This is the in This League Fantasy Podcast network, In This League Fantasy Baseball
podcast online at in this League dot com. Now here's your host, Bogman
and the Welsh. What's up for doz of Welcome into the ind This League
Tennessee Baseball Podcast. The Profile series continues today. We've got third base for
you, but we're not ranking them. We are giving you all the juice
you need to go into the new year, whatever it is, stats,
underlying stats, hot cold streaks. We are telling you who these players were
last year and we will set you up, hopefully with the proper tools that
you can make the proper assumptions on how you want to value these players into
the new year. And these will also be things that help lead us into
when we get into the rank series. Who are us? That is Scott
Bogman on Twitter at Bogman's Sports. You can find me at is at the
Welsh and Boggs. Usually we don't do any news. We just kind of,
you know, set the table, jump right into things that's gonna go
by the wayside a little bit. Because because Eduardo Rodriguez signed with the Diamondbacks,
yes, well so the big signing. Everybody's talking about all over the
place, Eduardo to the d Backs. Just the NL champs get stronger.
It's an uphill battle for everybody else, and that is the thing that everyone
is concerned with. Right. No, actually you said it best a little
bit earlier to me. We are going to defer our old ways and we're
going to take a new approach. Because Shohetani has signed with the West Coast
Evil Empire, the Los Angeles Dodgers on a ten year, seven hundred million
dollar deal. Okay, just in the largest contract in sports history ever,
largest guaranteed contract ever, absurd. So many paths to this was so funny
because the first path was John Morrissey screwing everything up of Hilario. Oh,
actually it happened before this. It happened from all the bitching and crying about
like show is not sharing information. This is bad. No, this is
not bad for anybody, but you writers that want the inside track, you
breaking news people. I don't care a lot about that type of stuff.
I just don't feel for breaking news people like I also am not gonna call
for their job. By the way, if they don't do something correctly,
that's insane to me. But I just don't care about them. If that
is your business and you have three cell phones and you break news, okay,
whatever I feel on sympathy, I also don't really care about you and
you're crying about good to break the I mean, has Morosi forgiven my ignorance,
because, like you said, I'm not like refreshing Twitter all day every
day to see who signed. I used to be like that. I don't
know, it's just I have too much going on. Doesn't break Users can
ask, yeah, well, yeah, well I know he breaks news,
but has he screwed up on multiple occasions like Bob Nightingale, Like the reason
people than Gail is because he messes everything up. Like, well, that's
the second level. We're not even to that where I'm just saying he wrote
an article about how it was bad for baseball that show he wasn't sharing information.
Then the next step, so you must have miss that. The next
step was Morrisey completely batching the whole Toronto plane incident and saying he's going to
be a Toronto Blue Jay, absolute disaster, and then him having apologies,
which that never apologize for that. Well, if I were him, well,
okay, and I understand that you're gonna miss I mean, maybe,
hey, look I missed. You know, maybe it's not an apology.
It's just like maybe it's just saying I'm not gonna apologize, right like I
missed. Sometimes you miss on these things. You'd just be like I took
someone's information and I was wrong. That's like that what I would say.
I'd be like someone I trusted, I kind of ran with it. It
didn't end up being wrong. Like, the only thing that affected at the
end of the day that I saw was like when I'm watching all this stuff
on MLB network and every GM they're giving the possibility of where oh Tawny signs
and what day it is. And I don't know how much of that you
paid attention to, but they were doing on MLB network all day and like
everybody was picking the blue Jays. That's the only thing in effect that I
don't think people are gonna remember that after the Winter Meetings, nobody what would
have been funny is to pay attention to the betting market. I don't know
if that flipped a little bit. That correct that. Okay, So there
was that. Then the third piece, Otani breaks his own news fantastic love
every step of it. The fourth piece, I didn't like the news itself.
No, it's stinks. It's uh bye bye to the Diamondbacks. You
had one year, you had one opportunity. That's why you go and pay
and sell out and get all the pictures you can because now you're going to
annually have to go up against Betts, Freeman and Otani. So that was
fun. Good thing you've got Johannio Suarez to compete, But that was fun.
The fourth piece was the contract set ten years, seven hundred million,
and I didn't care care about it. People are making a big deal.
I didn't care about it until I actually looked. I am shocked at this.
This is the most taxed lawyerism that a lawyer could lawyer and tax because
sixty eight million dollars annually is being deferred. Quick math. Ten years,
six hundred and eighty million dollars. That leaves twenty million dollars more quick math.
That is two million dollars per year as a base salary. Holy crap.
People are up in arms about it. I'm not going to write an
article about it. I'm not going to cry, and I'm not going to
ask for anyone's head or anything about that. But I look at that and
go, that's something that's not going to be around in a year or two.
They just found the little tiny loophole of loopholes to do this. There's
no way you can keep doing it. And someone asked me, and I'm
going to shut up here in a second, Bog. Someone asked me,
what do I think about it? And I was just like, this is
bad for baseball. That's how I think about it. Having a player be
able to sign seven hundred million dollars with absolutely no cap, that's bad for
baseball. What's worse for baseball is a a team and a league that is
allowing the player to have I don't know the quick map, ninety percent of
their salary per year pushed to future years. That's crazy. It is such
bad business. It's not funny. It's reminiscent Bogs. I had likened it
to someone of like how a player in the NBA gets paid twenty five million
dollars, gets bought out and then can go sign for a league minimum with
a super team. But it's worse. It's even worse because there's no cap
to it. So I I think it's just bad for baseball and it's stinky
and I am shocked like knowing the details of the contract. But at the
end of the day, none of it changes anything for anybody. The Dodgers
just have more flexibility and they are creating baseball's super teams. Yeah. I
haven't dug deep on the contract stuff yet. I know a bunch of those
articles just posted last night, and so I do need to read them.
