Third Base Consensus Ranks for the Second Half

July 11, 2012

By now, you might have a favorite ranker among the four of us. That’s fine, we’re adults. We’ve gathered to give you four options for a reason. In fact, we’ve gathered these four guys in particular for a reason.

Jeff Zimmerman primarily uses ZiPs rest-of-season projections, with a few tweaks, and so he’s our Sober Suzy. ZiPs does use information from this year, weighted against information from past years, and it does include playing time projections, but it does not get caught up in the excitement of a player in a breakout. Zach Sanders has his own projections, which are more intuitive, and he uses his value calculator to stack the players up against each other. On the other end of the spectrum, you have me and Mike Podhorzer. We are more intuitive, and yet we have different ideas about the players and different levels of cynicism.

Taken as a whole, you should get a reasonable set of rankings that doesn’t get too caught up in a hot month, or too upset about a bad start. That’s the aim.

You’ll see that Zimmerman likes David Freese a little less than the rest of us, for example. And that he likes Chris Davis a little more. Interesting to find these two so close to each other. One has little power and should have a good batting average. The other has power and only power — and some years a good enough batting average to make it work. Both are flawed. And sandwiched in between them is a normally steady Eddie in a new park that loves righty power — Kevin Youkilis. That trio should inspire some conversation.

Add in your opinion (and your appraisal of your league’s opinions) and the puzzle should be complete. Good luck with the second half.

FanGraphs Consensus Rankings: Third Base
New	Last	Player Name	Eno Sarris	Mike Podhorzer	Jeff Zimmerman	Zach Sanders
1	1	Miguel Cabrera	1	1	1	2
2	2	Jose Bautista	2	2	2	1
3	3	David Wright	3	4	3	3
4	6	Adrian Beltre	6	5	6	6
5	4	Hanley Ramirez	4	3	5	11
6	5	Brett Lawrie	5	8	4	8
7	11	Pablo Sandoval	7	7	9	7
8	21	Mark Trumbo	9	11	7	4
9	15	Edwin Encarnacion	8	6	14	5
10	8	Ryan Zimmerman	10	10	12	9
11	14	Mike Moustakas	12	13	10	10
12	9	Alex Rodriguez	11	12	13	12
13	12	Aramis Ramirez	13	9	11	15
14	18	Martin Prado	15	15	15	14
15	7	Michael Young	16	14	16	21
16	10	Evan Longoria	14	23	8	25
17	16	Chase Headley	19	26	19	13
18	19	Mark Reynolds	20	16	17	30
19	13	David Freese	18	19	30	18
20	20	Kevin Youkilis	17	20	24	26
21	26	Chris Davis	21	17	18	31
22	47	Trevor Plouffe	22	24	25	19
23	17	Emilio Bonifacio	23	25	28	16
24	35	Kyle Seager	27	29	20	24
25	42	Will Middlebrooks	25	21	32	23
26	25	Pedro Alvarez	24	31	21	28
27	22	Chipper Jones	28	27	33	17
28	43	Todd Frazier	29	34	22	22
29	24	Mike Aviles	30	28	23	27
30	28	Jed Lowrie	26	18	46	20
31	23	Daniel Murphy	31	30	27	41
32	27	Ryan Roberts	34	38	31	32
33	36	Casey McGehee	33	40	37	29
34	40	Alberto Callaspo	32	41	35	33
35	37	Chris Johnson	37	36	29	40
36	30	Placido Polanco	38	32	38	36
37	44	Stephen Lombardozzi	37	43	36	34
38	34	Sean Rodriguez	42	33	42	37
39	41	Wilson Betemit	43	22	43	48
40	45	Jordan Pacheco	39	44	39	35
41	50	Jose Lopez	36	48	26	47
42	39	Lonnie Chisenhall	35	42	34	51
43	31	Scott Rolen	47	35	48	43
44	48	Chris Nelson	41	46	41	45
45	46	Alex Liddi	40	45	40	50
46	38	Juan Uribe	50	37	51	39
47	29	Danny Valencia	44	51	44	42
48	42	Brandon Inge	48	39	49	46
49	33	Ian Stewart	46	53	47	38
50	49	Elian Herrera	45	47	53	44
51	43	Chone Figgins	49	49	50	52
52	44	Jimmy Paredes	51	50	52	49
53	32	Brent Morel	52	52	45	53