Lowe’s jump is largely based on attrition, but as long as he is hitting the ball as hard as he is, I think he is a solid target for competing teams in daily leagues.

FALLER: OZZIE ALBIES, ATLANTA BRAVES (PRESEASON: 2, CURRENT: 13)

The warning signs in Ozzie Albies’s profile that showed up last year proved to be more than just noise, as his 2025 has been rough. He has never been a Statcast darling, but his current year’s page is downright scary. Most concerning to me is the 10th percentile barrel rate (3.5%), as the names around him on that list are not pretty. If you wiped his name from his stats, he probably would not have been ranked on our list. It is that same name value that gave him the benefit of the doubt to be ranked so highly at the beginning of the year. Coming into the year, Albies was in many ways analogous to Bo Bichette, which just goes to show how difficult it can be to pick these guys out. To find practical dynasty advice, the key difference between Albies and Bichette was that Albies’s value did not drop nearly as much as Bichette’s, making Bichette a safer buy-low going into 2025. Going forward, I see Albies as empty HR/SB calories, who will likely continue to hurt in OBP/SLG especially, but who may also sneakily drain you in AVG unless he can begin to impact the ball more consistently.

PLAYER TO WATCH: COLE YOUNG, SEATTLE MARINERS (PRESEASON: NR, CURRENT: 42)

I really care about max exit velocity, which is why I have done a complete 180 on Cole Young. He blasted a 114.1 MPH, 456 foot home run this past month that has, in my opinion, changed what his ceiling looks like going forward. This was not a fluke or a misread, as he has also hit a 113.4 MPH double. His stellar plate skills from the minor leagues have transferred well, posting a 10.7%/18.2% BB/K in his first 187 plate appearances at the major league level. While he is not yet hitting the ball as hard as I would like consistently, his 91st percentile Max EV has shown that the raw power may be significantly higher than was previously thought. As for steals, he is fast enough to steal bases (64th percentile), even speed demon Josh Naylor (22 SBs, yes that is real) thinks so. I think 10 SBs across an entire season is realistic if he decides he wants to. He has been hot since his rough start, and is starting to find some real solid footing in the MLB. The fantasy upside has always been the question for Cole Young, and while it is fair to be skeptical, I am hopeful that he may get to 20-25 HR power purely on projection from these impressive max exit velocities he has already produced in his young MLB career.

(Joe Juliette)