Midseason Third Base Rankings

2014 seemed like a wasteland for the hot corner, and at the arbitrary mid-way point which isn’t a mid-way point at all, we find third base surprisingly deep. No longer is there a top tier with some guy named Miguel standing alone, far above all other tiers. There are four bonafide studs at third base, and you can drill down all the way into the teens and still find very good production. Names like Evan Longoria, Kyle Seager, Adrian Beltre, Pablo Sandoval don’t even crack the top-10 anymore and holy-crap-I-can’t-believe-I’m-going-to-say-it but Alex Rodriguez is relevant again. What a year.

Rank	Who	Quick Thoughts
1	Todd Frazier	Most cautioned moderate regression from 2014 and he’s been even better so far. Take that.
2	Josh Donaldson	Kendall Graveman is nice, but the A’s could probably use .293/.351/.532 21HR 65R 60RBI.
3	Manny Machado	He’s 23. What’s his line going to look like at 27?
4	Nolan Arenado	No HR’s in July after 12 in June. But who cares. No signs of fluke anywhere. No Coors effect either.
5	Kris Bryant	As advertised. Maybe be a little suspicious of .369 BABIP
6	Miguel Cabrera	Injury adjusted, and Yahoo! only. You can avert your eyes if you need to.
7	Alex Rodriguez	Really.
8	Chris Davis	He may not hit .240, but 35 HR’s are still mighty tasty
9	Matt Carpenter	OBP league darling
10	Anthony Rendon	I don’t know, he’s gotta go somewhere. Ought to shake off the cobwebs soon.
11	Mike Moustakas	Buoyed by huge April, but .297/.353/.427 is solid.
12	Evan Longoria	On pace for his lowest HR total over a full season. Not a big difference between this and Seager.
13	Kyle Seager	Doing what he does, on pace for another 20+ HR, hitting near .270.
14	Carlos Santana	He’s a catcher but if I didn’t include him you would have pointed it out. Wouldn’t you?
15	Xander Bogaerts	Still just a kid, the power should follow. But a pretty hollow .304/.338/.411
16	Adrian Beltre	Maybe, finally, acting his age
17	Miguel Sano	It’s early, but boy has he delivered on all that hype
18	Yunel Escobar	Hey, if you love what Bogaerts has done, you kind of have to give some love to Yunel.
19	Jimmy Paredes	Great first half, but I think he may turn into a pumpkin soon
20	Trevor Plouffe	He’s pretty much Seagering. Could be 13th on this list.
21	Justin Turner	Who leads all 3B in wRC+? This guy. Producing like a top-10 off the scrap heap. Good on you, Justin
22	Brett Lawrie
23	Pablo Sandoval	After a dreadful May, he picked himself up in June. Still a pretty ugly season though
24	Logan Forsythe
25	Luis Valbuena	On pace to Chris Davis all of us.
26	Chase Headley
27	Yasmany Tomas	A pretty slash line and so far a little power and a little speed, but .383 BABIP raises an eyebrow
28	Maikel Franco	More power in the bigs than he’s had since AA. If he keeps this up, he slides up considerably.
29	Jung-Ho Kang
30	Matt Duffy	Yeah, Matt Duffy
31	Pedro Alvarez
32	Aramis Ramirez
33	Juan Uribe
34	David Freese
35	Kelly Johnson
36	Ryan Zimmerman