Updated Consensus Ranks: Third Base
I’ll be honest with you. Rankings week is a tough week. It seems that everybody zooms in on the rankings of their players and wants them to be better. Most want more reactionary rankings than a site like RotoGraphs is going to give. The difficulty is that it is much more likely that a player’s true talent is the same as it was a month ago, and we do our best to find that true talent.
Of course, there are breakouts. There are role changes. There are injuries. And that’s where most of the movement will come. Third base should provide more movement than most, considering the fact that the position has had more breakouts, role changes and injuries than most. Let’s take a look at them.
We told you that we’d rank the new third baseman as soon as they were third baseman, and in the case of Miguel Cabrera, it seems defensible. He’s probably the worst defensive first basemen to ever move back to third base, and when that ball took a bad hop and hit him in the face in Spring Training, Tigers management could have pulled the plug on the experiment. They didn’t, though, and here we are with Cabrera first and Hanley Ramirez fourth.
The pair of injuries to Pablo Sandoval and Evan Longoria blew a hole right in the front of these rankings, so while Brett Lawrie hasn’t quite started out gangbusters, he’s shown enough to move up along with the rest of the healthy third basemen. Ditto even for the younger third-sackers that ended up behind the injured duo. David Freese, Mike Moustakas, and in-name-only Edwin Encarnacion have all shown enough to think that pre-season projections were a tad light.
Emilio Bonifacio and Martin Prado are sorta BABIP-dependent at the plate, and BABIP doesn’t stabilize this early, but a mediocre BABIP can put their offensive production in focus. But how about the sole two guys that didn’t move — two Pirates, Pedro Alvarez and Casey McGehee, are turning out about as we expected it seems. We always thought that Alvarez would have power and patience with a lot of strikeouts, but in a 5×5 environment, walks don’t correlate with batting average while strikeouts sink it. McGehee is finding time around the diamond. It might be a surprise that he’s managing to accrue about 1/2 to 3/4 the time of a regular, but preseason projections had him at around 500 PAs, so maybe it’s not such a big surprise.
Who do you like better or worse?
| FanGraphs Consensus Rankings: Third Base |
||||||
| New | Last | Player Name | Eno Sarris | Mike Podhorzer | Jeff Zimmerman | Zach Sanders |
| 1 | NA | Miguel Cabrera | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 1 | Jose Bautista | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 4 | David Wright | 3 | 4 | 5 | 3 |
| 4 | NA | Hanley Ramirez | 4 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| 5 | 6 | Brett Lawrie | 6 | 6 | 4 | 5 |
| 6 | 5 | Adrian Beltre | 5 | 5 | 7 | 4 |
| 7 | 9 | Michael Young | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 |
| 8 | 7 | Ryan Zimmerman | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| 9 | 10 | Alex Rodriguez | 11 | 10 | 11 | 9 |
| 10 | 2 | Evan Longoria | 8 | 13 | 6 | 20 |
| 11 | 3 | Pablo Sandoval | 9 | 14 | 10 | 15 |
| 12 | 8 | Aramis Ramirez | 12 | 7 | 13 | 18 |
| 13 | 17 | David Freese | 12 | 17 | 16 | 8 |
| 14 | 15 | Mike Moustakas | 14 | 12 | 17 | 17 |
| 15 | 21 | Edwin Encarnacion | 17 | 11 | 22 | 12 |
| 16 | 19 | Chase Headley | 16 | 20 | 18 | 11 |
| 17 | 16 | Emilio Bonifacio | 15 | 18 | 20 | 13 |
| 18 | 13 | Martin Prado | 18 | 15 | 15 | 19 |
| 19 | 12 | Mark Reynolds | 19 | 16 | 12 | 23 |
| 20 | 11 | Kevin Youkilis | 13 | 19 | 14 | 27 |
| 21 | NA | Mark Trumbo | 21 | 21 | 19 | 14 |
| 22 | 23 | Chipper Jones | 26 | 21 | 23 | 20 |
| 23 | 18 | Daniel Murphy | 22 | 22 | 21 | 26 |
| 24 | 35 | Mike Aviles | 23 | 27 | 26 | 24 |
| 25 | 25 | Pedro Alvarez | 20 | 26 | 32 | 28 |
| 26 | 30 | Chris Davis | 25 | 25 | 28 | 30 |
| 27 | 14 | Ryan Roberts | 29 | 37 | 24 | 25 |
| 28 | 32 | Jed Lowrie | 24 | 24 | 30 | 40 |
| 29 | 20 | Danny Valencia | 30 | 39 | 25 | 29 |
| 30 | 26 | Placido Polanco | 33 | 28 | 31 | 32 |
| 31 | 27 | Scott Rolen | 28 | 30 | 37 | 34 |
| 32 | 22 | Brent Morel | 31 | 36 | 27 | 36 |
| 33 | 29 | Ian Stewart | 32 | 31 | 36 | 31 |
| 34 | 40 | Sean Rodriguez | 39 | 29 | 29 | 35 |
| 35 | 37 | Kyle Seager | 27 | 33 | 38 | 37 |
| 36 | 36 | Casey McGehee | 36 | 40 | 34 | 33 |
| 37 | 34 | Chris Johnson | 34 | 32 | 41 | 39 |
| 38 | 33 | Juan Uribe | 35 | 35 | 40 | 41 |
| 39 | 24 | Lonnie Chisenhall | 37 | 43 | 35 | 38 |
| 40 | 31 | Alberto Callaspo | 38 | 41 | 33 | 42 |
| 41 | 39 | Wilson Betemit | 40 | 34 | 39 | 43 |
| 42 | 41 | Brandon Inge | 41 | 38 | 44 | 46 |
| 43 | 38 | Chone Figgins | 42 | 42 | 43 | 45 |
| 44 | 28 | Jimmy Paredes | 43 | 44 | 42 | 44 |
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Not liking Ryan Roberts on this list at all…esp above Lowrie.
Valencia was just moved to AAA, so he should be off the list/dropped way down.
Yeah these ranks were done before that.
Brent Morel above Seager and Chris Johnson?
One thing about third base is that once you get past the top 11 or 12, there are a few tweeners, and then a huge cliff and at the bottom of it a big puddle of guys that are pretty bad. I don’t think you’re going to see the same level of disagreement here as you’ve seen in some of the other rankings updates.
How is Middlebrooks not even rated?
275/323/400 and brett lawrie moved UP?
well, first off if you actually read the article you would know that him moving up is mostly about injuries to other top tier performers (esp. Longo and Panda).
second, this is FANTASY and not real life. These rankings are based on 5×5, and the only number that you cited that matters is .275, which is a perfectly decent AVG in 5×5 roto. When you factor in that he has contributed in the other 4 categories to the tune of 15/3/15/3 he’s actually been a pretty solid 5×5 guy so far.
third, this is about the REST of the season, not what they’ve done so far. Even if his power isn’t quite what we expected, Lawrie should be able to maintain an AVG in the .270-280 range and also contribute 15+ HR and SB. He’s an every day player and should end up around 20/20 with 80+ R and RBI, and a final line of .275/80/20/80/20 is VERY valuable. Across the board goodness is underrated compared to single category dominance.
the only guy below him that I’d consider moving ahead of him (given the above-mentioned injuries) is Adrian Beltre.
He’s not great, but I’d take Betemit over a bunch of guys listed above him. OPS league.
What about Chris Johnson on Houston, almost .300 batting average and 4 HRs along with 15 RBIs? and he drops
I love that Chipper Jones on one leg is still better than 1/2 the guys on the list. But, somehow, I have to think that he should still be higher than 22nd.
(Perhaps this was done on a previous post but Eno, could you explain on what basis the rankings are made? Which offensive or defensive metrics were used? Does each evaluator use the same metrics? Are the metrics weighted? Or is this a wholly subjective ranking?
Not knowing what yardstick is being used, it’s hard to make intelligent comments about the rankings, but I am curious which metrics place Kyle Seager at 35th and Danny Valencia at 29th.
While Seager is walking at an exceptionally low rate, he posted moderate high walk rates and high OBP in the minors. If you watch him now you see a player who has a quick, compact swing that’s generating a lot more power, an observation borne out by hittracker, which shows his 4 home runs going an average of 405 feet. You wrote of Seager he might post double digit steals and homers; I expect him to reach 15 in each category, and as he’s batting 5th, he’s on pace to gave more than 80 RBIs.
By comparison, Valencia, even before the nightmare that is this season, last year posted a sub-.300 OBP, to no speed on the bases, a low batting average and power that’s barely better than what Seager did last year and way behind Seager’s performance this year.
5×5 rest of season ranks using our own projections and zach’s value calculator, but all rankings are subjective. for 5×5 though, bb% fairly irrelevant since it doesnt correlate with batting average. these rankings do not reflect valencia’s demotion.
Thank you.
One other surprise is that Moustakas didn’t jump into top 10. He was downgraded in the preseason because we didn’t know when his breakout would come… it could’ve been 2013 for all we knew. Now that it is already upon us, I think he’s top tier.
A little over a month of a babip influenced increase in his stats and he’s having a “breakout” huh? He was never as bad as he showed last year, people knew that, he is not as good as he is currently showing this year, people know that. His ranking properly reflects his value.
Yes. It fits the pattern of him struggling in each 1st year at a new level, and crushing it the next. Totally scientificish.
“top tier” is a bit optimistic. He’s unlikely to be a true .300+ hitter, and he doesn’t contribute anything in SB. And he’s not exactly crushing right now, only 4 HR. If he’s more of a 25HR guy with solid but unspectacular numbers in R, RBI, and AVG he’s not top tier, but could be on the fringes of the top 10. 3B is pretty crowded with talent at the top end especially with Miggy and Hanley joining the fold.
There you’re right. It’s hard to crack that top 10. I should’ve looked at the names and not the numbers. When Longo is 10th, Moose is not getting in.
Moose will be in top 10 for June!
Nice article. 3b is a difficult thing to rank in my eyes. Like someone said before, it is quite top heavy. A lot of guys good in the top 10, then meh. I tried to get a good 3b in my draft early (Lawrie) and then took a gamble on Gamel later on. DOH!
Lawrie seems to be a bit streaky, likely for young player. However I found a gem in Chipper on the wire soon after Gamel went down.
Your ranking seems to suggest Mark Reynolds being able to turn things around like he always does. Also seems that David Freese is probably the biggest surprise on this list.
Surprised Willy Betemit is so low.
I’m trying to figure out how Lonnie Chisenhall is ranked 39th while he’s playing in Columbus (AAA), while Jack Hannahan isn’t even listed while he’s batting .291 in Cleveland. I didn’t expect Hannahan to be ranked in the top 10, but I did expect him to be ranked.