But I'm not sure, like does this don't they still are? They still
tax on the luxury tax? So it did sayin said that the competitive balance
tax hit on the contract will be around forty six million dollars. But what
is not clear here is that per year or is that that's got to be
per year one time or how does that? What is I don't know the
significance of this. Well I know that so you know, the luxury tax
is a fake salary cap. So it's like you go over that. Every
dollar you spend over that, you pay a dollar into the competitive balance tax
whatever, blah blah blah. That's why teams like you know, the Marlins
and Rays can be they're in the black on day one because they get this
competitive balance check and it pays for their entire salary, so they're in the
black on day one. That's that's what the A's are. They're basically just
making money off of that check every single year because they're not paying their players
enough. So yeah, look it's bad for baseball. Like you said,
it stretches the imbalance out even more than we've seen. But it's also not
surprising. I mean, the Dodgers were the highest signing, you know odds
before the off season. That's the one that you thought the whole time until
we started to hear all these blue jay rumors, Uh, that was going
to happen. I will, I never wavered, but yeah, I always
thought it was gonna I was hoping it was just gonna be anybody else,
but it ended up being the Dodgers, and now we get to hate him.
So that's that. It is craziness. But what really matters from the
fantasy Perspectivelet's get the rest of these dominoes falling now exactly, and we are
going to get more of those. It's set. The Dodgers are set,
and they have more wiggle room. And I had mentioned kind of almost jokingly,
but I was like, how much of that deferred money is it going
to be that's gonna pay Yamamoto, and they're in it. They are in
it. They're gonna sign somebody. They're gonna bring back Kershaw, they're gonna
get a picture, They're gonna make big moves. Yet the market still has
not been hyper aggressive. We still have multiple big free agents that are out
there, so it's gonna be very, very interesting to watch. There was
a free agent signing that's going to affect this episode just a tiny bit that
we're going to talk about at third base because of some of the latest rumors
that popped up. So this is third base enough of that we're going to
be profiling all of these players here in just a second. We do want
to tell you guys to come on and check us out over at in this
League dot com the reasons you kind of know already. Christmas Special is coming
up December twenty second. We would love to have you there. But also
we've got tons of ranks this week as this episode is airing. The goal
is Prospect, Dynasty, and Redraft all dropping this week. It might push
into the weekend for at least one of them, but that is what I'm
currently going through. The redraft I was working on Dynasty last night. We've
also added the Prospect ONEADP. It's a top two hundred and eighty p system
for prospects, which is crazy cool. I've always loved it and I just
did an episode of Prospect one on it, So hopefully you guys want to
check all that out. Those are a few of the reasons. We also
have a great community. It's how you take part and stuff, and it's
not insane by any means. It's literally the same price it's been since we
started it for day one. We've kind of kept to that. We'll see
if that keeps going, but we kept to that. So come on check
us out in this league dot com, in this league dot com, take
you to our Patreon. I think that's it. I think we're ready to
start profiling these guys here bogs put a bunch of stuff together. This is
the last in the series of what I wrote in the Black Book, So
if you guys want to check out, Black Book might be released in I
haven't gotten any official words. I know what the release date was supposed to
be, and it would be you made it push back, right, I
mean I probably was the I probably had the last thing for sure. I
had submitted most of it, but I definitely pushed beyond the deadline. But
there was a lot to do. Shortstops took a lot. But this is
the last at least of what's in the profiling of what I've done. So
I'll have some stuff to add here. So let's take a quick break.
When we come back, it's time to take a look at all of these
bad boys, how the NFBC is looking at it, what projections might be,
and ultimately how was that performance last year? And we'll do it right
after this. I swear to God, I'll pistol whip the next guy that
says he in this league. Hey, Barva, what's the name of that
restaurant? You? Life? Of all the Mazurellists me in this league?
All right, third base profiles, it looks like there is right around ten
third basement inside the top one hundred of the early NFBC. Again, we
like to and we like to, and we are using the NFBC data for
just kind of ranking them and creating self done tiers because I say it a
million times to the annoying point, these aren't like our ranks. Just because
we're going to talk about a certain player at like, let's say the third
position, doesn't mean that's where we're ranking them. It's where they're being drafted,
and it, you know, might completely change as things go on.
There's still a whole lot of time, and how about this, I can
just throw this at the very top, not that we're going to really talk
about him, but we already have one person off the board. Ronnie Mauricio
suffered a torn ACL in the Dominican Winner League today. It actually happened yesterday,
but as we're recording this on the twelfth, it's been announced he has
a torn ACL that's going to have him missed the season. And what that
does is that lowers the competition that's there, and then that I think puts
Brett Batty in a better spot. It does. Brett Batty was not very
good last year though, so b hard hit numbers, but yeah, everything
else kind of stunk. Yeah, So I'm just not one hundred percent sure
what the solution is. It's Viento's wendel Zach short. Yeah, it looks
like it's probably unless they make a significant move, it's probably going to be
a big, ugly mix at third base for the Mets right now. I
think it's one of two things. What you said, big move, They
go and decide, hey, we're spinning on Matt Chapman. You know we're
not going to screw around. Or it is what seems likely a platoon of
Baty and Vento's Vento's up against Righty's, Baty up or I'm sorry, Beaty
up against Righty's, Vento's up against left and they platoon that spot, which
makes them less valuable. It makes Baity more valuable because you're just going to
go up against more rities. So that would probably be the guy, but
he is already off the table. That takes us to the number one player.
