I am lucky enough to once again rank players at third base this season. The prep work begins now. First question; who is new to the list? Who will I rank this year that I didn’t rank last year? To answer that question, I loaded up the auction calculator, prioritized the “3B” position, and edited the “Starts to Qualify at Position” way down to five. That means all players who played five or more games at 3B in 2024, get placed in the same pool, on the same scale, and valued based on their Steamer projection. Who did I find that wasn’t around last season? To explain it, a poem:

New to 3B

On these keys I will pound,

on this list Jazz Chisholm Jr. can be found.

And if you please, Joey Ortiz.

While Junior Caminero may drive a Camero,

Vladimir, Jr. Guerrero is instantly a top numero.

Connor Norby likely won’t hit forty,

but with twenty he may be sporty.

–

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Yesterday, I shared the end of season rankings and dollar values of the 40 first basemen I ranked during the preseason. I began with the hitters that earned a profit of at least $4 on their projected value. Today, let’s dive into the misses, or those that earned at least $8 less than forecasted.

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For the first time this year, the RotoGraphs team introduced a formal, organized positional ranking series that we updated on a weekly basis during spring training and through the season opener. I chose to take ownership of the first base position and you should refresh your memory of my final rankings before the season began. Let’s now review those final rankings and how each of the hitters ultimately performed.

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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.

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OK, this will probably be the last full ranking of the regular season because once we flip the calendar to September, it’s allll about what can you do for me right now. By then we can’t worry about tomorrow, everything is immediate focus only and playing hard to our standings.

I decided to rank ReyLo before he returns from injury because he’s making a rehab start tonight and expected back very soon, but if he doesn’t return, I still have Holmes ranked, too.

(Note: There won’t be a Wednesday SP Chart, but these rankings should definitely help your decisions for the day and I have my chat at 1 pm Central where you can ask any questions about the rankings!)

The $ is the earned auction value so far this year. Those with – in their Change column means they weren’t ranked last month due to injury or simply not being in the MLB rotation. ADP is the spring average draft position.

• Daily SP Chart archive
• July SP Rankings
• Preseason SP Rankings

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As we approach the All-Star break, we’re due for another big update on the SP rankings. Sorry for not getting one out in June, but you can see my Daily SP Charts for regular commentary on pitchers so at least it’s not completely dark in between these updates. The $ is the earned auction value so far this year. Those with – in their Change column means they weren’t ranked last month due to injury or simply not being in the MLB rotation.

I’ll be in the comments answering any questions, so let me know! Plus, I’ll have my chat on Wednesday where we can discuss in more detail.

Don’t forget that these are primarily focused on the next 3-4 weeks. They can give you some guidance on “rest of season” trades, but I’m not taking IP risk into heavy consideration with these rankings because most of those guys facing a limit won’t be altered much in July. Moves due to volume concerns will start more in the post-Trade Deadline update.

(Note: there won’t be a Tuesday SP Chart, but these rankings should definitely help your decisions for the day!)

Alright, enough yapping… here they are:

Update(s):

• July 1st, 10:00 pm CT — I memory-holed the big injuries from last wk apparently, so I had to remove several guys who got hurt (Lodolo, Woo, Turnbull, Assad, Mize; plus Megill getting sent to AAA) and from there I ended up doing a decently large sweep so there was a good bit of movement from the original post. No one shifted multiple tiers or anything, but some real moves for sure.

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We’re a month and a half into the season so it’s time for a big sweeping update on the SP rankings. See my Daily SP Charts for regular commentary on pitchers. The $ is the earned auction value so far this year.

There are 151 ranked because I left Cole Irvin even with Grayson Rodriguez returning this weekend just because I hadn’t see what they were going to do. I assume it’ll just be Irvin to the bullpen but I left him in the rankings for now removed him after I ran an update to get Scott into the rankings.

May 19th update – Added C.Scott, Removed C.Irvin, A.Houser | shifted some of the tier rankings

May 20th update – Earned Auction $ and ADP values updated for rookies who weren’t populating

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This article ranks the game’s top projected hitting prospects by peak wRC+ heading into 2024 (it does not incorporate any 2024 data). It is a counterpart to this February piece on baseball’s top projected pitching prospects. I only just got done with my offseason methodological updates for hitters–please forgive me for publishing this one week into the season!

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As we move into draft season, I will be updating these rankings occasionally, when there is news to justify changes. The original rankings will stay at the bottom of the article to maintain my player notes. The original SP rankings were posted 1/31 and the most recent update is 2/28.

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As we move into draft season, I will be updating these rankings occasionally, when there is news to justify changes. The original rankings will stay at the bottom of the article to maintain my player notes. The original outfield rankings were posted 1/30 and the most recent update is 2/28.

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