Potentially Too Early February Rankings: Third Base
It’s that wonderful time of year where preliminary positional rankings starting pouring out for the upcoming season. Because I needed another reason to look like a fool by the end of it. The third base position opens 2017 with plenty of intrigue, with a couple of newish faces to the mix and one notable name departing for a new position. Let’s all pour one out for Matt Carpenter. My goal is to be far more consistent on the rankings side in 2017, which means more opportunity for folks to ponder, “Just what in the world is this guy thinking?”
Let’s get to it with some cleverly named tiers:
Tier 1
Attempting to choose between one of Kris Bryant and Josh Donaldson is an almost impossible task, and a fruitless one at that. If you can get one, you’re doing it right. Donaldson gets the slight edge over Bryant, though, because he walks more and strikes out less. Both will have ample opportunities to produce runs and should feature on-base figures that linger around .400, a mark which Donaldson exceeded last year. Plus, there are few things that I enjoy more about baseball than watching Josh Donaldson activate that lower half on his swing. Seriously, watch some video. It’s glorious.
Should we have split this tier into two and put Arenado and Machado in one to themselves? Maybe, but Arenado playing his home games at Coors remains too appealing an aspect to drop him down. It’s not as if his road numbers aren’t quality, they’re just not as astounding away from home. Nonetheless, he led the position in home runs last year and nearly doubled his walk rate. Manny Machado doesn’t walk quite as much or reach base as much overall, but his power in that lineup makes it impossible to drop him down beyond this group.
Tier 2
It warms my cold, dead heart to see Kyle Seager having as much success as he had offensively last year. He set career highs across the board that culminated in a park-adjusted offense that came in 33 points above league average. Carpenter is moving to first base, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible for him to see some time at the hot corner. For now, we’ll leave him in here for the sake of the rankings. Beltre had a couple of down power years in 2014 and 2015, but he’s hit at least 30 homers in four of his six seasons in Texas. Villar strikes out a bunch, but he gets on base at a high rate which allows him to use his exceptional baserunning ability, which he used to the tune of 62 swipes last year. Nobody at the position can rival that element of production, assuming he maintains eligibility here.
While there’s some stability here over the last several seasons, this particular tier also has the best chance to fluctuate. At some point, Beltre has decline, doesn’t he? Especially in regard to the power side. I’m going to touch on Longoria’s power in the next couple of weeks, but that could trend down as well. How much Carpenter and Villar appear at third remains to be seen. Seager’s likely a sure thing here, but the rest of this tier could feature vastly different names before long.
Tier 3
While these are organized into tiers, the numbers leave Alex Bregman as my no. 10 third sacker among the group overall. Could seem somewhat far-fetched for a player entering his first full season, but his combination of approach, power, and contact could have him well above that as a fantasy asset before the end of the year.
I don’t think my love of Jake Lamb is any sort of secret. His second half numbers were putrid, sure, but a completely healthy season should see him re-establish that dominance that he displayed in the first half of the season. Getting a shot against lefties, something he was never afforded the opportunity to do with Chip Hale on the bench, will be an interesting aspect to watch. Anthony Rendon quietly excelled in a rebound year. Jose Ramirez is an interesting quantity, because he doesn’t display nearly the type of pop that many hitters among this group do. But as a high contact guy with more upside on the basepaths than many of his counterparts at the position, with the obvious exception of Villar, he provides a different type of intrigue.
Tier 4
Todd Frazier showcased the power last year and literally nothing else. He hit 40 dingers, but struck out literally a quarter of the time and reached base at a paltry .302 rate. I just can’t get excited about a guy going all out for power when the rest of his numbers look like that. For some reason, I just can’t bring myself to be overwhelmed by Justin Turner, either. He hit 27 homers last year, which was a career high and an effective way to fight off the BABIP monster, but he’ll have to do it again before I’m too invested in him.
The other two here I’m far more interested in. Sano’s a bit of a wild card, hence my interest. His position is still a bit unclear, but the goal seems to be to get him to stick at third. He has big power at the position, even if his on-base skills leave something to be desire at this point. After shaking off his struggles and showing out in 2015, I’m excited to see Mike Moustakas try and rebound from a brutal injury last season. He’s not unlike Turner, though, in that he has to demonstrate success over more than the one year.
Tier 5
This is, uh…I’m not really sure what’s happening here. Nunez is probably a reliable enough option, as he has a little bit of pop and good speed, as he notched 40 steals in 2016. But his on-base skills aren’t particularly good. Kang rebounded nicely from his injury last year, with 21 homers and an OBP over .350. They’re a nice way to cap off a Top 19 (?) at the third base position.