The only guy that is sought after as a first rounder, but kind
of the cheapest cost, at least that we've had in quite a few years.
That's Jose Ramirez, who has an NFBC ADP of thirteen stats from last
year twenty four homers, twenty eight stolen bases, did it again, eighty
seven runs, eighty rbi. He hit two point eighty two pretty solid OBP,
three point fifty six slug four to seventy five ops eight thirty one.
Probably the most impressive marker here too, is he was in the top four
percentele of the league. I believe in XBA that was working in his favor
of the expected batting average. So obviously if you're you know, you're processing
that that is better batting average than he actually had. A Couple other things
I'll just throw out to you just in my profile here. Five of the
last six years, he's now had twenty plus homers in twenty stolen bases,
and a two eighty or higher batting average three of the last four years.
Power has ticked down a little bit, of course, but drive line percentage
line drive percentage, not drive line. Line drive percentage went up twenty two
point four percent, which was the highest he's had since twenty and sixteen.
While his launch angle dipped to eighteen degrees, which is which is actually a
really good one, but it's the lowest for him since twenty seventeen. So,
like why those things are important is he had a decrease in hard hit
that went down to one eleven, and he has been around one twelve fourteen.
And then he also wasn't getting the ball in the air as much and
he was having line drive, so that just equated to maybe the power numbers
coming down. This was another interesting one. He struggled against sliders this year,
hitting only two twenty one, but he had an expected batting average of
two eighty five again sliders, and he finished with a two eighty or higher
expected batting average on every single pitch that he saw ten percent or more of
the time. That's just telling you there's some underperformance where he should have been
performing at a higher level. And that is like the positive aggression stuff you
can look at. So you have to figure out, like, you know,
is that hard hit launch angle maybe a sign of where the future is
or is that all the storytelling you, like, hey, he could have
been better and everything else is still in like a decent spot line drive.
Jose Ramirez is still great bogs. Yeah, look, I love Jose Ramirez.
He's so much fun to watch. Like you said, he's one of
the few third basemen that offers you stolen bases and power with consistency, because
there's guys that offer you both. But you know, we talked about Elie
da la Cruz in shortstop a lot, but I mean he's the next highest
officially ranked third baseman, and you know, he ended completely cold, and
he's young, and he has wild streaks, so he offers both, but
it comes with an enormous floor. This is a high floor player in Jseermeres,
which is why even after a quote unquote down year where you know he
only had he was only in the eighties and runs in RBIs he didn't crack
thirty on stolen bases or homers. That's a down year for Jose right,
but it's still an amazing year and third base is really thin still. So
that is why he is so valuable and he's gonna continue to be. The
negative about him to me is this lineup is not good around him. It's
it's not It's probably not as bad as you know it was at the end
of last year because you do have Kwan at the top him and Az his
hit or miss Naylor behind him is good. Hopefully we see Manzardo get you
know, a true spot in this line up up in a high spot,
but a lineup around him is not very good. He would be better if
he was traded somewhere. I do think Cleveland is on the brink of deciding
what they need to do. Are they going to push the chips in and
try to get bats and go with the staff or they going to trade the
staff off and hit the reset button here. But yeah, I mean Josiermier
is the first round talent, no doubt. Yeah, he's always going to
lack a little bit in the RBI run department, kind of what you said,
unless it was an elite offense around. But the last thing I'll share
to you with everything we're talking about, you know, underperformance here there blah
blah blah. This I thought was like the most fun. He had the
second biggest differential between his actual home run total and his expected home run total
in all of baseball. He had an expected home run total of five point
one more homers, which would have put him at twenty nine. So he
expected knockouts because he had the it was always one. It's always it's always
expected one. Whether he gets it or not, it's a it's a high
total there. So you know, I think the floor is great for Jose
Ramirez. He's proven that and even on whatever is perceived as like the down
year, there's still a lot supporting it. Number two on the list is
far and we've already talked ab us. We're actually not going to go into
a ton If you want to listen to more of it. It's in the
shortstop episode. But I do have an anecdotal thing. Here is Ellie day
La Cruz. He's twentieth. On NFBC, we talked about the big strikeout
numbers, the bad splits at the end of the year. I'm want to
throw this at you. There was a report that was floating out there because
there was no reason that the Reds needed to sign jam Or candel Ario.
That one shocked a little bit of all of us. And because what do
they have. They got plenty of infielders. They had Spencer steerrom There,
Christian Carnahan, strand Well. The report out there is indicating that nothing is
being handed over to Ellie day la Cruz, and that the candel Arios signing
could potentially indicate that Ellie might not be a lock to make the opening day
roster. I will tell you I don't really buy it. I think he
makes it. He is the future of this team. If he were not
to make it, that indicates one of two things. That would indicate they
say Noelvie and Ellie both go, or they're picking the Welvy over Ellie.
I don't think that's going to happen, but it does give a little bit
of doubt out there. And Candelario in Cincinnati is a really good that probably
won't put a big focus on him, but expected numbers, the only park
you had to expected thirty plus homers was in Cincinnati for him, So there's
an overall offensive boost for Candelario. Just monitor it, monitor it. With
those high costs and FBC, I see why people take the risk. I'm
more and more in just like my standard, like my home leagues, and
I just don't know if I'm going to do it with me being able to
get stolen bases everywhere, I just don't know if the risk at top twenty
we've already done all that. Yeah, but even that throwing out there,
they really do have a lot of options. And this might be a little
bit of like we haven't traded India yet, so there's still a lot of
flexibility once they trade India. Like McLain is the second baseman, so you
would have to be like, oh, you're going to take Noelvie over Ellie,
which I don't think they do, but they're trying to poke at us.
