2016 MLB Third Base Tiered Rankings: All-Star Break Edition
We haven’t done a good ol’ fashioned rankings since the start of the season, so the All-Star Break seems like the perfect time to re-examine some of the selections that were made in the initial 2016 set. Obviously things have changed, but given that it’s the middle of July, nobody is surprising us anymore. We know largely who is who and what they bring to the table, while others have dropped off due to positional eligibility. While there’s still room for bounce back or decline, we know where we stand at the season’s midway point.
While these rankings still remain somewhat subjective, based on the individual elements I tend to look at, neither Kris Bryant or Jake Lamb ended up no. 1, so the bias may not have shone through as much as it otherwise could have. Enjoy the rest of your break before the stove starts to heat up.
Tier 1 – The Elite
This was our group before the season began, and at that point, there really wasn’t an incorrect order in which to put them. That is still the case, as each is having a stellar season in his own right. Josh Donaldson is still the best offensive third basemen on the planet. His Off rating, serving as something of a summation of his offensive exploits, is at 33.6 for the year, easily no. 1 among the group. He hits for power, he hits for average, he hits the ball just about as hard as anyone playing the position (42.6% Hard% is no. 2 among 3B).
If anything, Bryant has completely solidified his spot at no. 2 which I presented him with in the preseason rankings. He’s still striking out at a rate over 20%, but it’s completely compensated for in an 11+% walk rate, 25 home runs, and an on-base percentage over .380 that trails only Donaldson and Matt Carpenter among the third sackers. His ascent is thanks, in part, to his leveled-out swing, which has led to more consistent contact and less punchouts.
Everyone tends to make a scene about Arenado’s performance away from Coors, which seems a perfectly reasonable concern. He does have 11 home runs on the road compared to an even dozen at home, but his ISO takes a significant dip, from .331 in home games to a still-respectable-but-sharply-declined .233 in games out on the road, while his OBP drops almost 60 points from the .385 mark that he’s posted at home.
Carpenter is a newcomer to the group, but it was too hard to keep him out of the fantasy elite. He’s having a stellar year (or was before his recent injury) and leads third basemen with a 44.5% hard hit rate, while reaching base at a .420 clip that also leads the position. His ISO, at .270, ranks fifth, and he’s walking at an impressive 16.5% rate. Really the only reason that he trails these guys so significantly in the WAR game is because of his negative defensive value, which we’re not really concerned with from this perspective.
Tier 2 – The Whatever-Comes-After-Elite
This group has shrunk significantly since the initial season rankings. Lamb has been a pleasant surprise for the disappointing Arizona Diamondbacks, and it’s a bandwagon I’ve been on virtually (and probably actually driving) since the start of the season (and, boy, have I made that known). Like Bryant, he also tinkered with his swing, which has led to more contact and more power. His .322 ISO leads all third basemen, while his .983 OPS trails only Donaldson and Carpenter.
Longoria would probably be getting more attention for what has been an extremely impressive season if the Tampa Bay Rays weren’t so terrible. Seager has done everything well, hitting for average (.287), power (.251 ISO), and reaching base at a cool rate of .365. He’s just getting overshadowed by his brother.
Tier 3 – The Good
This group probably could have been named the “You Know Exactly What You’re Getting From Them” tier. Steady, if unspectacular, really helps to sum up this trio. There’s not a lot of power coming from this group, as illustrated by ISO figures of .161, .152, and .189, respectively. But they’re all getting on base at over a mark of .330. Turner is intriguing because his battle with BABIP has become rather significant this year (.268). If he can fight that off, it’ll be interesting to see if he can rise up a tier.
Tier 4 – The Guys Who Lack Name Recognition, But Have Been Solid
Coming into the season, many people were hoping that we were finally seeing that breakout campaign from Nick Castellanos. To an extent, that has happened. He has a better ISO than almost anyone you’ll find in the bottom half of the third base group and has a nice .342 OBP thanks, in part, to a Hard% up over 37%, which ranks 11th at the position. The issue is that he’s still striking out quite a bit (24.3%) and walking very little (5.6%). Like Turner, he’s a guy in this group who could definitely rise into the next one before the next rankings drop.
Prado gets on base a ton, with a .373 OBP on a quietly good Miami Marlins team, but isn’t really intriguing in any other way. There isn’t a speed element that could help to compensate for the lack of power in the fantasy game. Ramirez represents an almost identical entity: high OBP, not much of anything else. Travis Shaw has tailed off since a hot start, something we were all sure was coming.
Tier 5 – The Veterans and Maikel Franco
I couldn’t, in good conscience, put Frazier in the tiers above this, even if he does have 25 home runs to his name. He’s hitting only .213 and is reaching base at a rate that’s clinging to life above .300. The bulk of that can be attribute to a paltry BABIP of just .202. There’s a lot going on there, though, so he may be a topic of conversation for us next week.
Valbuena strikes out a bunch, walks a ton, and . He might actually be the most intriguing player out of this group because of his versatility and the fact that he provides some power at the position. Freese has been steady with Pittsburgh, reaching base at a rate over .370 and providing some pop. Headley reaches base quite a bit, with less pop. Maikel Franco has been a disappointment, but was off to a good start in July after poor months of May and June. He’s my guy to watch in the bottom half of these rankings moving forward.
