3/1/18

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As I prepare for my fantasy drafts, I always pay close attention to average draft position (ADP) data to help identify where I might find bargains in my drafts and auctions. It’s a great way to figure out who I’m higher (and lower) on compared to my fellow fantasy owners, which is arguably as valuable as determining my own rankings in the first place. I’ve already done columns on shortstops and second basemen, and today I’ll take a look at the hot corner.

Thanks to the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC), we already have a healthy sample of draft data for 2018. I don’t think it’s any secret that third base is a much more productive position than it once was in fantasy, but there’s still some wacky stuff going on with these ADP values. For example, Kyle Seager and Adrian Beltre are currently being drafted as the No. 17 and 18 3B, respectively. To be fair, Seager hit a career-worst .249 last year, and Beltre played just 94 games due to hamstring and calf strains. Still though, both Beltre and Seager were fantastic fantasy assets as recently as 2016, when they were the No. 5 and 6 third basemen in fantasy.

“But maybe they’re not young and sexy enough,” I thought to myself. “With so many youthful studs at the position, maybe fantasy owners are simply getting bored with vets like Beltre and Seager.” That also appears to not be the case. What I’m coming to realize is that I might just have vastly different 3B rankings than other owners, at least once we get past the No. 10 slot. (For reference, you can view these ADP values paired with Steamer projections right here.)

I think the top 10 3B by ADP are quite reasonable, but when we get into the double digits, madness ensues. Madness! For example, let’s take a look at these two picks, who constitute my underrated/overrated comp for third base.

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In almost any way you look at it, Manny Machado’s 2017 campaign did not go well. He finished 12th out of 22 third base qualifiers in WAR and 19th out of that same group in Off rating. He ended the year with sizable decreases in just about every respect, ultimately finishing with a park-adjusted offense figure of just 102, painting him as a barely above average offensive player. That’s obviously not the Manny Machado that we’ve become accustomed to, and it’s certainly not the one that we should expect moving forward, as much of that production, or lack thereof, could be attributed to bad luck above all.

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In a general and simplified sense, some players take longer to develop (and subsequently break out) than others. But there’s obviously no shortage of examples throughout the sporting world where that breakout never occurred. Is that something that the Philadelphia Phillies should be concerned about in relation to one of their (still) young position players? In a number of different respects, Maikel Franco was the worst third baseman in baseball among qualifiers in 2017. The Phillies third sacker finished with the worst Off rating among the group that features 22 qualifiers, with a -22.4 mark. The second worst figure on the list of qualifiers came from Yolmer Sanchez, at -5.1, and at least he had the defensive game to at least help things balance out a little bit. Within that group, there was only one third baseman that finished with a negative WAR for the season; it was Franco’s -0.5.

There was a lot of hope that Franco would break through in 2017 for a Phillies team that folks see as the next up-and-coming product of a total rebuild. While they didn’t take too large a step forward, some of their young players did, and more are on the way. Which certainly murks up the picture for Franco somewhat moving forward. With the production and some of the trends that we’ve seen from the last two years in regard to Franco, though, it’s probably time for current and prospective owners to call it quits on the Phillies’ third baseman. Read the rest of this entry »

Many of my goals for the offseason, as far as the third base position is concerned, relate to an evaluation of the standing of several players and their roles within their current situation on their current teams. Examining the standing within their organization, perhaps somewhat obviously, should lead us to some insight surrounding their value from a fantasy standpoint. And what better place to start than with the player that has become my personal special boy, of sorts (really in every way possible), in Jake Lamb.

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Alex Bregman came into the 2017 with rather large expectations, to the point where I opined that he might end up in the top five third basemen in Major League Baseball by year’s end in my bold predictions at the beginning of the year. As it turns out, that wasn’t too far-fetched an idea, as Bregman rode a strong second half toward finishing 7th at the position in WAR (3.8) and 7th in Off rating (17.7). With that in mind, it’s an exciting prospect to discuss what exactly the Houston Astros, as well as prospective fantasy owners, could expect from him moving forward.

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We continue our look back at my picks and pans, this time with the infield corners. Refresh your memory by checking out my original article.

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Given my standing as the President of the Jake Lamb Fan Club, I would be remiss in my responsibilities if I did not revisit his 2017 season one final time, in the event that the Snakes are sent home on Wednesday night in order to enjoy the splendid weather in the Valley this time of year. At the beginning of the year, I made some rather nonsensical bold predictions about the third base position. Within that, I declared that Jake Lamb would make the biggest move up the third base leaderboard.

Which…didn’t happen.

However, Lamb did demonstrate improvement primarily within the fact that his 158 games represented a new career high. Unlike his 2016 season, a good chunk of those were not hindered by injury, either. There were some cold spells sure, but he was able to graduate from 16th in WAR among qualifying third sackers in 2016 to 14th (2.5), while making the move from 12th in Off rating to 10th (9.7). So Off has him as a top ten player at the position, which isn’t a far-fetched idea to consider.

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If you took a quick look at the MLB leaderboard for hard-hit rate in 2017, you would probably surmise that Nick Castellanos actually did break out, as opposed to what the headline of this post may indicate. Castellanos hit the ball hard more frequently than all but six players this season, as you can see below. The ranking by each player indicates his end-of-season rank in standard 5×5 leagues:

• J.D. Martinez – 15th – 49.2%
• Joey Gallo – 99th – 46.4%
• Aaron Judge – 5th – 45.3%
• Miguel Sano – 102nd – 45.2%
• Paul Goldschmidt – 4th – 44.4%
• Corey Seager – 66th – 44.1%
• Nick Castellanos – 65th – 43.6%

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There isn’t a whole lot of figuring things out when it comes to Joey Gallo. We know what he is, and we know what he isn’t. Coming in at 6’5″ and 235, he’s a behemoth of a man with a “dingers first and questions later” skill set, in the simplest sense. He’s shown surprising versatility, even if he doesn’t play any defensive position remarkably well (or even really competently). But just because we were all relatively aware of what Joey Gallo figured to become at the Major League level doesn’t make what he’s done this year any less astounding.

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