2016 End of Season Rankings: Third Base

Coors Field: god’s gift to fantasy sports. If you were to sort a typical FanGraphs leaderboard by offensive production, Nolan Arenado is eighth, sandwiched between Matt Carpenter and Evan Longoria. If the exercise is to grade fantasy production, Arenado outpaced Kris Bryant as the top third baseman by a full $3. As we all know, the real and fantasy worlds do not have a 1:1 relationship.

In case you’re just tuning into this series for the first time, I recommend going back in time and starting from the beginning. Luckily, you won’t need a time machine. The post on catchers has notes on important methodological changes. You can also go straight into the calculator to tweak values for your league.

For these articles, I’m going to assume a 12 team, 5×5, standard deep roster with a pitching cap of 1475 innings (most leagues are 1450 or 1500, I split the difference). I set the batter split at 65% because that produces what I consider to be the most realistic position adjustments.

I already teased the top two, let’s see where the chips fall.

2016 End of Season Rankings: Third Base
Rank Name G PA HR R RBI SB AVG $$
1 Nolan Arenado 160 696 41 116 133 2 0.294 32.1
2 Kris Bryant 155 699 39 121 102 8 0.292 28.9
3 Josh Donaldson 155 700 37 122 99 7 0.284 26.6
4 Jonathan Villar 156 679 19 92 63 62 0.285 26.4
5 Manny Machado 157 696 37 105 96 0 0.294 22.6
6 Adrian Beltre 153 640 32 89 104 1 0.3 20.9
7 Kyle Seager 158 676 30 89 99 3 0.278 17.2
8 Eduardo Nunez 141 595 16 73 67 40 0.288 16.9
9 Todd Frazier 158 666 40 89 98 15 0.225 16.8
10 Evan Longoria 160 685 36 81 98 0 0.273 16.3
11 Jose Ramirez 152 618 11 84 76 22 0.312 16.2
12 Anthony Rendon 156 647 20 91 85 12 0.27 13.7
13 Justin Turner 151 622 27 79 90 4 0.275 13.2
14 Jake Lamb 151 594 29 81 91 6 0.249 11.8
15 Hernan Perez 123 430 13 50 56 34 0.272 7.5
16 Matt Carpenter 129 566 21 81 68 0 0.271 7.2
17 Martin Prado 153 658 8 70 75 2 0.305 6.9
18 Maikel Franco 152 630 25 67 88 1 0.255 6.9
19 Eugenio Suarez 159 627 21 78 70 11 0.248 6.7
20 Danny Valencia 130 517 17 72 51 1 0.287 3.9
21 Yangervis Solarte 109 443 15 55 71 1 0.286 2.9
22 Adonis Garcia 134 563 14 65 65 3 0.273 2.5
23 Jedd Gyorko 128 438 30 58 59 0 0.243 2.2
24 Javier Baez 142 450 14 50 59 12 0.273 2
25 Nick Castellanos 110 447 18 54 58 1 0.285 1.7
26 Miguel Sano 116 495 25 57 66 1 0.236 1.3
27 Travis Shaw 145 530 16 63 71 5 0.242 1
28 Jung Ho Kang 103 370 21 45 62 3 0.255 0.1
29 David Freese 141 492 13 63 55 0 0.27 -0.7
30 Yunel Escobar 132 567 5 68 39 0 0.304 -1.1
31 Chase Headley 140 529 14 58 51 8 0.251 -1.5
32 Cheslor Cuthbert 128 510 12 49 46 2 0.274 -3.6
33 Wilmer Flores 103 335 16 38 49 1 0.267 -4.6
34 Ryon Healy 72 283 13 36 37 0 0.305 -5.3
35 Aaron Hill 125 429 10 48 38 4 0.262 -5.5
36 Jefry Marte 88 284 15 38 44 2 0.252 -5.9
37 Trevor Plouffe 84 344 12 35 47 1 0.26 -6.9
38 Luis Valbuena 90 342 13 38 40 1 0.26 -7
39 Jose Reyes 60 279 8 45 24 9 0.267 -7.5
40 Adam Rosales 105 248 13 37 35 4 0.229 -8.7
41 Matt Duffy 91 366 5 41 28 8 0.258 -9.6
42 Alex Bregman 49 217 8 31 34 2 0.264 -10.3
43 Jhonny Peralta 82 313 8 37 29 0 0.26 -11.1
44 Darwin Barney 104 306 4 35 19 2 0.269 -13
45 Conor Gillaspie 101 205 6 24 25 1 0.262 -13.3
46 Stephen Drew 70 165 8 24 21 0 0.266 -13.6
47 Greg Garcia 99 257 3 33 17 1 0.276 -13.8
48 Jurickson Profar 90 307 5 35 20 2 0.239 -14.4
49 Chase d’Arnaud 84 262 1 24 21 9 0.245 -14.6
50 Andres Blanco 90 209 4 26 21 2 0.253 -14.7
51 T.J. Rivera 33 113 3 10 16 0 0.333 -15.6
52 Andrew Romine 109 194 2 21 16 8 0.236 -15.7
53 David Wright 37 164 7 18 14 3 0.226 -15.9
54 Tommy La Stella 74 169 2 17 11 0 0.27 -17.1
55 Mike Moustakas 27 113 7 12 13 0 0.24 -17.2
56 Juan Uribe 73 259 7 19 25 0 0.206 -17.2
57 Yulieski Gurriel 36 137 3 13 15 1 0.262 -17.3
58 Ronald Torreyes 72 168 1 20 12 2 0.258 -17.6
59 Ramiro Pena 30 91 1 9 10 0 0.299 -18.2
60 Ryan Flaherty 74 176 3 16 15 2 0.217 -18.6
61 Marco Hernandez 40 56 1 11 5 1 0.294 -18.6
62 Brett Wallace 119 256 6 19 20 0 0.189 -18.8
63 Brandon Snyder 37 47 4 8 9 0 0.239 -18.9
64 Christian Colon 54 161 1 13 13 0 0.231 -19.1
65 Josh Rutledge 28 56 0 9 3 2 0.265 -19.6
66 Ty Kelly 39 71 1 9 7 0 0.241 -20.1
67 Ehire Adrianza 40 71 2 3 7 0 0.254 -21
68 Chris Taylor 36 65 1 8 7 0 0.213 -21.1
69 Yadiel Rivera 35 71 0 12 3 0 0.212 -21.4

