RotoGraphs Consensus Ranks: Third Base
Now we’re talking. You can keep my interest all the way down to the high twenties on this list of third basemen. I love Chris Johnson’s line drive game as much now as I used to distrust it. Todd Frazier grips it and rips it, but has power. Anthony Rendon is on the cusp. Matt Dominguez finished strong. Nolan Arenado makes contact and has power. Cody Asche even has something going in his favor — a little bit of everything.
I don’t even have many questions about the top six or seven. Sure, Josh Donaldson broke out, but most of his rates are right in line with his minor league numbers. Ryan Zimmerman has the health thing and the throwing thing, but otherwise, he’s good when he’s in.
Third base: worth the expense.
Rankings based on 5×5 roto, 12 teams, single-catcher with Middle Infield and Corner Infield spots, 13 hitters and 9 pitchers. Each ranker had their own mix of projections and intuition.
| RG | Name | Jeff | Zach | Mike | Eno |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Miguel Cabrera | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | Edwin Encarnacion | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 | Adrian Beltre | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 4 | David Wright | 4 | 5 | 2 | 6 |
| 5 | Evan Longoria | 5 | 4 | 5 | 4 |
| 6 | Josh Donaldson | 7 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
| 7 | Ryan Zimmerman | 11 | 8 | 7 | 13 |
| 8 | Brett Lawrie | 8 | 9 | 15 | 8 |
| 9 | Pablo Sandoval | 6 | 6 | 18 | 10 |
| 10 | Pedro Alvarez | 9 | 10 | 10 | 12 |
| 11 | Matt Carpenter | 16 | 14 | 11 | 7 |
| 12 | Martin Prado | 12 | 15 | 12 | 9 |
| 13 | Kyle Seager | 13 | 12 | 13 | 11 |
| 14 | Jedd Gyorko | 10 | 13 | 9 | 17 |
| 15 | Aramis Ramirez | 14 | 11 | 8 | 21 |
| 16 | Chase Headley | 15 | 17 | 14 | 14 |
| 17 | Nolan Arenado | 18 | 18 | 19 | 15 |
| 18 | Manny Machado | 20 | 16 | 20 | 16 |
| 19 | Will Middlebrooks | 17 | 21 | 17 | 23 |
| 20 | Todd Frazier | 19 | 19 | 16 | 24 |
| 21 | Chris Johnson | 21 | 26 | 21 | 18 |
| 22 | Anthony Rendon | 24 | 20 | 24 | 20 |
| 23 | Matt Dominguez | 22 | 30 | 22 | 19 |
| 24 | David Freese | 23 | 23 | 23 | 25 |
| 25 | Mike Moustakas | 26 | 22 | 27 | 27 |
| 26 | Cody Asche | 30 | 28 | 26 | 22 |
| 27 | Trevor Plouffe | 28 | 25 | 29 | 26 |
| 28 | Kelly Johnson | 27 | 24 | 25 | 38 |
| 29 | Jose Iglesias | 24 | 30 | 32 | 29 |
| 30 | Lonnie Chisenhall | 34 | 27 | 28 | 31 |
| 31 | Juan Francisco | 29 | 33 | 31 | 30 |
| 32 | Matt Davidson | 35 | 29 | 34 | 28 |
| 33 | DJ LeMahieu | 31 | 34 | 30 | 32 |
| 34 | Juan Uribe | 33 | 31 | 33 | 34 |
| 35 | Alberto Callaspo | 36 | 35 | 35 | 33 |
| 36 | Danny Valencia | 40 | 40 | 36 | 36 |
| 37 | Marcus Semien | 40 | 40 | 38 | 35 |
| 38 | Luis Valbuena | 40 | 40 | 37 | 39 |
Ranked by one analyst: Wilmer Flores, Ed Lucas, Conor Gillaspie and Donnie Murphy.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Why no love for Alvarez? I have him ranked 7th/8th with Zimmerman. If he gets a tad lucky with AVG then he should be on par with Donaldson.
And why so much love for Lawrie and Sandoval? Neither of these guys have done anything recently.
A tad lucky?
With a handful of more hits his AVG will go up to the .245 range. I wouldn’t consider that a huge change of luck.
Even if that doesn’t happen there is no reason he should be ranked behind the likes of Sandoval and Lawrie.
Eno, you were a lot lower on Zimmerman here: why?
That’s the value my projection spit out. Maybe my projection is a little pessimistic. After he hit .285 and .275 the last two years, maybe the .276 in my projection is light. Otherwise, I have him missing time (559 PA) and hitting 23 homers. Perhaps I should up the playting time and batting average. Moving him to .281 and 600 PA makes him basically even with Carpenter.
