Archive for Pablo Sandoval

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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At the end of each fantasy season, I always like to do what few fantasy sites/writers ever do for their readers.  I like to hold myself accountable.  You need to know whether you are getting sound advice and I need to know where I need to step up my game.  So with that, I like to go back throughout the year, both spring and in-season, and see just how successful I was in offering up advice.    When I saw Mike Podhorzer’s look back at his 20 Bold Predictions, I knew it was time to serve myself up as well.

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Sniff, sniff… the last full month of the season, and the final installment of the updated in-season rankings is upon us. Third base has been a bit of a roller-coaster this season, starting out devoid of virtually any worthwhile candidates to plug in at the hot corner until today, when many players have resurrected their seasons and others have quite frankly resuscitated their entire careers. It’s not the deepest position to be sure, but it’s not quite the mess that it started out to be.

I want to be clear that this is not third base rankings should a draft be held today for 2012. This is a reflection of the slow, methodical meander which is a 162 game baseball season and where these gentlemen currently belong, give or take a few slots depending on your format.

Tier 1

Jose Bautista

There’s simply little to substantiate Bautista having room up here in the penthouse. His wOBA is .448 — the next closest is Aramis Ramirez at .375 (edit – Alex Gordon at .382). He hit as many home runs in July and August as Alex Rodriguez has hit all season. You could come up with dozens of these examples, but I’ll spare you.

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The trading deadline is behind us and we’re knocking on the door of the stretch run. Somehow, it’s already August. And it was just a few short months ago that Evan Longoria was the consensus #1 third baseman and just a couple months ago that Aramis Ramirez appeared to have lost his eyesight. It’s been said more than once on this platform that the one constant is change, so with that in mind, I give you the updated third base rankings for August.

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Blame it on the injuries.  Blame it on the fact that the once lush and dense forest of talent to be found at third base is thinning out faster than a middle aged guy’s hairline.  Blame it on Rio or the bellboy, I don’t really care.  The fact of the matter is, the position is like a fantasy nightmare that picks right back up where you left off no matter how many times you wake yourself up and try to calmly fall back asleep.  And it just keeps getting scarier each time. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard to believe we’re coming up on the first month of the season, and even a little harder to believe some of the surprises in the performances of the boys at the hot corner. In general, this whole group has been pretty disappointing, but much of that has to do with injury and rotten luck. Some have been great, some have been train-wreck-awful, and we have several new names to add via eligibility updates.  And where a rising tide may float all boats, a collapsing building can produce new views – and thus, the tiers have been shaken up quite a bit from the original ranking.

There are so many changes to the original rankings, including the size and number of tiers, that I’m not going to note an up or down for every player that has moved. Rather, I’ll indicate any notable ascent or descent and give a little rationale thereafter.

Tier 1
Evan Longoria
David Wright
Ryan Zimmerman
Alex Rodriguez

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I’ll be the third base guy throughout the season, and today I want to highlight a few situations worth monitoring at the hot corner.

Pablo Sandoval

It’s probably a good thing that Sandoval is off to a solid start, because there were some people mumbling “platoon” in the Bay Area, evidenced by his hitting 8th in the order versus one lefty and sitting against another.  Against righties this year, he has hit 4th, 5th, and 6th, so Bruce Bochy is still trying to iron out exactly what he wants to do with him. That Bochy would put him down in front of the pitchers spot in the order when lefties are on the mound is a little bit odd as his career splits aren’t eye-popping in terms of production:

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OK, FanGraphers.  As you may have surmised from my single digit post count, I’m one of the new guys here, and as a new guy, it’s my responsibility to properly introduce myself and show you what I have to offer.  To do that, I’m going to have to take you out of your comfort zone today.  And by that, I mean I want you to put down your spreadsheets, drop your calculators, and set aside your usual stacks of number-crunching data.  I love stats.  I really do.  But sometimes, I feel that the human element of baseball is being lost in a sea of statistics and sabermetric primers, and it’s time to acknowledge the need to discuss these ballplayers as the people for which they are.  And what  better way to start it off then to talk about the comeback of Giants third baseman, Pablo Sandoval? Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve done a fair amount of reading on third base rankings headed into the 2011 fantasy baseball season. While most prognosticators and enthusiasts recognize some elite talent at the tippy-top of the list, references such as “terrifying,” “black hole,” and, ahem, “talentless batch of hackers” have described the rest of the list, which I might venture to simply call not terribly deep. Third base will present many managers with a challenge, but I’m not so sure there aren’t some gems to be had in this list.

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Here are your results from last week’s round of voting. Don’t forget to submit your vote for today’s ballot (Joe Nathan), which went up earlier this morning.

Pablo Sandoval
My vote: 9
Average: 10.63
Median: 10
Std Dev: 3.73

Apparently I was off a little bit, but these results seem about right to me. However, the fairly large standard deviation worries me, as I’d like to see it drop down about a full round. But, it shows just how much argument there will be when it comes to Kung Fu Panda’s value. Valuing Sandoval as a late 10th round pick means owners are expecting something close to a .280 average with 17 homers with a little more than 70 runs scored and driven in. Those numbers are fairly reasonable for Pablo, so you aren’t going to get much of a deal if you take him in the tenth. If he could fall to me in the 12th, I’d be much more excited, but I suppose I could talk myself into a 10th round selection if I hadn’t taken a third baseman yet.

Wandy Rodriguez
My vote: 9
Average: 10.97
Median: 10.5
Std Dev: 2.71

Just like Pablo, I leaned a little too early with Wandy. I am very happy with the smaller standard deviation, though, and it makes me much more confident in your conclusions. Selecting Wandy on the 10-11 turn means that owners aren’t expecting a whole lot from him. In fact, if he can just put up the same overall numbers as last year, he’ll be worth more than that. I don’t think that means that you, the voter, are wrong. It just shows the lack of respect Wandy will receive, especially after his early season slump last year. If I can grab Wandy in the late 10th or early 11th to be my third starter, I’m very happy with that. All it would take for Wandy to be worthy of a second starter ranking would be lucking into some wins, and that’s a chance I’m willing to take.