Tier 6 – The Largely Disappointing
If you’re employing these guys, you’re either desperate and injury-ravaged, or in an extremely deep league where you cashed in at other positions. I had hope for Duffy early in the season, but he’s actually brought negative value as far as his offense is concerned. Hill, Escobar, and Suarez are just kind of there at this point.
This list is silly…
Frazier and Franco are too low, Headley and Prado are way too high, and I’d rather have Danny Valencia (how is he not even listed but Valbuena is?) than at least a third of these players.
What he said, to a tee.
Would agree that Frazier is low and that Headley is not rosterable except in pure desperation or injury situation (which would put him in the Aaron Hill/Yuni Escobar tier).
It lacks a consistent or transparent methodology. For instance, why so many mentions of OPB? In which leagues is that relevant? Few.
I accept that these tiered rankings are essentially a way to spam a bunch of links to individual player pages, and making money on the internet is hard and requires subterfuge, okay. But this listing is arbitrary and incomplete, and that is not so easily excused.
For this series to have any sort of ongoing relevance, a standard for selection must be chosen (why mention OPB and not SBs, for instance? SBs have helped Frazier be a top 100 player despite an abysmal BABIP), including a standard for eligibility. Instead of this spray of corroborating facts (i.e. “I couldn’t, in good conscience, put Frazier in the tiers above this … He’s hitting only .213 and is reaching base at a rate that’s clinging to life above .300.” Nuts to your good conscience, Frazier despite ruinously bad luck is already more valuable than many players listed ahead of him (Shaw, Rendon, Beltre et c.)), a simple listing of current stats, projected stats and interpretation of those projected stats would give this post useful analysis and a reason to exist.
Not every post is going to be a joyful exultation of baseball by Jeff Sullivan, I get it, and some have to be functional in a way that’s not super fun for the readership, but don’t found that function on the backs of your readership, is all I am saying. What’s more, if this were a better post, it would be more read, more linked too, and the goal of harmonizing player pages with content would be better accomplished.
I’ll shut up now.
Daniel Murphy is 2B/3B in just about all formats. Tier 2?
Sano should be 3b eligible in most leagues now as well
Would Sano be a tier 2 or 3 guy? Thinking 2
What about Jung Ho Kang? I know you have Freese on here, but Kang is very much relevant as he primarily plays 3rd.
Thanks for the thoughtful list! Along with other names mentioned above, could you place Lonnie Chizzzzenhall in a tier of some kind? Thanks!
The Prado ranking is just indefensible.
Thanks for the list. Javier Baez has 3B eligibility in most leagues – better of late, and better with more playing time. Tier 4? 5?
This is really sloppy–No Valencia, Kang or Sano?
If this is the best you can do, you’d be better off doing nothing.
Had to create an account just to say these might be the worst rankings I have ever seen on this site. I can’t imagine any league settings where Shaw, Ramirez, Headley, Freese, or Turner are providing similar or better production than Frazier or Franco; and others have pointed out the numerous players you overlooked.
Where’s Jhonny Peralta? He’s eligible at 3rd Base now, you know.
Where does Cheslor Cuthbert fit on this list?
Dang you guys need to take it easy. His rankings are his opinion and, in my honest opinion don’t deserve to be ridiculed as harshly as you guys have shown. At least he had the guts to write an article and explain his reasoning. The only one that really stood out for me was Eduardo Nunez, who I thought should have been ranked in a higher tier.
My rankings would have looked like this:
Tier 1
Donaldson
Tier 2
Bryant
Carpenter
Arenado
Machado
Tier 3
Nunez
Seaver
Lamb
Frazier
Tier 4
Castellanos
Longoria
Sano
Solarte
Valencia
Wright
Beltre
Franco
Moustakas
Rendon
Solarte is having a great year. .295/.374/.514, with a 10% bob rate and 12% k rate and a sustainable babip. The increased walk rate and power has moved him up the rankings. Also 2b eligible.
He gets paid to do this, no? I wouldn’t use the term “guts” here…
It’s almost like he took the 25 hitters qualified at 3B so far this season and ranked them based on wRC+. Oh wait, that’s pretty much exactly what he did, with some minor adjustments. Not to mention that in my 12 team mixed leaguer, literally everyone on this list is owned, rendering it completely useless. I agree with other commenters that this list is lazy AF.
Duffy is having an extremely unlucky year in terms of BABIP, the 3rd unluckiest of any MLB player according to Mike Podhorzer’s article a few days ago, with an xBABIP of .350 but a BABIP of only .282. This means that if he were hitting at his xBABIP (normal luck), his batting average would be .307 rather than .253 (last year he hit .295).
I think it’s reasonable for folks to disagree with the tiers and placement within the rankings, it can generate some good discussion and different viewpoints. It would be nice if the author would come back and address some of the points raised and the (many) omissions, which is usually customary on these rankings posts.
Pearce, when he comes back, is not tier 4. Based just on Fangraph’s ROS projections, he would be somewhere in tier 3, and I think tier 2 makes more sense, since his 1st half looks like his 2014 season. Given his 2B & OF eligibility, he is really a super utility rather than 1B but just as 1B, cannot justify tier 4.