Third Base Values Redux

In what amounts to a teachable moment for my children, I had to declare a big fat public mea culpa (although my kids don’t study Latin, nor do they give a crap about FIP. So it goes). Not realizing that the S & P had declared Mock Draft Central’s stock officially “junk,” I mistakenly used their average draft position data for a misguided post about finding value at third base some days ago. The comments ran from agitation, exasperation, to contempt, and understandably so. So, yes, I did it and I’m sorry.

However, the premise remains the same, and so we’re going to give this another try. The whole point of the exercise is to look at the projections for our third basemen and see if there’s a way to get, say, sixth round value out of a 12th round pick. And depending on your own personal aversion to risk, I think it’s possible.

I’ve played fantasy sports, in one form or another, since 1995. One of the things I learned early on was to attempt to avoid the positional panic pick. That is, the top crop of third basemen fall off the board and that whiny voice in your head is saying “but I need a third baseman” and so you take Travis Fryman while Mike Mussina is just sitting there staring at you. You have that third base problem solved, but your team is worse for it, and insult to injury, Vinny Castilla is still on the board. Dummy.

So I make my list and rank my players just like many of you, and while I might like to take Adrian Beltre, I’ll probably only do so if he slips to, say, the fourth round or so. If he falls off the board, I won’t panic and take the next guy — who is probably Todd Frazier — I’ll have my backup plans already scripted to keep my head as cool as possible. For instance:

For transparency, I’m using the NFBC ADP data. If it turns out to be completely wrong, well, I’m out. Knuckles.

Okay, so X is Evan Longoria and frankly, I wouldn’t have much problem with him at 54. Y is actually a bit of an extrapolation as far as Steamer projections go — I used the “Steamer 600” (which sounds like a carpet cleaner) because the projection for Kris Bryant isn’t over a full season. Obviously, there’s a degree of risk in Kris Bryant since we’ve not yet seen what he’s capable of versus major league pitching but if you could take those projections to the bank, obviously Bryant is the pick.

Another example for you — let’s use Bond girl names to keep things fresh:

Should you wait around for Bonita, you might give up a smattering of home runs and a handful of RBI, but you may very well gain in batting average — but for the 90 pick gap, this is a pretty nice example where you don’t need to take Kyle Seager at 61 if you’re comfortable waiting until the 14th round to pick up Manny Machado. Again, there’s some obvious risk what with Machado’s history of injury and Seager’s pretty solid track record of putting up that type of season.

A last example, using the regular Steamer projections for 2015:

You really could throw Peanut Butter and Jelly up there with Zora and Bonita because the ADP’s are clustered rather comfortably, but now I just realized I’ve put food on Bond girls and this is a family website. So, the trade off here is really pretty minimal across the board. Perhaps the big issue here is age and park because Jelly is Nolan Arenado going at 59 when you could conceivably replicate that production out of Pablo Sandoval at 132. Both projections are actually rather bearish for my taste, but regardless, it’s illustrative of the main takeaway, which is to say don’t be afraid to zag when your opponents zig.

That NFBC site has some pretty valuable information wrapped up in the minimum and maximum pick too — and I think it’s that contextual information that helps temper ADP. Because while you might think you can hang around until the 100th pick for Kris Bryant, you need to know there’s a ravenous Bryant fan out there willing to take him at 69. As I’ve said before, don’t get wed to ADP, just take it out for a burger and offer to pay.