Yeah, there's too much here to take him at twenty. We know
that that's so you have the high ceiling, high floors, so just enormous
amount of variants. The fact that they did cite in Candelario, so somebody's
out Dela Cruz Marte or CS. One of those guys is pushed off in
every single day well starting role CSKA DH. He could be the DH for
the team they have Indian now and I know the plans are to trade India,
but it hasn't happened. So, you know, just in terms of
being out there every day, it seems like one of those guys could be
pushed off of a job. So there's just too much there to take him
in the top twenty. I you know, if he fell a little bit,
I would love to take the risk on him, but there's too many
good players going in this range. It's the same thing we talked about last
time. To do it so the rest of the third basement in this group,
while Shore the other third baseman. Yeah, and the only last thing
I just want to say is like I do think this late in the draft
season you can stomach doing this with Ellie and NFBC because you can make up
for it for the deals you get later come January or come February March.
I do think you're gonna see Ellie drop unless he's like, you know,
not striking out in spring training or whatever. Next up, number three,
though, is the guy right after him, And this is where it's tough
to not take. This guy is Austin Riley, who played one hundred and
fifty nine games this year. Is a top two. Is a two round
guy. Hit two eighty one with thirty seven homers, one hundred and seventeen
runs, which led the position ninety seven RBI. He had a five to
sixteen slug and a eight sixty one ops three forty five OBP. Didn't light
anything up. A couple of notes I have on him. Thirty seven homers
led all third basemen, and he was the only one at the position to
have twenty five or more homers with a batting average of two eighty or more.
So remember like Jozer Ramirez got there, but he didn't get twenty five
five sixteen slugging percentage, which was the third straight year he's done it.
Jake Berger was the only other qualified hitter to have that number. He also
had a or five to fourteen expected slug which was top eight percent tile of
the League. He hit the ball hard. He continues to get better.
And what you gotta love, he lowered to strike up percentage now to the
lowest over three years and a career low chase rate. He dropped it down
to twenty seven percent. You talk about floor on a great offense that is
Riley. There are just no stolen bases to speak of. But you want
mid thirty homers one hundred hundred with a good batting average. That is your
guy, and that's why he's the second round pick and everything else supports it.
Yeah, look, I mean, get your swipes somewhere else. Right,
take this guy, stick him at third. Know that you have an
elite third baseman and at a position that is still fairly weak in my opinion,
and you know, just roll with him. The worry was last year
and maybe the year before that at the batting average isn't going to stay.
The batting average isn't gonna stay. It stayed. So you know a guy
that looking at all of his advanced numbers, the fifteenth and max exit EL
seventeenth and average exit v LO, he hits the ball hard. He stings
it when he gets a hold of it. He's getting a hold of it
a lot. And you know, all these numbers are great, there's really
what a strikeout percentage? Fifth percentage is a little low, and it's just
below league average. Who cares. You're not gonna get the swipes. I
understand that, but they're coming cheaper and cheaper, So get him somewhere else
and get yourself Austin Riley. This is I would love to invest in Riley
in that second round. And he's the reason why I would love to pick
in late in the first round is to take him on the way back.
Yeah, there's just a handful of plays. Like it's no surprise, but
I feel like people look and they're like, oh, I can't take this
guy because he doesn't have stolen basis. But like, there's a reason that
these uniquely incredible hitters are in the top two rounds without stolen bases is because
the floor is there. Matt Olsen elite power, Corey Seeger four categories of
elite, Riley judge. There's a reason that you can stomach it is because
these floors are so high. Riley always teetered that he's there. Now justifiably
you could take Riley above Olsen. I'm not doing it. But if you
want that third base locked up, you kind of alluded to it before that
it's thin. I actually don't really necessarily agree that the position is thin,
but it is elite thin you want, like, I don't have to ever
think about this again. I think it's three deep. And then there are
question marks. But there are guys that I like, probably a lot more
than others that are like the fifteen to sixteen range. I understand that,
And there's some guys that could have big bounce back years. So there are
those possibilities. But let me ask you this. If you're pairing together a
shortstop third baseman combo right, would you rather go with Riley and then oneo
Cruz at shortstop who is right around eighty five? Or you could take Seeger
right, and then you could go with Josh Young. I love me Seger,
but yeah, I mean, I'm all in on O'Neill Cruz. I
probably do that, but I'm still not gonna take Riley above Seeger. I'm
gonna be hard on hard on drafting this year. Your point is great,
but it's not gonna make me change the strategy of taking Seeger. But if
given those pairings, yeah, I'm not a big josh young guy. This
year you're gonna move on. Well, that's the range, like, that's
where O'Neal Cruz is going. You know, yeah, uh, you could
have Aeronauto's in there. Bregman's a little bit lower guys like that. You're
in a fifth you're in a fifteen team league, and let's say something crazy
happens in an ideal, non stolen based target world. I'm going Seegar Olsen.