Baez is obviously an asset because of his versatility more than anything. There’s tremendous offensive upside there, it’s just all going to come down to his approach, which is still developing. He has good power and good instincts on the basepaths, each of with could help to make him a fantasy weapon when combined with that versatility. It’s just a matter of harnessing any sort of consistency. Healy is interesting because of his power (13 homers in 283 plate appearances last year). I debated whether to even include Franco on this list, but 25 homers and the upside he flashed before 2016 have me holding out hope that he can represent anything of value at the position.
Tier 6
I threw these two at the tail end just in case. Yuli Gurriel will likely start at first base for Houston, and there’s some interesting upside there. He made contact at an 84.3% clip in his first big league action, but his power and on-base skills remain to be seen. Moncada is the top positional prospect in baseball, but his arrival in the bigs may not be until very late in the season, if at all. Nonetheless, each are quantities worth monitoring as the season wears on, or even perhaps stowing away on deeper rosters.
At the end of the day, a lot of what’s here is relatively arbitrary. There will be some immediate fluctuation as soon as April kicks off, for better or for worse. New names will jump on here and existing names will likely fall off, be it performance or positional changes. But as one of the deeper positions in the league, we should have a whole lot of fun exploring that variation throughout the season.
Nick Castellanos?
I was surprised to not see him on the list as well.
probably forgotten because he didnt have enough PAs to qualify
Ryon Healy made it with 283 to Castellanos’ 447
I’m really baffled at how many pundits have forgotten or dismissed Castellanos, especially here where his improvements at the plate were well documented before injury. He’s at least Tier 4 for me and I’d much rather take him than Frazier’s one-trick pony show.
What am I missing with Carpenter? He just does not excite me in terms of the fake game. Obviously in OBP lgs he has far more value, but in terms of standard it is a head scratcher for me. Has limited pop, no sb upside, and hasn’t hit over .272 in 4 years. I take the 6 3b listed after him over him.
28 HRs in 2015, 21 HRs in 2016 with reasonable HR/FB%s of 15.8% and 13.3%. Very good and improving hard hit rates (37% in 2015, 42% in 2016) and fly ball rates (41.7% in 2015, 43.2% in 2016). I could easily see 30 HRs in 2017, and he’s a near lock for 20+. Not sure how that could be considered “limited pop”.
His 2nd best power output of his career is 21. How is that NOT limited pop? How is he a lock to finish above 20 HRs when his 2nd best HR total is 21? I am not following. Hes projected for under 20.
Before Carpenter hurt his abdomen in the very beginning of July last year. Here was his stats. .298BA, 56R, 25-2B, 5-3B, 14-HR, 53RBI, 58W, .420OBP, .568 Slg% and .988 OPS (Ranked 5th in MLB). The injury killed him the rest of the season. He was on pace for 50-2B.
It is interesting that Jake Lamb is lauded for an excellent first half, with the expectation that he’ll continue his onslaught at a high level this year, yet Justin Turner is deemed as someone who needs another year to prove it. If Lamb is the one who disappeared in the second half, while Turner is the one who has had continued success hitting the ball for the past couple of years (less home runs may be due to less at bats, yes?), perhaps their spots should be switched?
Making a ranking for this position is tough. Third base is pretty deep, and a lot of these guys could switch spaces pretty quickly throughout this season, so hoping hard for one versus another is understandable. However, using one reason to keep a player down but not another is debatable for sure.
Maybe it’s just me, but the player links aren’t working for me in this article.
For fantasy purposes, I don’t see how Donaldson or Bryant are clearly superior to Arenado.
Can someone explain this to me? Over the past two seasons, Arenado has more HR (83) and R+RBI (476) than Bryant (65; 409) and Donaldson (78; 466). He’s hit .291 to Bryant’s .283 and Donaldson’s .291. Yes, he only has 4 SBs while Bryant has 21 and Donaldson has 13, as well as the lowest walk rate, but I don’t see that as enough to make him inferior to the others.
Of the 3, Arenado also has the highest ISO and lowest K rate over that the past two seasons.
The fact that he plays in Coors shouldn’t work against him in fantasy. It’s just part of the package. Padres players don’t get extra stats for playing in Petco. Arenado is statistically the best 3B in fantasy over the past two years, plays in a great environment, and has an absolutely stacked lineup. I’m not looking to criticize Bryant or Donaldson, but I don’t think there is any valid argument for putting them above Arenado, outside of an OBP league. And even in an OBP league, it’s basically a wash between the 3 (use the FG Auction calculator and see for yourself).