For leagues with a corner infield slot, replacement level was Kang. His value to your team depends on when you owned him. If he began the season on your team, he probably hurt. A lot. If, like me, you snagged several shares in August, he may have saved your season.

As with first base, stolen bases were important. Without the swipes, Nunez and Perez aren’t very useful. Villar’s season would have ranked right around Carpenter and Lamb. Ramirez was the only other player to provide more than a couple dollars of value on the base paths. If you can find stolen bases in the corner infield, you’re well on your way to winning the category.

The position was littered with surprise performances. Villar’s was covered extensively as it happened. It’s easy to forget he was an afterthought during draft season. Nunez’s 40 steal season came out of nowhere, as did Perez’s 34 thefts. Longoria had a rebound season while Ramirez finally put everything together at the plate. Last but not least, Lamb had a powerful first half before fading down the stretch.

Among the negative performers, Healy and Reyes were the most useful to fantasy owners. Both players spent a large chunk of the season away from the big leagues – Healy due to normal prospect development and Reyes because he’s an ass. After a slow start, Healy made a few adjustments to tap into his power. Reyes offered a 25/25 home run-stolen base pace over about a third of a season.

The biggest disappointment was Sano. In a normal season, his 25 home runs would have made up for otherwise Carterian numbers. Unfortunately, 2016 was not a normal year. Franco, Kang, and Moustakas earn honorable mention among the flops. It’s hard to hold a season-ending injury against Moose.





You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam

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yorkie27
7 years ago

What’s a reasonable 2017 rank for Bregman among 3B? Full season stats of about 25 HR/90+ RBI, .290+ avg not counting his ugly start. Those stats might have fallen just after Beltre/Seager in your end of seasons ranks.

yorkie27
7 years ago
Reply to  Brad Johnson

The suspense is killing me! Thanks.