I think that's an absurd combination. But guess what I'm not against segart
Riley. I think Segar Riley could work. You have to target stolen bases
a little bit later, but he provides that floor. Those two would give
you good great batting average, incredibly good run RBI, and more than enough
power in a power depleted spot. The next guy up, though, all
the love and accolades we give to Austin Riley, we really should not also
have an appreciation for because I think this is another one of those like underperforming
type of guys. Is Raphael Devers two seventy one batting average, thirty three
homers, one hundred rbi, ninety runs, hit, three point fifty one
OVP, which was higher than Riley also had a five hundred slug. I
think I mentioned there were like two guys that had that. Maybe I said
two, it was three. It was Devers, Riley and Jake Berger both
had that in eight fifty one. Ops. There's a lot of mirrored stuff
when you're looking at him, little anecdotal things I'll just throw to you.
He had the highest expected slug of any third basement so he had a five
hundred slug. He had a five thirty nine expected slug, which is pret
welth in the league. Expected slug. Yeah, he ranked in the top
five percentile in UH average and max exit velocity, which is good he had.
His biggest change was he had a career high fifty five point one percent
hard hit percentage, which was in the top two percent of the league.
And he also posted a fifty percent or higher hard hit rate against any pitch
thrown to him that he saw double digit amount of the time. I loved
that one specifically because you'll see guys that'll get like nine different pitches thrown to
them, but the majority of it, it's like eighty five percent. Usually
around that range is you know, the double digits every pitch that was thrown
double digit percentage percentage of the time fifty percent or harder hard hit rate.
So it wasn't like he was just mashing fastballs. And I say all of
this to also tell you, guys, do that there are some guys that
have like sixty percent hard hit rates against fastballs and like thirty against breaking pitches
and stuff like that. That wasn't the case. Devers was consistently making contact
across the board. And the last thing I'll just throw to you is some
of the underperformance, if you want to view it as that was his babbit.
It fell below three hundred for the first time ever, and projections definitely
see him going in a different direction because like change ups, specifically he hit
two twenty one against he had a too eighty seven XBA. So all of
those things are to say, like sometimes you get outliers on pitches, the
expected numbers are better. The babbit was low, and he still had freaking
you know, best hard hit rates and put up monster numbers. Rafael Devers
is perennially underappreciated, Yes, and I think and I don't think of going
out on a limb. I think Devers is easily the better hitter than Riley,
and Riley's a very good hitter. But I think that when you're looking
at this and splitting hairs, they're both good hitters. Riley's surrounded by MVP
candidates in his lineup, you know, Devers is not. So that is
the difference breaker to me between these two. But they're both, you know,
back into the first round, early in the second round, picks that
solidify you at a position that's you know, to me, not as deep
as I would like it. But these are set it and forget it guys
that you do have to invest in, but they're going to pay you off
as long as they are healthy. So I love investing in both these guys.
Look, I was in the same spot last year, right and Machado
and Aeronauto were not worth taking in the spot. So I understand having reluctance
to go back to the third base well in the second round because of those
hundred performers. But I just don't think, you know, Austin Riley was
in that group, Devers was a little bit behind them last year. Now
they're up here and they're the guys that were picking from and I feel like
I trust them more than I did those guys last year. So I'm still
very very high on both these dudes. A lot of that the underlying stuff
I talked about, and the underperformance on Babbitt is driving what is a pretty
wild projection. He is projected to have the most homers, the most runs,
and the best batting average of like what matters there might be Like if
I can let me click on average real quick, there might be somebody that's
higher. Nick Madrigal has the same projector who gives a crap about Nick Madrigal
Dev's best batting average among any of the third basemen, most runs, most
homers, and is the only projected third baseman projected to have one hundred runs
and one hundred RBI. So like, systems love Devers, but we also
like we don't need the systems to like it. Like we like, Yeah,
there were some underperformance, and the supporting cast is getting better, a
healthy story, Yoshida getting on base a bit more. They got some young
Tristan Cossas moving up. These are good signs for Devers. You kind of
wish you got a little bit better of a discount, you know, you
wish, like, oh, people don't love him, He's still going in
the second round. But if you were in a fifteen team league and you
too, you were drafting like five or six, and you got you know,
Tatis or something like that, or Tucker and then you were able to
get Devors go buy a lottery ticket, you should be super happy about that.
That's a really great sign. I would argue the ADPs don't really show
it, but this is kind of a like you didn't break the tier,
but I would kind of break the tier here because I think these next I
wasn't sure what to do, to be honest, because the ADP is so
close between the It is so but I'm I'm going to just say, like,
that's for our purposes. That's going to end this elite of elite tier.
So when when Bogman says, hey, you know, this thin position
is thin, it wasn't there. Now we're going to start toeing our putting
our toe in the water here a little bit. Yeah maybe it's yeah,
no Rex Ryan stuff that we might start getting some questions. The next two
players have ADPs in the thirty two fifty range, so these are still top
fifty players, but they are the utes. You've got Gunner Henderson Gunner Henderson
one hundred and fifty games played, had twenty eight homers and ten stolen bases.
Phenomenal those phenomenal numbers outside of Eli and Jose. Obviously, Gunner with
more stolen bases than probably he's like at least top five in stolen bases at
the position in the top one hundred, one hundred runs eighty two RBI had
a three twenty five OBP, which wasn't phenomenal or anything like that, but
it is weighted bogs by some big splits that he ended up having this year.
Yeah, I mean for Gunner Henderson, he's on the right side of
the lefty righty split. But the lefties were bad two oh nine versus lefties
two seventy two versus righty. So, like I said, he's on the
right side of that split, which is I mean, I didn't even mention
it, but Jose Ramiers had a little bit of a split right two forty
three against lefty, three to zero two against righty's, so it didn't dip
as far down as Gunner did it two nine. But he's on the right
side of it. Most pictures are righty's. Uh, he's hitting better than
two seventy against rdy, so it's batting average of two point fifty five.
