Third Base 2026 Fantasy Rankings

There’s little that Ramírez is yet to accomplish in MLB, though winning MVP might forever be his white whale. (He’d also love to go 40/40 at least once, I’m sure.) His counting stats at the plate took a little bit of a step back as he had even more wear and tear than usual in 2025, but he’s showing no long-term signs of slowing down and continues to command the zone while not striking out as well as anyone.

At the onset of the 2025 season it looked like Caminero would be missing some valuable plate appearances as he was frequently replaced for defense, but he improved enough at third to actually play full games with the Rays leading as the season went on. The massive homer power is Caminero’s calling card and considering his precocious youth combined with a lack of big swing-and-miss, the sky is the limit. He was weirdly average away from Steinbrenner Field but I don’t have much concern there since his BABIP was a ridiculously low .197 on the road.

Enjoy the 3B eligibility while you can! Jazz won’t be sniffing the hot corner any time soon after couping DJ LeMahieu out of a roster spot so he could move back to second base, and he responded with a career year despite missing time with an oblique strain. Coming off back-to-back almost-fully-healthy seasons in which he proved he’s got star output to go with his star-level skills, here’s hoping we can finally see what 150 games of Jazz looks like.

Are Garcia’s gains at the plate legit? The Royals sure think so, rewarding his breakout with a five-year, $57.5 million extension. He’s got almost three years of service time but is still just 25 years old, so it’s entirely possible we haven’t seen the best of him yet. He’s more of a “jack of all trades, master of none” than a guy who will give you insane production in a particular category, but there’s .300/20/40 potential in there.

The very definition of borderline between the top tier and second tier, Machado continues to perform like a metronome. The only thing that concerns me is Father Time’s undefeated record, and Machado is entering his age-33 season. His bat speed is still excellent but it has been going down each year for the three years it’s been tracked by Statcast, so it’s not as if he’s completely ageless.

I want Riley to go back to being great, and I’ll concede that it’s entirely possible if not likely that injuries are part of the explanation for his wRC+ declining each year since his career-high in 2022. But we can’t just ignore that in 2025 he walked less and whiffed and struck out more. This is about as high as I’m comfortable putting him.

Paredes would be higher on this list if I was fully confident that he’s (a) fully healthy after rushing back from a horrible hamstring strain and (b) definitely an Astro in 2026. So much of Paredes’ value comes from his elite ability to pull the ball in the air, and there’s nowhere better to do that than Daikin Park. But with the Astros probably needing to offload an infielder to open up DH for Yordan Alvarez and Paredes’ name being the most-often mentioned, I’m just wary enough to ding him a bit.

Bregman could move up or down this tier depending on where he signs, because like Paredes, ballpark is pretty important for him, though not as crucially so. He had a horrible end to his season after rushing back from a quad injury, and I don’t expect that to continue after a normal offseason, even if he’s not quite as good as he was to start the season with Boston. The shape of Bregman’s career will be interesting to follow, because he’s already been so many different types of hitters.

Muncy has been as good as ever on a rate basis in the last two seasons, but I’m conscious of his age (35) and the fact that he’s only played 173 games in the last two seasons. Plus, he had his worst showing ever against lefties, albeit in only 80 plate appearances, and he could continue to be shielded from them by Miguel Rojas and Alex Call.

Paredes, Bregman, Suárez: the Three Horsemen (look, there’s not a fourth, okay?) of “I really hope they’re playing in a ballpark good for them.” Suárez’s second act in Seattle went even worse than his first one after absolutely mashing in Arizona, and it’s pretty clear to me that he needs a ballpark where the ball will carry well and give his dead-pull swing some extra juice.

This is a pretty aggressive placement for a guy who’s yet to be fully healthy for a season, I’ll admit. But he’s been rock solid when he’s been able to play in 2024 and 2025, and his expected metrics in 2024 — slugging especially — were so good that I think there’s another level in there.