The Market and Me: Comparing My 3B Ranks to ADP

The RotoGraphs writers’ positional rankings hit the World Wide Web last week and now such writers, perhaps only myself, are questioning every little keyboard stroke and mouse click involved. You can view my third-base rankings here and follow along all season. I didn’t look at the average draft position (ADP) as calculated by the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) while sorting these men who spent at least five games with their feet close to third base last season.

I mostly used the auction calculator with Steamer’s projections and moved things around from there, but only slightly. Take Elly De La Cruz for example. By the auction calculator, he’s ranked 14th (check the link above for settings). I brought him up a few (11th), first knowing the market would be higher and second considering his ceiling. But, as it turns out, the market is even higher on the Cincinnati wonder kid! In this post, I’ll dive into the players who diverge the most from my rankings and where the market (ADP) is so far this draft season.

Where the market is higher:

He’s fast, he’s strong, he’s a switch hitter, and he just looks super cool out there on the diamond. Elly De La Cruz is very close to being a top 20 player according to ADP. But that inflated value is due to a ceiling that no one is sure he can meet in 2024 and if you looked only at the auction calculator’s (default settings) value output, you’d notice he’s ranked 99th overall. While he may finish 2024 in the 99th percentile in hitting the snot out of the ball, he may also hit somewhere well below his projected (Steamer) batting average of .246. His biggest challenge to overcome in 2024 will be his ability to make contact in the zone. He finished below average (85.4%) in 2023 making contact in the zone only 84.0% of the time. That’s the 7th decile (30th percentile) for Cruz among hitters with 400 plate appearances:

Some people might say, “.254 isn’t bad for a guy who could hit 20+ home runs and steal infinity!”, but they would be talking out of their…as-pen, Colorado mansion because they’re just not on the same level as us. You can’t steal first base. Here are a few percentile scores for Elly’s 2023 plate discipline and batted ball data:

I may seem like I’m way down on Elly in 2024, and I ranked him 11th! I’m only human. I always end up spending too much of my hard-earned money on things they say are bad for me. But, I’m not willing to push him up to where the market is. Will he move up my rankings list even further? Maybe, but probably not until towards the end of spring training and a lot of plate discipline improvement.

Now onto sleeper…wait, what? Ha-Seong Kim 김하성’s 83 ADP is a little too early for my liking. I didn’t look at ADP until I did my rankings on value and it’s clear, everyone else noticed what I noticed. He’s currently listed as the 8th third baseman off the board in all NFBC drafts since December 20th. Kim’s improvement over the years is exciting, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not that exciting. I can understand why drafters are jumping on Kim early, here are all the things he has improved upon according to his Statcast “Year to Year Changes” chart in each season of his major league career:

BB%, SweetSpot%, wOBA, BA, Whiff%

Up, up, up, up…aaaand??? Have you heard of this thing called regression? It’s very realistic to imagine a season where Kim is a mix of his 2022 and 2023 outputs, not a step above where he was in 2023. The fact that he is going before Alex Bregman, Nolan Arenado, and Josh Jung doesn’t seem right. He’ll likely move up my rankings list, but he’ll stay out of the top 10 for sure.

Noelvi Marte and Maikel Garcia are two players with really solid projections. Both projected (Steamer) to hit above .260, steal more than 10, and play over 120 games. It’s that last part I’m worried about. While their projections are above 120 games, neither has ever played 120 career games in total! There are too many Cincinnati players with a “3B” next to their name heading into Spring Training. Marte has to compete with the likes of Elly De La Cruz, Spencer Steer, Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and Jeimer Candelario. The Reds roster will be one of the most analyzed by keyboard wizards this spring. As for Garcia, he seems to have a clearer path to playing time as the only Royal likely to stick at 3B. The other players who filled in at the position last year were Nicky Lopez (traded), Matt Duffy (free agent), and Hunter Dozier (free agent). Garrett Hampson has experience all around the infield but is likely a bench or platoon bat. Garcia is miles above all of those players defensively with his 94th statcast percentile “Fielding Run Value”. Garcia seems like a nice play whose expected stats support his actuals:

• AVG: .272 xAVG: .270
• SLG: .358 xSLG: .387
• wOBA: .299 xwOBA: .318

Oddly, his HardHit% (93rd) and SweetSpot (76th) percentiles were excellent, yet there was no translation to power. Tweaking his swing could improve power, but could harm his batting average. Regardless, even if he stayed the same, he’s a player with a lot of potential. He seems significantly more valuable in dynasty leagues than in re-draft leagues, but still a very roster-able player.

Where the market is lower:

I like Anthony Rendon. I’ve got a baseball with his autograph on it. I’m rooting for him to come back and help Mike Trout and the sad, sad Angels make it to the playoffs. In the 2024 edition of Baseball HQ’s Forecaster injury log section, you’ll find Rendon with an injury in the last four non-pandemic shortened seasons. The list contains multiple injuries per year and multiple parts of the body under various forms of ailment. If he’s healthy though!?! He could hit 20 home runs and bat .270+. That’s likely wish casting. The curve rarely goes up in the age 34 season and it’s very, very possible that Rendon drops off this rankings list completely before we’ve even started 2024’s season. The market’s hesitancy to draft Rendon in this case is likely fueled by years of fantasy misery.

Wanna see a Rocky-like workout montage of Patrick Wisdom at Driveline? Just click here! Maybe that video brings the market back on Wisdom, maybe the wise are setting an appropriate mark that will go unchanged. The Cubs utility man has a lot of positional eligibility going into 2024 and has had three seasons in a row of 20+ home run totals. Last season he only had 302 plate appearances in 97 games and was limited due to a right wrist injury, but still hit 23 bombs! He’s never hit above .260. He’s never recorded more than 550 plate appearances. He’s also probably in a platoon with the Cubs’ incoming Michael Busch and that could easily turn into a bench role behind Michael Busch. Yet, there he is in that video taking big shirtless hacks that collect more biomechanical data points that neither you nor I would have a clue what to do with. Pay attention to Spring Training. That’s what I think.