We'd like to see it come up. But he's gonna have to make significant
improvements against lefties if he wants to join Riley Endeavors and Ellie up in this
next or add solar bases which you know, way more solar bases. Ten
isn't bad, but he's gonna have to a You gotta get to twenty to
get into that group without greatly improving these splits here. I think twenty is
the thing that gets him into a first rounder. I'll add something to that
and then just well, I'll do these first. If you're looking for some
of the underlying stuff. Elite hard hit metrics fifty two percent hard hit rate,
which ranked top five percentile of the league, one thirteen point eight max
exit velocity, and a ninety two percent average EV which I know some people
don't care about. I still like to relatively care about hitting the hard high
time. Yeah. Yeah, the problem is if it's weighted to like you
know, like little dribblers and stuff like that. But those both were in
the top nine percentile of the league. He had a top ten at the
position. Barrel rate eleven point four percent. But this speaks to what you
were talking about with the lefty thing. Not only did he struggle from a
batting average standpoint, he generated twenty five of his twenty eight homers against righty's.
Twenty five of twenty eight came against righty's, not lefties, so like
it's not platoony, but you gotta that's got to improve, and he has
lots of underlying hard hit metrics that really support that. So if he can
just get into like relatively league average as far as being able to hit lefties,
you might be looking at a thirty five plus homer guy. Maybe he
steals a little bit more, he barrels and hits the ball really hard.
Everything works really well in his favor, none of which I meant to like
be dismissive about him. You should be excited about him, and you're gonna
have to draft him pretty high, and he is kind of worth that.
The other guy is Royce Lewis, who played a lot less games, only
fifty eight. That's almost one hundred less than Gunner, but he had fifteen
homers while hitting three zero nine six stolen bases, had a three seventy two
OBP to go along with fifty two home. Fifty two RBI in fifty eight
games is wildly big number. He had a nine to twenty one OPS,
which doesn't qualify, but that is the highest ops of any third basement on
this list. But it's again it's only in fifty eight games. But again
there are like there's injuries, and there's some split stuff we look at With
Royce Lewis, I mean, I really didn't know what to do with him,
Like because just based on ADP, you can throw Gunner in with Riley
Endevers if you want, because he's only five, he's going five spots below
Devers, right, but Royce is at forty three, so he's thirteen spots
away from Gunner. And then the next third baseman who will get to in
a second is Machado going at seventy four. So Royce Lewis is kind of
in no man's land in terms of ADP kind of floats as you know,
a third round pick of third basemen only and the only one in the third
or fourth round, so it's kind of weird. But this is a great
player. You know the risk though, this is an injury risk. So
if you take Royce. I think you got to back him up somewhat,
you know, somewhat soon if you take him so great player, underlying numbers
are awesome. If he's in there, he's good, we know that,
but it's how much is he going to be in there with an extensive injury
history at how young he is. So that's the risk you're taking with Royce.
Yeah, and I've took that risk in a mock, just kind of
playing around. I think he is worthwhile of risk, but you know,
it's a little bit more apparent just because of the injury stuff. It's something
we've got to pay attention to, for sure. So Royce Lewis comes in
as a top fifty on the ADP here with maybe some split concerns. That
now takes us to a bigger tier. And again I do think there is
a little break like I would almost, but I get why you did this.
There's a guy at the end of this tier that I don't think belongs
to these guys, but he's so far off from the next group. That's
why this position is kind of weird. We'll get there, Manny Machado.
This is one I know that a lot of people have a hard time stomaching
what you're gonna end up doing one hundred and thirty eight games. He hit
thirty homers, ninety one RBI, seventy five runs, hitting two fifty eight,
which was down. Always kind of a lower OBP guy, and just
overall production was down. Bigger worry is the surgery. This is something we've
kind of talked about, I think at nauseum behind the scenes, because I
even had this with Joe while we were doing The Black Book. We were
doing Joe and I did this. He's like this live mock draft that we
put into it, and we were going pick to pick, and he kept
looking at me and he's like, we'll go to check Mandy Machado. What's
going on with Mandy Machado here? And I'm like, yeah, you're not
wrong, But he just had offseason tennis elbow surgery. That's probably fine,
but he has a surgery that I don't like, having an elbow surgery,
and that could push him into missing up to a month, and that I
think is where the big concern is. But he definitely underperformed two sixty eight
Babbitt. It was the second lowest of his career and thirty points below his
career average numbers, so not only like the second lowest of his career,
but over his overall numbers in there as well. Ground ball rate went up
a bit, fly ball rate went down that's not super awesome, and the
hard hit percentage dropped. All things you could theoretically maybe say are pointing to
that elbow, and he got that fixed. So the discount is what intrigues
me here because I still do think he's a very talented player, but there
are some underlying things that loom around him. Plus, drafting a player that
is injured going into the season has been a really big faux pas. I
just don't love to do. But he's in the seventies right now as far
as ADP go. Yeah, I just hate it, man. I hate
taking a guy that you see nothing of the entire offseason and all you're getting
is reports about, you know, him recovering from his injury. And this
is a guy that was on the bad side of the splits. Three zero
eight versus lefties, two forty one against righty's all adding up to a two
point fifty eight batting average. He's not getting on base on the ways.
