Chad Young’s 2025 Tiered Ottoneu Rankings: Third Base
If it feels like the balance between 1B and 3B is off this year, you can blame the Toronto Blue Jays. Giving Vlad Guerrero, Jr., 12 games at 3B was enough to give him eligibility for this year and move him off that list and onto this one. That doubled up the top tier here and pushed everyone else down a bit. And that, coupled with the degradation of the 1B position that I discussed yesterday, leaves 3B feeling deeper than 1B.
As a result, this is a position where I am less stressed about having an elite bat. If I miss on one of the top four, or even the next three, I am content to roll with someone like Isaac Paredes or Alec Bohm, as long as it leaves me able to stock up at other spots.
Chad Young’s Tiered Ottoneu 3B Rankings
| Rank | Name | Ottoneu Positions | Tier | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | 1B/3B | $36-$44 | Everything is coming together for Vlad and can you imagine if he just hit more fly balls? |
| 2 | José Ramírez | 3B | $36-$44 | I have heard at least two “but the Statcast data” comments on him this off-season, but maybe after a decade we just accept that his approach isn’t fully captured by Statcast. |
| 3 | Austin Riley | 3B | $28-$35 | Everything in his profile looks primed for a return to form. |
| 4 | Rafael Devers | 3B | $28-$35 | He should probably be over Riley, but I have slight fears about the shoulder. |
| 5 | Manny Machado | 3B | $21-$27 | Is 3B better than 1B? Cause the 5th best on that list was Pete Alonso and that was only because Ohtani was on that list and I prefer Machado. |
| 6 | Alex Bregman | 3B | $21-$27 | I flipped 6 and 7 multiple times, but decided Bregman is safer – mostly due to health – than Jazz. |
| 7 | Jazz Chisholm Jr. | 3B/OF | $21-$27 | But I think you can make a strong case that Jazz has more upside. |
| 8 | Royce Lewis | 3B | $15-$20 | Another tier where I flipped the guys, eventually choosing injury risk over swing-and-miss. |
| 9 | Mark Vientos | 3B | $15-$20 | I don’t think he can maintain that HR/FB rate and if that goes down and the K’s don’t go down, he could take a tumble – and his glove isn’t going to keep him in the lineup. |
| 10 | Junior Caminero | 3B | $10-$14 | Elite bad speed usually comes with problematic swing and miss so when it DOESN’T come with that, you should be excited. |
| 11 | Isaac Paredes | 1B/3B | $10-$14 | Back to a short porch, where he belongs. |
| 12 | Matt Chapman | 3B | $10-$14 | I kinda wish he left that park but he mashed in that park last year. |
| 13 | Alec Bohm | 1B/3B | $6-$9 | Boring but reliable. |
| 14 | Jake Burger | 1B/3B | $6-$9 | Park and lineup upgrade for a guy who looks like he should be a great fit for this format. |
| 15 | Max Muncy | 3B | $6-$9 | He’s basically Burger except old. |
| 16 | Nolan Arenado | 3B | $6-$9 | Batted ball quality went down but chase and contact looked fine, plus he was much better after a rough start. |
| 18 | Josh Jung | 3B | $3-$5 | I can’t help but remember the prospect I was so excited about and wonder if he’s finally healthy enough to show what he can do. |
| 19 | Eugenio Suarez | 3B | $3-$5 | He looks so up and down if you look at wOBA but his xwOBA has been pretty steady; can he keep that up another year? |
| 20 | Coby Mayo | 1B/3B | $3-$5 | There’s nothing for him to learn in AAA but the Orioles don’t seem ready to give him a regular job either. |
| 21 | Ryan McMahon | 3B | $3-$5 | The lack of H/R split in ’24 took him from 81-game star to… actually just not that good for this format. |
| 22 | Jose Miranda | 1B/3B | $3-$5 | The limited power caps his value in Ottoneu and will push him even further down if he loses 3B this year. |
| 23 | Jace Jung | 3B | $1-$2 | The rumors of Bregman interest tell us something about the Tigers confidence in Jung and it kind of looks like he needs time to really develop. |
| 24 | Cam Smith | 3B | $1-$2 | He’s going to get work in the OF and the Astros have a big need there. |
| 25 | Matt Vierling | 3B/OF | $1-$2 | A small dip back to his 2023 HR/FB rate would cost him quite a few HR and really hamper his Ottoneu production. |
| 26 | Deyvison De Los Santos | 1B/3B | $1-$2 | K-rate spiked when he moved to Miami but if he can get that back in like, with his power, that’s a fun profile. |
| 27 | Jeimer Candelario | 1B/3B | $1-$2 | Pitchers are less and less scared of him (with reason) and you have to wonder if the Reds are going to feel less and less reliant on him (with reason). |
| 28 | Noelvi Marte | 3B | $1-$2 | The only thing blocking Noelvi from taking Candelario’s job is Noelvi showing he can hit like he did before the suspension. |
| 29 | Cam Collier | 3B | $0-$1 | A 129 wRC+ at 19 years old in high-A is nothing to sneeze at. |
| 30 | Addison Barger | 3B/OF | $0-$1 | Scouts see big power but he hasn’t really shown it yet, so I am still a bit tepid. |
| 31 | Zach Dezenzo | 1B/3B | $0-$1 | His AAA BABIP and HR/FB rate give me some pause. |
| 32 | Brady House | 3B | $0-$1 | I am not sure any prospects disappointed me as much as House last year, but I’ll be watching for a rebound. |
