The middle infield position always feels like a top-heavy one. Routinely you see a handful of the top fantasy performers occupying a middle infield spot, especially shortstop, but then there is usually a significant drop off from there. Let’s dive in to see which MLB players are trending up or trending down to start the year.
Be sure to head over to the Pitcher List dynasty page to check out other helpful articles such as the dynasty performance report for outfielders!
Dynasty Risers
Tyler Fitzgerald, SS/OF, SFG
I’m not sure there is a better fit for a “riser” than Fitzgerald. Yes, he’s cooled off a tiny bit since his scorching hot stretch in late July but not many can say they expected this type of production from the shortstop. What is that production, exactly? Well through 185 plate appearances, Fitzgerald is hitting .308 with 12 home runs and 12 steals. That’s good for a 171 wRC+ as of August 13, and across a full season it paces out to around a 30/30 season. Not too bad for a player that wasn’t on many fantasy analysts radar’s coming into the season.
Fitzgerald’s stats are seemingly out of nowhere, but maybe that shouldn’t be the case. Just a year ago in 102 Triple-A games he hit .289 with 20 home runs and 29 steals. That’s right in line with what we are seeing at the MLB level from Fitzgerald.
Now can we project Fitzgerald to be this good going forward? That’s probably ambitious. While there are examples of soon-to-be 27-year-olds bursting onto the scene and being productive for long stretches, it’s also not the most common path taken. His .381 BABIP would also rank second among qualified hitters (he’s just short of qualifying himself), behind only Aaron Judge. It feels unlikely that his BABIP will consistently be among the very best in baseball, and his xWOBA is roughly 50 points lower than his actual WOBA. So yeah, his statistics will likely regress down the stretch.
But still, Fitzgerald is someone that should be relied upon heading into next year’s season, even if he won’t be this good. A 20/20 season with a .275 bat is something that feels reasonable for him, and given that he may have positional eligibility all over the field, that’s a very valuable asset.
Luis Garcia, Jr., 2B, WSN
Maybe it’s a combination of fatigue on Garcia and the fact that he plays for the Nationals, but it feels like it’s gone mostly unnoticed that the second baseman is having the breakout season that many hoped we’d see every season since Garcia got the call in 2020. Through 103 games he’s hitting .293 and has clubbed 14 home runs and stolen 19 bags. That’s roughly a 20/30 pace. He’s checking in at career-high marks in average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage – the list goes on and on. Simply put, he’s having a career-best season no matter what metric you care to use.
And the most unbelievable part of it? He just turned 24-years-old back in May. Because Garcia got called up at age 20, it’s easy to forget that he’s the age of that many players when they get their debut. To put it into further perspective, Garcia is two months younger than Colton Cowser, who is one of the leading candidates for this year’s American League Rookie of the Year award. With that in mind, it’s very possible that Garcia is just scratching the service of what we can expect from him going forward. Add in the fact that the Nationals young lineup should be better in 2025, and Garcia should be a popular pick heading into next year’s draft. This may be the last open window to get him fairly cheap.
Honorable Mention
Zach Neto, SS, LAA: Similar to Garcia above, playing for a team that doesn’t get a lot of attention has hidden a breakout season for Neto. It also probably doesn’t help that Neto had a slow April before turning things around. Since the start of July, he’s been one of the best hitters in baseball, triple slashing .304/.392/.520 with six home runs and 11 steals in 36 games. On the season he is up to a very solid .266/.330/.463 triple slash with 17 home runs and 22 steals. And he is only 23 years old. Neto is solidifying himself as one of the best dynasty middle infield assets, and he could very well finish with a 20/30 season. I’m not sure the perceived value has caught up to just how good he’s really been.
Brandon Lowe, 2B, TBR: Lowe has inarguably been one of the more difficult players to roster in dynasty leagues the past few seasons. He’s consistently an above-average power bat, especially for a second baseman, when he’s on the field. Unfortunately, injuries have plagued the now 30-year-old for much of the last few seasons, including some of 2024. But Lowe has looked healthy as of late and since the start of July, he’s hitting .287 with eight home runs and four steals in 33 games. He’s also been slightly more aggressive this year and it’s paying off – he’s striking out less and hitting for a higher average. Lowe is one of those players whose hot streaks can carry a fantasy team and he’s been hurt so often the last few years that the price to get him shouldn’t be much.
Colt Keith, 2B, DET – Perhaps unfairly, many expected Keith to hit the ground running in 2024 despite having no MLB experience coming into the season. The 22-year-old struggled out of the gate, hitting just .154 through the end of April. He’s righted the ship since then and in July he was an unstoppable force, triple slashing .322/.404/.644. As a result of the slow start his overall numbers may look a bit pedestrian (his wRC+ sits at 95), but it’s clear that Keith has turned a corner and at 22-years-old he’s only going to get better from here.
Dynasty Fallers
Brice Turang, 2B, MIL
Oh no, what happened to you Turang? You started the season so well that it may be easy to overlook how ugly it has gotten as of late. As a refresh, Turang got his first taste of MLB action in 2023 and things didn’t go well. He ping-ponged between Triple-A and the majors in the middle of the season, performing well at Triple-A (.298/.365/.561) but struggling against big-league arms (.218/.285/.300). He did tally 26 steals in 137 games with the MLB club, though, so the hope heading into 2024 was that if the bat could come alive, Turang could be a fantasy star.
That looked to be the case to kick off the season – through the end of May (205 plate appearances), Turang was triple slashing .298/.361/.414 with 18 steals. Since then, in 250 plate appearances, that slash has dipped to .216/.272/.303 with 15 steals. He’s walking less and striking out more, which is a common thread during these prolonged periods. Things have gotten even worse lately, with Turang hitting a lowly .145 with just three steals since the All-Star break.
Turang’s ground ball rate is up significantly this season (around 52%, compared to 43% a year ago) and the explanation here could be that his grounders are finding gloves now when they weren’t to start the year. He’s probably a player that is somewhere in between his scorching hot spring and his ice-cold summer, which is certainly a step up from a season ago, but a step back from the ceiling we thought we were approaching. With other young players like Jackson Chourio finding their groove in recent months, there is a chance that Turang’s place at the top of the lineup is in jeopardy.
Dansby Swanson, SS, CHC
Swanson could have theoretically been included in the fallers section for each and every version of this article this season. But I’ve given him a bit longer of a leash – we’ve seen the shortstop have lulls in the past just to go on a scorching hot stretch to pull up his season-long numbers.
But here we are in mid-August, and it still hasn’t happened for the 30-year-old. On the year he’s hitting .231/.300/.356, with nine home runs and nine steals. Those triple slash numbers would be career lows across the board. He has just one home run since the start of July.
If there is a glimmer of hope for Swanson it’s that his expected stats are all notably higher than his actual stats. His xBA sits at .250, and his xSLG at .423. And while those expected stats are a slight step backward from his career expected numbers, it’s perhaps a sign that Swanson is showing more of a gradual decline than a fall from a cliff.
Honorable Mention
Anthony Volpe, SS, NYY: Volpe was a riser in the very first version of this article of this season, and with good reason. He started the year absolutely on fire – through the end of May the 23-year-old was hitting .282 with six home runs and 11 steals. In the two and half months since then, the shortstop is hitting just .222 with five home runs and nine steals. Perhaps most alarmingly, his walk rate during that span has cratered all the way down to 3.6%. So on the year, his 94 wRC+ looks acceptable, but we are now going on three months of well below-average production, and it’s worrisome that his aggressive approach at the plate may get exposed at a high rate.