When he does, he doesn't steal so the power numbers are always going to
be good for Machado, and he's a good hitter and he's amazing defensively,
so we know he's going to be out there every single game. But this
lineup is getting worse. You know, they just traded Sodo. It seems
like a teardown might be imminent fairly quickly for the Padres. Maybe they give
it a one year, one or two more year run and then he's going
to be off somewhere else and maybe in the twilight of his career. So,
you know, still a very very good player, but I don't I
do not want to walk into this season with the guy that I haven't seen
played so play or you know, maybe missing time. So if he comes
back and he plays in the spring, right wheels up, love Manny Machado,
he'll probably bump into that category that's just above him, or at least
that section. But the closer we get, the less likely it seems that
he is going to play, the less likely I am going to be to
take him. Yeah, and I will say my operating procedure for this is
going to be one of two things. I'm not going to focus on a
lot of the underlying stuff something I didn't mention as well. He also suffered
a fractured bone in his hand early in the season, and there's another reason
why some of this stuff can get sapped. But the thing I can't deny
is that is two different injuries. That is a fractured bone in your hand
and then his off season elbow surgery. As you're getting into your thirties,
that should be more of a concern for setbacks and maybe needing time to get
back right. So way that however you want, Like, I don't think
the decline Ish player is who he's going to be, hopefully not long term,
but at the same time, you got to consider those injuries and that's
that's what's looming, and that's why you're gonna see lower costs and stuff on
Manny Machado number. What number are we at, that's let's say four,
five, six, seven, This is eight. I guess Hassan Kim,
we already talked about him. You want to go listen to the second base
episode. You can do that did have seventeen homers, thirty eight stolen bases.
There were some big splits in there. He comes in right around the
exact same cost as Machado most likely being the person that would fill in for
him in that miss time, and then he would You know, they can
mess around with some different roster construction, things like they could move Kim to
third, and they can move him back to second. Crona Worth could play
some second while Kim is at third. They can know they got some FLEXI
hell yeah, Jackson Merril. They could bring up Jackson Merril for the first
month and keep cronin Worth at first. Kim could play third, and then
you could have Jackson Merril play second. Nol Riki, you can EASi even
be fifth exactly. I knew that was coming. I felt that coming here.
Nolan Aernaudo, we have two guys left in the top one hundred.
Nolan Aernado is one of those kind of piss poor comparative year hit two,
I shouldn stay pisp port. It really wasn't that that bad. But low
runs total scored seventy one, twenty six homers, hit two sixty six,
ninety three RBI three point fifteen, OBP four to fifty nine slug comparative to
the rest of the position. Pretty low, categorically on a lot of the
underlying stuff. He struggled with strikeouts. For him, he raised the strike
up percentage to sixteen point five, which was the second highest of his career,
but I'd point out that's like still incredibly low. He pulled the ball
at the highest of his career, which is nice, Yet his flyball percent
percentage fell to forty point five percent, So that tells me that's someone that
is like he is trying. He was trying to get the ball in the
air, and he might have pressed a little bit too much. He also
struggled versus left, his career worst against left. He's hitting two twenty though
he also struggled in the second half. Or though he struggled in the second
half of the year, hitting two forty three, he did finish strong overall,
hitting up two eighty three. Nineteen of his twenty six homers came in
that second half. So it's just a weird year. Some babbit struggles as
well. I just think he's exactly who we think he is. It's funny
I look at that box. Yeah, because his uh, his first couple
of years away, his first year away from CORES, everyone was like,
oh, the batting average is batting average. Then last year was two ninety
three, so you're like, okay, no, he's just good. And
then this year was back down to two sixty six. The power was a
little less, he walked fewer times, he struck out more, uh than
he ever has since what was that twenty fifteen. So it looks like,
you know, not being in cores and aging a little bit is starting to
creep up into Nolan Ernado. But you know, him having an amazing year
again this year would be no shock at all. The floor is very very
high, although it is sinking that That's what I would say for Nolan Aeronado.
You mentioned lefty righty splits. I assume those will get a little better.
But I mean he's human. That's what we're seeing from him now.
He's still a goodbye, still a high floor, but he is human and
he is starting to sink a little bit. Yeah. I was interested that,
like Paul Goldschmid took the off season to go work at drive Line and
why like a guy like Eronaudo maybe wouldn't as well, you know where,
like he found he knew what he wanted to do. He's like, oh,
I'm gonna start pulling the ball more. And he wasn't able to do
that, and he did struggle, Like I wonder if anything will rub off
or we'll get there. It's a great team context. The team itself just
presents really good numbers I expect. Look at projections here, I expect,
you know, the twenty five ish homers, eighty eighty to ninety on the
average of running RBI and like a two sixty average. Projections are kind of
the same. Twenty eight homer, ninety nine RBI, eighty three run with
a two to sixty batting average sixty three. I think batting average the RBI
are the second most projected. I didn't tell you many Machado's as well.
I'm a little bit surprised at this. They're projecting one hundred and fifty games,
thirty two homers, eighty six run, ninety nine RBI in a two
sixty nine batting average. I mean, you gave me one hundred and fifty
games on Manny Machado. I am game with this bounce back. I'm just
not sure that that's going to be the case. And that's Steamer projections.
If you guys care, Yeah, I mean, he he barely has missed
games in his career. So you know, it's been one hundred and sixty
two, one hundred and fifty seven, you know, even he played every
single game in twenty twenty, like, and then last year it's one hundred
and thirty eight and he has an injury going in. So yeah, two
remember fraction, and then you got the hand. He's fine. You know
by the time, I don't think we're worried about the hand. It's the
elbow we're worried about. Moving I am worried about that elbow. That's right.
