The following table shows how team second basemen ranked according to the Probabilistic Model of Range:

The Marlins number one at second base? That certainly flies in the face of Dan Uggla's performance in the All-Star Game. It's not that surprising, however, to see the Dodgers with the aging Jeff Kent coming in last. On to the individual players:

One thing I need to look at more closely is why Dan Uggla does so well. In the previous post on shortstops, a couple of commenters wanted more proof that this system actually works. I was a bit suprised by Akinori Iwamura rating so low, so I thought I would look at his poorest plays to see if they made sense. Of his four worst plays, all with a probablility of .889 or higher of being turned, two were errors hit right at him. One was a grounder to his right when he was playing too far left (poor positioning) and one was just bad judgement on a double play ball.

To compare, I looked at Utley's best play, since he was the best regular at the position. All three of his best plays were balls to the right of first base that got by Howard off the bats of left handers. In each case, Utley ranged into the outfield to field the ball and throw out the batter at first, twice I believe to the pitcher covering. He made those plays because Howard couldn't, but he was positioned so well he was in the right place to cover for Ryan.

The other thing I noticed is that toughest plays Utley made were much tougher than the best plays Iwamura executed. At the other end, easiest balls in play that Iwamura failed to turn into outs were much easier than Utley's worse plays.

If anyone would like to review video on MLB.com for a particular player, I'll be happy to send you the dates and innings of their best and worst plays.

In case you want to check my work, Iwamura's worst plays were on 9/7, 3rd inning, 8/20, 9th inning, 4/25, 9th inning, 7/30, 5th inning. Utley's best plays were on 7/23, 1st inning, 7/1, 1st inning and 8/3, 3rd inning.