Archive for Brett Lawrie

Yeah, I just used a Pat Benetar song for a post title. If that song was playing, I feel like I should be at the Skate Deck, tube socks pulled high, just praying Tracy Piercy would come over and say hi to me. I’ve hit rock bottom. And third basemen are entirely to blame for my condition.

I have third base as kind of my “beat” here at RotoGraphs. I’ve written a lot about third basemen for the last two seasons. I’ve grown quite fond of many of them. And this year, they’re breaking my heart.

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When we do this thing where we categorize players into tidy little compartments it tends to bring out the monsters in many of you. Had I given more attention to some of my cultural anthropology or experimental psychology courses, perhaps I’d have an explanation as to why. But nonetheless intrepid reader, I’ll attempt to put forth my best tiered assessment of the available third basemen to you on draft day.

As you no doubt know, the tiers shift. They move like like an Omar Vizquel with Arthur Rhodes on the mound. But I know that many of you like to aim for top three tier material at as many positions as possible, so perhaps this will help you assuming you haven’t already put together your squads. If you already have and your guy is in tier five, well, condolences.

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Looking at the recent ridiculously early mock draft from a stony selection of the Rotographs raconteurs, I was A) quite pleased that I didn’t participate and subject myself to the scrutiny of the learned readers here and B) struck by the fact that third base continues to give me the heebee jeebees.

Third base has generally been my beat over the last twelve months for Rotographs and the implications of the 2012 season haven’t helped me rest well when thinking about the hot corner. While this year might welcome Chase Headley to the fantasy super-duper we also saw the departure of Jose Bautista due to eligibility, Kevin Youkilis due to Kevin Youkilis, Alex Rodriguez to the girl in the fourth row, and Michael Young to relevance.

And this gives me pause.

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Trading deadlines loom across most of fantasy baseball, and let’s just assume your squad is still sniffing contention — or better yet, looking to pull away from the pack. Should third base be one of your glaring problems over these last seven weeks of baseball, I’ve got a few ideas for you. These are almost exclusively ideas for standard 5×5 leagues that are non-keepers.

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We’re about a third of the way through the season, and while the proverbial gloves aren’t going to come off, I think I’ll stop coddling some and for others, I’ll be giving credit where credit is due. I wouldn’t say this is a “if the draft were held today” kind of list, but perhaps some amalgam of ranking based on current performance and anticipated performance for the rest of the season. I’ll do my best to tease out a rationale for the higher tiers.

The top tier of third basemen has historically been quite small, in large part due to the dearth of real superstars at the position. But since Jose Bautista has been acting like he might actually be mortal, it’s left room for some others to join him at the top.

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Just a month in and we’ve seen players like Danny Valencia and Lonnie Chisenhall lose their jobs, kids like Kyle Seager and William Middlebrooks defy expectations, and we’ve seen big guns like Evan Longoria and Pablo Sandoval go down to injury, among others. Third base has had a degree of volatility that has made it a particularly difficult position to manage.

While I’ve typically been more conservative in May in the past, there are definitely some movers early on. I wouldn’t say this is a list that represents “if the draft were held today” kind of a sentiment, it’s more a melding of injuries, expected future performance, but also performance to date.

Tier one is pretty unsurprising.

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Tiers seem to unearth the mighty wrath of fantasy baseball enthusiasts, but since we’ve already seen the third base consensus rankings and my general reactions to them thereafter, it’s time to categorize the gentlemen at the five into tidy little compartments of descending desirability.

As you well know, the tiers are not hard and fast — they change (sometimes dramatically) over the course of the first few months of the season. In fact, there’s been movement in these tiers even before I had a chance to publish them! It’s important to remember that these are not keeper tiers — they simply attempt to arrange rough approximations of value in standard 5×5 leagues as you prepare for what might be your final draft(s).

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As you well know by now, some dutiful readers of RotoGraphs took it upon themselves to virtually duke it out in an online mock draft, putting to test what we have repeatedly analyzed in the past several weeks — that is, just exactly where should we expect some of our favorite players to be taken?

There is of course a great deal of risk in relying solely on one source for your average draft positions, and while the draft was conducted in Mock Draft Central, having some well informed individuals making the selections instead of what could be third graders and well trained monkeys for all we know, provides us with a nice window for analysis.

For today, third base will be under the microscope.

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You’ve probably noticed by now that some of the gentlemen of Rotographs got together in their virtual forum to pull off a 12-team keeper draft over the weekend. Due to other obligations, the lists of participating managers didn’t include yours truly, so hopefully that will give me a bit more objectivity as I make a few observations.

I’ve been the resident third base scribe for the past year, so I’ll dedicate this short post to some of the more interesting picks involving the hot corner.

It didn’t take long for the debate to get brewing as Evan Longoria was selected as the overall #4 pick followed by Jose Bautista, overall #6. Longoria, coming off an injury-shortened season had an usually low batting average at .244, no doubt dragged down by miserable fortune (.239 BABIP). He has been a pretty remarkably consistent player, demonstrating the ability to hit for good average with a take-it-to-the-bank 30 HR’s and 100 RBI profile, assuming you toss out his career low 11% HR/FB from 2010. Bill James currently projects a .275/.370/.535, 35 HR, 116 RBI, 101 run season for Longoria, which probably earns him a #4 overall slot.

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My Mother used to have a way of telling you that she really didn’t like something without having to sound outright nasty about it. She would size up whatever was in her cross-hairs — a haircut, a girlfriend, a new pair of tennis shoes and say, “well that’s… different.”

As I continue to look at the rather suspicious keeper prospects of third base, I can’t help but want to apply her diplomacy. Because this group, while mostly promising, is — well, different. The first tier for third base featured just Jose Bautista and Evan Longoria, and the second tier is full of some pretty great talent, but all come with question marks that leave their keeper status a little up in the proverbial air relative to what you paid for them and their perceived value going forward. On Saturday, we covered Ryan Zimmerman, Kevin Youkilis, and Adrian Beltre. And similar to that post, the remainder of this second tier is presented in no particular order.

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