| 33 | Ke’Bryan Hayes | 3B | $0-$1 | After he FINALLY started using his hard contact to pull and elevate in 2023, in 2024 he went back to spraying grounders and stopped hitting them so hard, as well. |
| 34 | DJ LeMahieu | 1B/3B | $0-$1 | More chase plus softer contact likely equals lost batspeed. |
| 35 | Anthony Rendon | 3B | $0-$1 | Why not the $0 tier? Maybe he finds it again, right? |
| 36 | Miguel Vargas | 3B/OF | $0 | It is way too early to just give up on him, but it’s hard to justify counting on him. |
| 37 | Yoan Moncada | 3B | $0 | If he had a job, I might talk myself into him at $1 because his last two years have been llimited but not terrible. |
| 38 | Andres Chaparro | 1B/3B | $0 | Doesn’t make enough loud contact. |
| 39 | Jonah Bride | 1B/3B | $0 | The second half was as unsustainable as it was glorious. |
| 40 | Nick Senzel | 3B | $0 | He has just never made good enough contact to drive the ball successfully. |
| 41 | J.D. Davis | 1B/3B | $0 | GB were an issue for him early in his career and they have come back with a vengence the last couple of seasons. |
| 42 | Gio Urshela | 1B/3B | $0 | 2019 and 2020 are such wild outliers particularly for a guy who was never expected to be a big bat. |
| 43 | Brock Wilken | 3B | $0 | There is too much development remaining here for me to get excited yet. |
| 44 | Jon Berti | 3B | $0 | It is still mindblowing to me that the Yankees made the World Series in a year where they need Jon Berti to play 1B for them in the playoffs. |
| 45 | Eric Bitonti | 3B | $0 | Reports suggest tantalizing power, but he isn’t close to ready. |
A long-time fantasy baseball veteran and one of the creators of ottoneu, Chad Young's is the Managing Editor for RotoGraphs, and can be heard on the Keep or Kut Podcast. You can follow him on Bluesky @chadyoung.bsky.social.
No Norby?!?
In the MI rankings.
This feels incredibly bullish for Jazz. The raw skills are undeniable but you gotta believe that the couple months he spent in NY represent his new baseline or that he will bat leadoff. Both entirely possible outcomes. He’s mostly been a $10 player for his career. Much more valuable when he was playing SS, and I’d play him at OF instead of 3B. I think all the premium bats starting with Machado should be moved up a tier with an enormous drop off after Machado.
His projection is very close to the bottom of that tier – $19-$20 from Depth Charts and OOPSY, slightly higher from ATC. And that represents basically a continuation of his 2023-24 overall. His 2022 and the Yankee-half of his 2024 were much much better. His pull rate is 13th among qualified LH hitters the last three years and 28th among 179 LH hitters with 300+ PA over that stretch. His FB rate has come down, but his best year it was over 40%. If he maintains his approach with even a modest bump in fly ball rate, he is going to beat his projections, maybe by a lot. I think there is a good enough chance of that to boost his projection by $2-$3 and take a shot on the upside. With a $19-$20 projection, that puts him right into the bottom part of the $21-$27 tier for me.
Pretty confident that $20 is using OF replacement level – his ppg and woba are both more aligned to Muncy. OF has a far lower replacement level than 3B, hence the big difference between Jazz’s $ and Muncy’s
It’s not. I have a slightly lower replacement level for 3B than OF, which is why I ranked Jazz, Vierling, etc. here instead of there. OF has to go a lot deeper, but teams have been rostering more 3B recently because they are better options for Util than they used to be, which has brought down replacement level.
Also, I don’t think Jazz and Muncy can or should have both wOBA and P/G aligned. If their wOBA’s are aligned (and DC has them at .327 and .329 so pretty close) Jazz gets an extra 40 points (more than 0.25 P/G) from SB that Muncy doesn’t and should get about 1/3 of a PA extra per game due to lineup construction.
If you assume the same P/PA (I don’t have them the same, but wOBA are close enough that it is probably a fine assumption) and put them at 1.2 P/PA (that is an over-estimate for what I have for Muncy and an underestimate for what I have for Jazz), the extra PA and extra SB would add about 0.5 P/G, even if you assume the Dodgers turn over the lineup more and so the PA/G advantage is more like 0.1 instead of 0.3.
I have a $10 projection on Muncy just from DC projections and a $19 on Jazz, and that is based on 5.01 P/G for Muncy and 5.35 for Jazz. If you put in more like the 0.5 P/G gap I suggested in the last paragraph, you either push Muncy down a few dollars or Jazz up a few dollars. I effectively split the difference, seeing Muncy just below that $10 line due to age risk among other things, and Jazz up $2 or so, as I said in the comment above.
Looking at it a little more closely I think it’s moreso that my valuation is different for the top 5. I think Machado is at the bottom of the $28-35 tier, Riley and Devers are $40 players, and Ramirez and Vlad are $50+ guys.
I’m impressed that Yoan Moncada was still on a 3B list. 29 years old and cooked. The fact that he’s ranked over Urshela and Berti, who at least did something productive last year, leads me to believe there is a very quiet comeback player hype train starting here!