It might be hard to imagine now after his 36 big league homers, but just two short years ago everyone questioned how well Jung Ho Kang’s power would translate from the Korean Baseball Organization to Major League Baseball.  Many assumed the power would be substantially reduced, and Kang’s leg kick, and his timing mechanisms along with it, would suffer at the hands of superior pitching.  Well, his rookie campaign last season put those fears to rest pretty quickly, when he hit .287/.355/.461, including 15 HR, over 467 plate appearances. Unfortunately, the season ended prematurely when he suffered a terrible knee injury while attempting to turn a double play.

Kang returned to play on May 6th and immediately returned to the same standards of production for Pirates. He lost a few miles per hour off his average exit velocity, but his average launch angle increased, netting lower BABIP, lower batting average, more fly balls and more home runs. Overall, this turned into a 10 point increase in wOBA. This may have been influenced by luck to some degree, because his xOBA in both seasons are effectively identical, at .347 in 2015 and .345 in 2016.  No matter how you look at it, though, Kang had two months in 2016 that really stand out on the scoresheet: July and August- but before we get to that we’re going to have to talk about what happened in June.

Read the rest of this entry »

Nolan Arenado didn’t have many flaws in 2015. He played in 157 games, hit 42 home runs, struck out just 16.5 percent of his plate appearances, and carried a .287 batting average that was supported by a sustainable .284 BABIP. But this season, Arenado still found a way to make a major improvement. He nearly doubled his walk rate from 5.1 percent to 9.8 percent, which increased his on-base percentage by 41 points and runs total by 19 without making much of an impact on any of the rest of his statistics. He was the No. 1 fantasy third baseman this year, and we project him to be the No. 2 fantasy third baseman next season.

When a player is that productive, there typically isn’t much else that needs to be said for fantasy purposes. Still, I’m always fascinated by the elite Rockies players because of their extreme ballpark, and Arenado has followed the same path that players like Larry Walker and Troy Tulowitzki blazed before him.

Read the rest of this entry »

Though we knew that Jonathan Villar entered the 2016 season with the every day shortstop job in Milwaukee, we were so certain he wouldn’t hold onto that role for very long. You see, the Brewers had top prospect Orlando Arcia waiting in the wings at Triple-A, and we all figured he would be up by June. Instead, Villar got off to a strong start and then kept hitting, and Arcia didn’t end up debuting until August. The team eventually made room for both of them in their lineup, as Villar shifted over to third. Because Villar got that extended opportunity and ran with it (pun intended), he ended up ranking as the fourth most valuable third baseman (his shortstop rank will be published soon) and earning $26.40. How many of you expected him to earn even $10?!

Read the rest of this entry »

As many surely are, I’m finding it particularly difficult to write about baseball today. And it’ll be a while before the sting of the events of November 8th wears off. More than four years, probably. But in this instance, I must press on. And since we’re likely saying goodbye to a lot of things that we enjoy about the United States (in the most dramatic sense possible), it’s probably appropriate to say goodbye to someone that I’ve really come to admire as a third baseman in Matt Carpenter.

Not that Carpenter is disappearing from the St. Louis Cardinals in the way that many of our American principles are set to disappear from mainstream society. But the Cardinals announced earlier this week that he’d likely become the Cards’ everyday first baseman in 2017. This was a transition that became more apparent down the stretch this past year, with Kolten Wong, Aledmys Diaz, and Jhonny Peralta set to make up the remainder of the infield by the time next season rolls around.

Read the rest of this entry »

Stolen Bases from Third Base

Third base is traditionally a position to pick up some of your team’s power and any stolen bases production was an afterthought. With the steady decline of stolen bases over the past decade, a third base position (or even a corner infield spot with first basemen on the decline) can be an opportunity to pick up some steals. The number of stolen bases from third basemen has shown the following trend:

The third base pool has its four big sluggers (Arenado, Bryant, Donaldson, and Machado), but not every team can roster these studs. Some teams will need to move down the food chain and roster the likes of Eduardo Nunez (40 SB), Jose Ramirez (22 SB), or Hernan Perez (34 SB). While some of these stolen base sources have multi-position eligibility, don’t be afraid to roster a speedster at third base or corner if a value presents itself in the middle infield. Using the 2016 15-team mixed LABR league as an example, it takes around 140 SB (11 per player) and 295 HR (23 per player). It doesn’t matter how an owner gets to these totals just as long as they do.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when Maikel Franco led all hitters in home runs during this past spring training? His nine were two more than the next highest total hit by Robinson Cano and J.D. Martinez. Not surprisingly, this resulted in the Franco hype train filling up quickly, and his draft cost surging higher. While I don’t know what his ADP began draft season at or where it ended just before the season started, I do remember he went for an absurd price in my local auction league. Of course, he went to our resident Phillies fan, but his cost was no doubt inflated by his spring performance. Naturally, he disappointed, as he finished just 18th among third basemen in value, earning a mere $6.90.

Read the rest of this entry »

This year, Evan Longoria hit more homers than he ever had before and ended up the tenth-best third baseman (seventh among third-base only). At 31, his age provides us some easy context to the likelihood he repeats his power at that level. But there’s a lot more context! Like the rest of the league, which changed along with him. So let’s figure out that context. Because if the league stays the same next year — if the ball stays the same, you could say — then maybe this is Longoria’s new power level. Which is to say, the same power level, but just in a more powerful league.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the fourth part of a continuing series. Catchers, first basemen, and second basemen were already covered. Yesterday, we retrospectively evaluated third base values for the 2016 season. And if you click into that article, there are even more links for you to reference. Let’s continue with some disclaimers.

As a reminder, these rankings represent my first reactions rather than a truly rigorous approach. I’ve used an absolutely objective technique called mental math to compile the lists. I’m assuming a standard 5×5 format.

The purpose of this exercise is two-fold: to get an early start on 2017 rankings and to crowdsource missing or misranked players. That’s where you come in. Let your thoughts and feelings be known in the comments. As we’ve done in previous editions, we’ll break this into digestible chunks.

(please excuse the width of these tables)

Read the rest of this entry »

Before the season, I shared some of my 2016 Pod Projections and the process I followed. My projections are based on the methodology shared in my eBook Projecting X 2.0, and the process continues to evolve and improve.

Since it’s third base week on RotoGraphs, let’s review my 2016 projection for Kris Bryant and how he ultimately performed.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »