Yesterday inaugurated what will likely several weeks of depth chart discussions in the form of playing time battles. RotoGraphs staff will discuss and assess noteworthy battles for playing time and/or starting gigs for position players and, separately, pitchers. Here, specifically, this author will investigate the Cleveland Indians‘ position player situations.

Third Base

As these keystrokes hit digital paper, FanGraphs and MLB.com list Giovanny Urshela as Cleveland’s primary third baseman. Outside of Rajai Davis, he projects to produce the least amount of value relative to his position; in absolute terms, second-least by a hair.

You would think the Indians have a better in-house solution, even if it’s merely a less-pathetic one. Lonnie Chisenhall, former third baseman of the future, looks to make playing right field a mostly full-time gig, with occasional spells from Colin Cowgill and others. This complicates things.

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Over the past weekend at the AFL First Pitch Forums held by BaseballHQ.com, I participated in my first draft for 2016. It’s an NFBC 50-round draft&hold. The first 23 rounds occurred there in Arizona and the final 27 will begin online in January. Since it is third base week, I figured it’d be fun to take a look at how an early run 2016 draft treated the pool of top 15 third basemen.

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For the last five seasons, Danny Valencia has been the perfect fantasy streamer. The 31-year-old has a career 136 wRC+ against left-handed pitching (701 PA) compared to a meager 79 wRC+ against righties (1,222 PA). So here’s what you do: find when he’s facing a lefty, roster him for that day, and drop him the next day. Thanks for joining us…

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When the Dodgers traded Juan Uribe on May 27, long-time super utility player Justin Turner finally became a full-time starter. In the months since, Turner’s performance earned him praise, including from Dave Cameron on JABO, but it didn’t quite click for me just how good Turner had been until I looked at his offensive numbers from the past two seasons. Among hitters with at least 500 plate appearances since 2014, Turner has the 11th-best wRC+ (148), just behind Anthony Rizzo and ahead of players including Nelson Cruz, Jose Abreu, Michael Brantley, and the likely first selected fantasy third baseman in 2016 drafts, Josh Donaldson.

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2015 was a wonderful year for rookies. In fact, it was the best offensive seasons in aggregate for the freshman class over the last five years:

And this year’s group looks like it may have introduced us to several future superstars. Amazingly, three of them play third base.

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Matt Carpenter has always been a strange roto player. Historically, he’s one of those guys who is better in real life than fantasy. He often contributed over 700 plate appearances with a chance to hit for a .300 average. He’s an OBP league stud. We knew he’d score plenty of runs, but his RBI opportunities would be truncated by batting leadoff. Alas, the strong two category production would come with fewer than 10 home runs and about five stolen bases.

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This is what a breakout looks like:

The third overall pick in the 2010 Amateur Draft, Manny Machado made his MLB debut at the tender age of 20 and took baby steps to gradually increase his offensive performance heading into 2015. The power remained ho-hum, he was a poor base stealer, and he was a bit too much of a free swinger, routinely posting below average walk rates. Furthermore, he dealt with major knee issues that required surgery in both 2013 and 2014. But then 2015 happened and he loudly announced his good health and validated why he was a former top prospect.

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Isn’t it nice when things work out? At the height of draft season, Nolan Arenado was elevated into the top 50 despite career-highs of 18 HR, 61 RBI, and 133 games played (and not all in the same season). It was a calculated gamble on someone who hadn’t exactly done it for a full season yet. He showed a ton of promise as a high-contact power hitter (13% K, .173 ISO coming into ’15) who also had the security blanket of Coors Field.

Of course, we now know that it really couldn’t have gone better and being drafted 50th was actually a bargain by season’s end as he finished as the 5th-best player overall. Arenado blasted an NL-best 42 HR and drove in an MLB-best 130 runs in 665 PA as he missed just five games all year. His strikeout rate was a career-high 17%, but that’s still better than most power hitters. Of the nine hitters who popped 40+ HR, he was third to only Albert Pujols (11%) and Jose Bautista (16%).

And yet… (yep, I actually have something to complain about within his excellent season)

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Take away the guys with shortstop eligibility, or second base eligibility. Take away the hurt third basemen that should have been stars if they were on the field more often. Take away the backups that accumulated enough time to be relevant. Take away the stars that played like stars. Take away the rookies that just came up and didn’t get full seasons.

Who’s left? By definition, they’re not stars. But they are starting veteran third basemen that stayed healthy and put enough numbers to be relevant. Could you define the under-rated player any better? Who else is less exciting to draft than that guy that’s going to hit for a middling average, with middling power, a few steals, possibly at the bottom of the order?

And, yet, Trevor Plouffe and Brett Lawrie were both above replacement level third basemen this year. Considering that many of the players above them had other eligibilities, they may have been good enough to start at third in many leagues.

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2015 Visualized: Second Base
2015 Visualized: First Base
2015 Visualized: Catcher

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For the next few weeks, the RotoGraphs staff will devote an entire week to each defensive position, including spotlights on particular players as well as trends throughout the 2015 season. This week, we’re highlighting third basemen.

I don’t claim to be a Tableau (or data visualization) whiz by any means, but I thought it would be cool to visually represent the third base landscape in 2015 — with some analysis sprinkled in.

Steamer and ZiPS represent premier player projection systems; FanGraphs’ Depth Charts combines the two, and the writing staff allocate playing time accordingly. The playing time part is less important relative to the combined projections, as aggregated projections tend to perform better than standalones.

I compared projected wOBA (weighted on-base average) from the preseason to actual wOBA (1) by team and (2) by player within team. Unlike WAR, wOBA is a rate metric, so it does not need to be scaled according to playing time.

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