3B Rank Diagnostics: The Hits

It’s an odd thing, trying to rank baseball players before the season begins. There’s so much that can happen in between your last click of the “Post” button and the start of the regular season. Pre-season rankings are like a message in a bottle that gets gently pushed out to sea, or in my case, thrown overboard in choppy seas after the contents of the said bottle have been drained, stuffed with the best note I could muster and chucked out into the ether. It’s not easy, that’s what I’m trying to convey. In this post, I’m going to focus on what went well.

Don’t worry, there will be another post focused on just the opposite. For now, focus on the good. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? That thin yellow line of players I so accurately ranked at the beginning of the season in the graph below:

The visual above shows on the y-axis the ranking I gave to third basemen before the season began. On the x-axis are the year-to-date rankings of third basemen created by outputting roto values from the FanGraphs auction calculator, sorting them descending by value, and creating a player ranking based on that sorted value. If you followed my preseason 3B rankings, you already know I relied heavily on that same auction calculator and the rankings it created while using pre-season projections. Theoretically, if a player’s preseason projection had them looking like a top three-third baseman and they have currently performed (all season long) as a top-three third baseman, then this process would have them highlighted in yellow. Let’s start there, the yellow dots, the players whose current rank and preseason rank differential sit within 10 or less.

Ah, I can hear it now:

Oh yea, great job predicting José Ramírez would be good this year

..and to that I say:

Well I also predicted Jake Burger’s rank with some pretty sweet accuracy so nah, nah, nah, nah, boo, boo!

But, never mind the back and forth for now, let me simply point out some observations I’ve made about the players highlighted in the table.

Michael Busch’s year-to-date value being negative is less than ideal for fantasy managers, but he was expected to be significantly worse. The projection I used was generated for Michael Busch the Cub, not Michael Busch the Dodger, so his plate appearance projection considered a near-everyday player. He was expected to earn 432 and he has 516 so far. If he finishes out the year healthy, he should accumulate around 570 plate appearances in total. Busch has outperformed his projection in every roto-category except for stolen bases, and he only needs one more to do so. It’s very possible that by the end of the season, Busch will return positive value.

Elly De La Cruz was a player that I moved way up the rank order despite his auction calculator projected value placing him in the middle of the pack. You just can’t predict 64 stolen bases and that’s what Elly has accomplished so far. I was worried about his K% and ability to get on base, but so far this season, he’s outperformed his slash line and has gotten on base more than expected:

• Steamer Proj: .245/.311/.441
• YTD Acutals: .259/.343/.470

He’s improved his walk rate over last season (8.2% to 10.4%) and has lowered his K% (33.7% to 30.9%). Just imagine if that trend continues.

Gunnar Henderson’s first half was much stronger than what he’s done in the second half from nearly every offensive measure, and thanks to that beast first half, he has done better than his full-year projection in every roto category except batting average and RBI. There’s still time:

• Steamer Proj: .261/.341/.479,
• YTD Actuals: .281/.366/.536

As electric of a season as Elly De La Cruz has had, auction value gives Gunnar the edge thanks to his batting average and home run totals. Gunnar has hit 28 to Elly’s 23 and Gunnar’s teammates have helped him better Elly’s RBI total by 20 so far. Gunnar is set to finish the season as the second-best fantasy third baseman behind José Ramírez. But Elly is still knocking on the door.

Ryan McMahon has been steady all season long and though he may not have had a stand-out projection, he’ll come very close to matching nearly every fantasy stat.

• Steamer Proj:
  • HR: 21 R: 69 RBI: 72 SB: 7
  • .245/.327/.428
• YTD Actuals:
  • HR: 19 R: 62 RBI: 61 SB: 4
  • .247/.333/.407

Consistency has been key for McMahon over the last few seasons and he’s on pace to hit a career-high 650 plate appearances by season’s end.

Eugenio Suárez has been a man on a mission in the last month of the season. He is another player who has outperformed every roto-stat and is preparing to do significantly better than those projections. Steamer afforded him 21 homers. Suárez has hit 28. Steamer thought he would slug somewhere around .406. Suárez is currently slugging .484. Eugenio has always been the type of player that you must keep in your lineup through thick and thin. If you dropped him at the end of June when he slashed .156/.290/.286 and struck out nearly 32% of the time, you probably don’t want to see what he’s been doing lately:

How the heck are you supposed to predict ^^that^^?! He may never get back to his peak 2019 season when he hit 49 bombs, but Eugenio Suárez’s power is still around at age 33 and he’s fixin’ to end the year as a top 10 third baseman.

Luis Rengifo struggled with injury all season until his wrist finally told him he wasn’t playing anymore this year. Let’s appreciate what he did in 304 plate appearances and wonder what he could have done had he reached his projected 436.

• YTD Actuals: .300/.347/.417, 24 SB

His actual batting average ended up way better than what Statcast expected (xAVG: .261), but he’s the type of player who gets on by putting the ball in play and using his speed to arrive safely. A career-high stolen base mark furthers that narrative. The same story can be told for his slugging, also significantly better than what Statcast modeled (xSLG: .353). We won’t know where his batting average would have finished had he played a full season, but the “contact first, results later” approach Rengifo employed this season helped the AVG and SB categories of fantasy teams across the globe and with health next season, there’s potential for a top 20 finish.

Now that I’ve patted myself on the back for the success of the yellow dots, it’s time to focus on the reds. These are the players who I ranked in my original top 47, but fell way below that as of early September. In the next diagnostics, I’ll take a right turn into negative town and analyze what went wrong. Until then, keep it positive and highlight the good in bright yellow.