2017 Pod’s Picks & Pans — First Base & Third Base

Yesterday, I shared my picks and pans at the catcher position by comparing my ranks to the consensus ranks after excluding my own. Continuing through the infield, we’ll combine first and third base together so I can finish these before the season begins. These were the March updated first base rankings and here are the third base rankings.

Unlike catchers, I’m going to restrict my picks to those that made my top 20 and my pans to those that made the consensus top 20.

It’s a bit shocking to me that I was the only ranker to place Miguel Cabrera number two. There were two 3s and three 4s! He finished tied for second in value last year and I think the gap between he and the rest of the pack will widen. Father time will come at some point, but after a two season power slide, he has quelled concerns that the power was in decline.

Okay, so we’re all just wildly guessing what Eric Thames is going to do this year, but my projections are much closer to the Fans than the crazy optimistic Steamer forecasts, and yet I’m still more bullish than four of the five other rankers. He showed both power and speed in the KBO and was a respectable prospect when in the Majors. He’ll be in a great park for hitters, on a team that loves to run. He has a real chance of finishing in the top 10.

How am I the only one to rank Manny Machado second among third basemen?! While his steals total fell to a big fat zero, what I love here is that he doesn’t require an inflated BABIP to contribute positive value in batting average, nor does he need a huge HR/FB rate to reach the mid-30 home run level. That means that with a bit of extra luck, there’s easily a .300+, 40 homer season in that bat. While every player has an upside level, it’s not so easy to identify in first rounders. We assume these guys are essentially at their peak, and though Machado likely is, there’s more upside here than meets the eye. That’s not why he’s ranked second, of course, but just a little bonus.

I questioned why Justin Turner was so undervalued after snatching him up in the super early LABR mixed draft, asking “How much longer does Justin Turner have to perform at this level for people to realize this is real?” Sure, he’s 32 and has just reached 600 plate appearances for the first time last year. But there should be no questioning of his performance rates.

I didn’t realize I was valuing Todd Frazier higher than others until I bought him for what I perceived to be a bargain at my local mixed league auction on Sunday. Sure, his batted ball profile has become disgusting with few line drives and tons of pop-ups, which will cap his batting average, but 30 homers is a lock and he has swiped bases in the teens for three straight seasons now. The floor here should be 30-10, with strong RBI and runs scored totals. He’s a four category guy and he hasn’t always been a batting average sinkhole.

Edwin Encarnacion finished fourth in value among first basemen last year, but now he moves from a home run friendly Rogers Centre sporting a 107 right-handed home run park factor to a pitcher friendly Progressive Field, with a 95 factor. That’s quite the swing, and yet it’s seemingly being ignored by fantasy owners all around the world. Heck, he just went for an absurd $38 in my local league auction, which was just $2 less than I got Nolan Arenado for! Obviously, crazy things happen at auctions and that doesn’t necessarily mean his new owner things Encarnacion is just barely worse than Arenado, but it does suggest that the park and team switch don’t seem to be affecting his perceived value. It should. He’s also 34 years old and coming off a career high HR/FB rate.

By golly, our Wil Myers rankings are all over the place. The most bullish ranker is at nine and I’m at 19! That’s quite a difference. It’s funny to go from such a Myers fan heading into 2016, him actually meeting and even exceeded my lofty hopes and dreams, and then reversing course and being bearish. It’s all about value though and I simply think he’s massively overvalued this season. His xHR/FB rate was barely higher than in 2015, yet his actual HR/FB rate spiked to a new career high. Oh, and then there’s the fact that he attempted 13 more steals last season in about two-thirds the plate appearances than he had during his previous three seasons combined. Yes, the Padres ran a lot, but will they do so again at that pace and will Myers specifically run wild again? Given his history, it’s hard to be so optimistic. Last, he’s not going to help your batting average and he hits in a weak lineup.

I’m honestly surprised that I’m apparently bearish on Matt Carpenter. I thought I liked him! In fact, I’m quite a bit more bullish than Steamer and ZiPS, though not as much as the significantly more bullish Fans projections. And I’m actually forecasting the highest batting average of the three projection sets! So I really can’t figure out what’s causing the rankings gap, unless it’s just a group of players all within a buck or so of each other and he just ended up at the end of it.

On the surface, it would seem there’s no way you could rank Machado ahead of Kris Bryant because the latter is essentially the former, but with more steals. The issue is that his batting average is on far more fragile ground than you might think. An extreme fly ball hitter who does hit his share of pop-ups doesn’t normally post inflated BABIP marks over .330. His xBABIP was just .305, suggesting the potential for real BABIP and batting average downside. I’m actually more bullish on the homers than Steamer and ZiPS, but a .271 batting average projection is dragging down his ranking and why I prefer Machado (though probably by a minor amount).