Even though he is sure to go in the top 5-7 picks of every draft, Arenado is still criminally underrated.
Came here to write the same thing
Arenado’s ADP in NFBC leagues is 5.1 compared to 4.7 for Bryant, 8.5 for Machado, and 12.0 for Donaldson. Doesn’t really seem criminally underrated to me.
Added bonus for Arenado to me is that as a good, young hitter entering his prime years in Colorado hitting right smack in the middle of what looks like a really good offensive team, a genuine monster season is always in play. You’d never predict it of course, but if anyone in the majors was going to go .330/50HR/150RBI/130runs, it’d be Arenado
I’d still go with Mike Trout.
I’d have Rendon in Tier 2. He’s not as injury-prone as people think (2 of 3 seasons have 647+ PA), hitting high in a stacked lineup, with RBI/R and HR/SB numbers that match up well with others in that tier.
The really mis-priced guy I see here is Franco. “Debated whether to include on this list”?? Dude hit 25 ding-dongs w/ 88 RBI’s and a not-atrocious .255 BA (w/ bad BABIP)….at 23 years old. Hell, a repeat of 2016 and he easily outearns Baez, Kang(!), Nunez, Healy, probably Sano & Moustakas… modest growth from a 24 year old and you’re looking at 30/100/.270 and a Tier 2 bat.
As bad as it seemed Franco was last year, the sum of the parts was not all that bad. He was the best player in the MLB in spring training last year and really struggled out of the gate where people might have had artificial expectations.
Absolutely. I’m still high on Franco as well. If he can work on that swing path and get up to the 40/45% FB% you’re going to be talking about potential 40HR seasons in the very near future. I suspect as he gets stronger in the next few years we’ll see the HR/FB uptick as well.
Basically we’re looking for those two trends Arenado displayed between 2013 and 2015. Perhaps Franco doesn’t have the skills to square the ball up like that, but he’s not more than spitting distance off the 16-18% HR/FB or the 40% FB.
My question is for Randy and any of the FG staff who kindly might be reading these comments. To what extent do you find Tony Blengino’s contact-quality assessment pieces relevant in how you assess future performance? I would like to use Josh Donaldson as an example. Albeit with granular data, which we are all learning how to use, Blengino found Donaldson’s profile superior to the rest of the 3Bs … contact frequency and extraordinary batted ball authority across all types, excellent trending and current K and BB rates, FB/LD/GB rates that leave room for future power growth … the works. By comparison, the profiles for Arenado, Machado and Bryant are all strong but reveal concerns. For purposes of answering this question, please ignore his recent injury. Thank you!
Personally when doing my Pod Projections, I don’t use Blengino’s data. It’s too much of a black box (explanations for how the data is pulled and calculated is severely lacking) and there hasn’t been any research on the year-to-year consistency of the numbers. It seems like a good tool for backwards looking analysis, but I just don’t know how much additional information it provides with regards to projecting future performance.
Justin Turner in tier 4 is criminal, getting lumped with people who can’t break .240, what? I don’t understand what he has to “do again” to prove that he is a superior hitter. That’s what people (rightly) said after 2014. Then they said it again after 2015. Now again after a full season of being excellent in 2016? Nuh-uh, that’s not right. The whole tier ABOVE Turner is people who I’d like to “see do it again”. Turner has been consistent and has more WAR than Longoria in Tier 2 for the last year, or last 2 years, or 3 years or whatever way you want to slice it. Position eligibility aside, I can’t see any reason why I’d want Carpenter over Turner either. Anyway, guess he’ll be on my team again this year.
Why do you keep mentioning on-base ability so often? Aren’t these posts geared for standard roto scoring (AVG, R, RBI, HR, SB), where OBP would only be valuable as far as it makes additional SBs more likely?
No Martin Prado?
I’ve never found the “he has to show it for more than one year” comment helpful. It’s applied to guys who are in mid to low tiers, and if they had “shown it” for multiple years, they’d be in a higher tier. Guys like Turner and Moose should be labeled as “upside guys” since they are only in tier 4 and have flashed some serious skills.
I came here to write the same thing as a few people below. I would say it is hard to differentiate between the top 4, but I think somehow people are letting ballpark and WRC+ into consideration on Arenado. I would always pick Arenado first in the group. With that said, Bryant has been in the MLB two years. If you are writing this article next year and the top tier had one player and you had to guess who it was, I would venture Bryant is where the smart money would be. Bryant has the highest ceiling.