I’m curious about Eno’s love for the hit tool here. I can’t figure out why else he loves Carpenter and Prado so much to rank them top 10 when no one else did.
Batting average around the league is down to .250 is the only explanation I have. My projections for Prado and Carp do not feel generous, you can see them here:
Matt Carpenter 96 76 12 4 0.296
Martin Prado 89 67 14 7 0.289
That’s pretty close to what I would have had them at myself, I just don’t see how that’s going to be more valuable than what Zimmerman will bring. When I rank 3B I either look for power or a decent amount of speed. Neither of which is brought by Carpenter or Prado.
I had thought with the Fielder trade that Cabrera was moving back to 1st base.
Yes, but he’ll be 3B eligible this season in just about every league imaginable. He’s more valuable to play here than 1st in fantasy.
We’ll rank him at first when he’s eligible there.
What happened to Nick Castellanos ? Nowhere on the list .
He played zero games at third last year and won’t be eligible there at the beginning of the season.
Nick Castellanos?
he should be somewhere around 27
I don’t think he’ll be eligible at third to start the season, based on his games played last year. But benagain123 nailed it, I had Castellanos 26 after Freese.
I was just looking at the rankings. I have Carp right vs. 3B, but his overall value would be higher than some ahead of him because he is eligible at 2B.
xander boegarts would slot in where?
Ahead of Rendon for me, or 18th/19th. I have a .268/17/8 projection for Bogaerts.
pedro alvarez is the guy that drives me nuts. it’s easy to say that he’s an average vampire for a roto team and along with his low runs scored, he’s not worthy of a top 10 3B pick .. heck, i’ve said that, but he remains intriguing. he hit 15 home runs off of breaking pitches last year, and less we forget, he had 24 home runs by the all-star break. with him primarily batting 4th this year maybe we can get a solid increase in RBI opportunities and runs scored for El Toro, and if his power sticks or better yet increases, he can be a big time contributor.
of course his floor is very low, which makes him risky. but if you’re going for a “home run” pick, i’d rank alvarez 6 or 7.
Eno – where would you feel comfortable placing Sano on this list?
28?
Any thoughts on Mike’s relatively low ranking of Sandoval (18)? He’s coming up on a contract year, and he actually seems to be in much better shape this year, with instagram proof!
People still believe in the “contract year” and “best shape of his life” bullcrap???
There is actually evidence that PA totals are higher in contract years. Dayn Perry wrote about it in Baseball Between the Numbers.
Ha, I understand your skepticism, but in this case he actually does seem to be in much better shape, and it seems like multiple parties have indicated that he’s taking his weight much more seriously this offseason.
Yeah, the playing time thing is keeping my projection down. Will do some reading and consider whether to up his plate appearance projection.
I have been playing fantasy baseball for about 30 years and i don’t recall 3B ever being this deep in quality .
Yea, the better than average but not quite good tier is very fat. You could stretch it to say it includes picks 7 through 28 although obviously there’s quite a bit of difference between Zim and KJ.
E5 played 3B only 10 games last year so won’t be eligible in many if not most leagues
Yahoo has to be one of the most popular leagues to play in, and he’s 3b eligible there
Yahoo is the only place EE is 3B eligible.
Links to previous roto-consensus rankings?
How far off is Machado from being an elite 3B option? Any chance he goes 20/10 this season?
Question: Why is Kyle Seager so low? I’m interested in the logic behind putting him behind some people. Most noticably, I’m interested in why he is under Pablo Sandoval: Seager’s HR totals since he has been in the bigs, unless you count the decently long 2011 cup of coffee, have been higher than Pablo’s in 3 of 4 years. That year was 23 HR, which is 1 more than Seager, but Sandoval has massively lower SB possibility and Seager has had higher RBI/Runs too. (Yes, Sandoval hit 25 HR in 2009, but I felt that being 5 years ago made it really weak for projecting him forward. And it’s still comparable to Seager). Sandoval basically just has an AVG advantage and even then it’s small.
Prado has lower HR potential than Seager and RBI/Runs are about the same, Prado has higher AVG but Seager seems more likely to get large amounts of steals. Yes, he had 17 steals in 2012, but he’s only ever had 5 at most in other years. Gyorko was basically Seager without steals and worse run/RBI potential (And Seager had a higher AVG). I bring up Gyorko since two people ranked him above Seager. I would also definitely take Seager over Lawrie (Higher HRs, higher Run/RBI potential, about equal steals and AVG).
Am I just too high on Seager, though I don’t think I am because I basically project him to be like his previous years, or what?