Third base was supposed to have more depth this year, despite knowing we wouldn’t have Manny Machado and if you planned to use him at third, Jurickson Profar. As far as tiers go, third base had perfectly acceptable names headed down into a fourth tier, and it looked like you could focus your angst on other positions as the season got underway. Now we’ve lost Adrian Beltre and Ryan Zimmerman. And although you might not have noticed, we’ve also lost Ed Lucas. ED LUCAS!
Today’s deep league waiver wire might bring back memories of seasons yonder. Don’t rush over to the calendar, we haven’t time traveled back to the past. The two men in this week’s recommendations are the short-term beneficiaries of injuries to the incumbents. Often times, this is what a deep leaguer needs to do — follow injury situations closely and just play the carousel rotating in hitters getting full-time at-bats to fill a weak spot on your roster. Admittedly, I won both these players through FAAB in AL Tout Wars this week.
I kind of love and I kind of hate this time of year all at the same time. We have things called a Yangervis leading third basemen in WAR and we have things like Carlos Santana walking at a 30% clip. Small sample sizes may be the tools of the foolhardy, but that doesn’t mean they don’t produce a little bit of fun along the way. Take for instance the performance of Kyle Seager. No really, take it.
It’s probably a little early to be digging deep anywhere and we haven’t had a rash of injuries strike the hot corner the way starting pitching was decimated recently. Still, you might be relying on a value play like Will Middlebrooks, Mike Moustakas, Chase Headley, or David Freese, all of whom have yet to do anything at all. Yeah, small sample size and all that, but it’s easy to panic when you’re not trotting superstars out there every day. Keeping an eye on plan C when plan B isn’t panning out isn’t a horrible idea — and a couple of third basemen are readily available in Cody Asche and Matt Dominguez.
I don’t really like tiers, but it probably has something to do with the neatness of placing a player in a designated strata. I’ve never used tiers in fantasy baseball drafts because I think it tends to blind you to the nuances of each player and the specific needs your team might have. But now that the season has started, you should be all drafted up and it’s time to brand your cattle.
Whether I’m still waiting to draft or scouring my league for trade targets to improve my roster, I always like to go through the list of impending free agents and see who might be primed to take their game to the next level with the hopes of cashing in on the open market. It’s not an exact science and I have yet to find enough data to support the notion that most players perform above their career rates during the final year of their contract, but with some players you’ve watched closely for a few years, your gut feeling is usually enough. This year, there were a number of names on the list whom I thought capable of taking that next step, but the one that stood out to me the most was Giants third baseman, Pablo Sandoval. Read the rest of this entry »
No, I’m not talking acne which would obviously bring up a whole different debate. I’m simply posing the question based on expectations, past performance and current spring totals, so get your minds off the juice and let’s get on with it…
If there is anyone in the major leagues whose current performance should make him the poster boy for the debate over how much credence we should give to spring numbers, it’s Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas. Though he did hit 20 home runs in his first full season, he posted a woeful slash line of .242/.296/.412 over 614 plate appearances. Last season, he followed it up with a dismal campaign that not only saw his slash line turn to an even uglier .233/.287/.364, but also came with a power decline and just 12 long balls. But this spring things seem to be a whole lot different. Over 35 Cactus League at-bats, Moustakas is batting an impressive .486 with four home run and 15 RBI. He has a .558 on-base percentage and is slugging at a rate of .943. Crazy, right? But now the question that seems to be on everyone’s minds is whether this is an impending break-out or just another case of a hot spring ready to cool. Read the rest of this entry »
Third base actually appears relatively decent this year with a group of youngsters on the rise, or those we’re still waiting for to break out (Moose Tacos, I’m talking to you), as well as the standard top tier vets.
The third base edition of Pod’s Picks may help you find value or learn who to avoid at their current going rates. The bullish section will only include players from my top 20, while the bearish group will only include those whose RotoGraphs consensus is in the top 20.
When it comes to analyzing minor league players, it is certainly important to consider both the statistics they compile and the connection between that performance and the visual/mechanical elements of their process behind the numbers. However, if there’s one group of prospects who can be effectively analyzed (in a shorthanded fashion) from a purely statistical standpoint, it’s probably first base prospects. In general, they’re below-average defenders–none of the 25 qualified first basemen in 2013 posted a positive FanGraphs Defense value, after all–and as a result, they are held to extremely high offensive standards. Evaluating a first base prospect, then, often comes down to a simple method: If he hits, he’s interesting, and if he doesn’t, he’s not.
Applying this crude method to White Sox first base prospect Rangel Ravelo probably would lead many toward the second conclusion. Ravelo’s not entirely off the radar–he hit .312/.393/.455 with High-A Winston-Salem this year as a 21-year-old, enough to slot him into the final slot on Baseball America’s top 30 White Sox prospects. But he’s a first baseman who is a career .298/.359/.402 hitter–that’s a meager .104 Isolated Power and just seven home runs in 1179 plate appearances since being drafted in sixth round in 2010 out of a Florida high school.
The logical conclusion to draw, then, is that Ravelo, while perhaps a talented hitter, is never going to have the power required to make an impact given what’s likely to be little defensive ability. Then again, maybe the visual/mechanical aspect still retains importance for first basemen, because it paints a very different picture of Ravelo than his production does.
Full disclosure: I am hoping against hope that my fellow fantasy writers here at RotoGraphs are correct. I need them to be, really, because I’m looking down the barrel of what could be another disappointing season for the Toronto Blue Jays, and a Brett Lawrie breakout could certainly make things more interesting and tolerable.
But I’m not so sure the consensus should be that Lawrie is a top-10 option at third base. The RotoGraphs consensus third base ranks had Lawrie eighth, with only Pod ranking him outside of the eight-nine range at 15th. He’s currently being selected 12th at the position in Yahoo drafts (where he also has second base eligibility).
As a reminder, Lawrie finished 2013 ranked 29th in value at the hot corner.
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