Josh Young, who was vying at some point probably wouldn't have got it,
but was vying for that Rookie of the Year award. He is the
last of the top one hundred overall guys, and that makes it. I
don't know why math is hard for me. Six seven, eight nine.
That's the tenth third basement on here. We got to Josh Young. That's
actually not that bad. One hundred and twenty two games, twenty three homers,
seventy five runs, seventy rbi, a four to sixty seven slug with
a seven eighty one ops. Bad expect I mean, he's just not an
OBP guy. That number kind of struggles, but a lot of the other
like hard hit metrics are out there, but what do you got on Josh
Young? Yeah, Josh Young, lefty, big lefty, righty splits and
on the wrong side three twenty seven vers lefties, two forty seven against righty's.
He also faded down the stretch to eighty in the first half two twenty
nine in the second half. You know, he hit the rookie wall.
But the lineup is good. He's got power, I think him. I
think he compares pretty well to the guy right below him and Alex Bregman,
so I think that they're somewhat similar. With the bat in the numbers at
the end of the year, I think will be closed the same. Obviously
different types of players, but I think that they're probably fairly similar. So
I just big splits. This which is why he's lower than that top group,
is the big splits, because those become inconsistent and you might have some
wild swings because of it. Fractured thumb he suffered near the end of the
the end of the year, I believe it was in August. I think
that ended out his year. He hit well prior to the injury to eighty,
but once he returned. I believe from that him only two twenty nine
great hard hit stuff like the barrel percentage, hard hit percentage, slugging percentage
expected slug all top ten at third base. But the strikeouts were massive.
Struck out one hundred and fifty one times in one hundred and twenty two games.
No player struck out more in one hundred and twenty games played or more
at that position. Twenty nine point three percent strikeout rate was in the bottom
fourteenth percentile of the league. And his hitting profile is just weird, very
focused on inside pitches, destroyed pitches, hit above average on both as well
on the outside portion of the zone and the top of the zone. So
that's going to be something to you know, end up watching as far as
like what his approaches. He also had a good postseason. I mean,
he hit threeho eight no he did three twenty nine OBP, five thirty eight
slog. He had three bombs and eight RBI in the Rangers World Series run.
So you know, he did hit the rookie wall, but he pushed
through it in the postseason and had a great postseason. So don't forget about
that when we're looking at Josh Young. You mentioned Bregman, who's just like
right outside of it. One hundred and sixty one games, twenty five homers,
one hundred and three runs, ninety eight RBI. Those are not bad,
two sixty two batting average, and a couple notes I had on Bregman
because one thing like really ended up standing out obviously, like the decision making
is immense for him. The twelve percent strikeout rate, walked twelve point seven
percent of the time, which is crazy. He forced his pitch by the
way, to give him fastballs because he only hit one hundred and ninety eight
one ninety eight against sliders, So that was something that was like he just
wants to hit the fastball, and that can also be like a detriment to
him. He survives on pulling the ball, as every one of his twenty
twenty three homers came on his pulse side. And then from twenty seventeen this
this is now that now we're getting into the where the struggle was. From
twenty seventeen to twenty twenty two, Bregman had hit under had never hit under,
sorry, never hit under three hundred against lefties this year two fifteen.
So I'll repeat that because I kind of bumbled it twenty seventeen to twenty twenty
one. Bregman, that is what seventeen eighteen, nineteen twenty, that's five
seasons he had never hit under three hundred against lefties. Bam drops down to
two fifteen. What is that? In my mind, it's an outlier.
It's an outlier that I think kind of speaks to something that's probably not repeatable.
Yet he in all of those struggles, he's still like one hundred runs
and ninety three RB. Right, that is good to see, But I
don't think there is crazy big power because he he gets everything out of his
power by pulling the ball, which you have to do in Houston. But
also the lefty stuff doesn't seem like it's going to continue. So there might
be some more upside for Bregman this year, especially at that cost. Yeah,
I like these byes because you're buying Machado on a bounce back, you
know, like I said, let's see what happens with this injury, and
if he can get back before the season starts, that's it. That'll be
huge for him. But you're buying a bounce back on him. Great consistent
players. Same thing with Aeronato. Same thing with Bregmant, So I think,
you know, with Young you're buying potential, but the floor is already
pretty decent with him, and the lineup is great around him. So yes,
these are all good byes, you know, and there are some guys
beyond this that are good. But I just there is a cliff. I
feel like, specifically with the bat on, a lot of these third basemen
and a lot of these guys that are good with the glove are getting the
playing time below this group as well. So well, we're about to hit
the clip, and this is where this proverbial cliff hits. Even though this
is in like, I'm just gonna moove this because I just don't think this
guy belongs in that tier of player, but he does from an ADP standpoint,
Spencer Steer, So now we're going to kind of do some groups here.
This group is technically one oh six to one seventy eight. You had
properly designed it one fifty to one seventy. Steer's gonna fall a little bit
with the Candelario stuff. I don't know if that has changed like as of
recent drafts, But here is this group we're going to talk about Spencer Steer
twenty three homers, fifteen stolen bases, seventy four runs, eighty six rbi,
a three fifty six OBP. That two seventy one batting average great,
but now there are some questions about his playing time. Also, the next
guy is another Red welv Marte. Three Reds players qualifying at third base.
There's actually four when you add Candelario uelvi Marte didn't play a ton, six
stolen bases, three homers, three sixty six OBP and a three to sixteen
average. People betting on the playing time being there, even though I think
that's in question. Alec Boehm is on this list one hundred and forty five
games, twenty homers on a two seventy four batting average, seventy four run
stinks, ninety seven rbi, the second most or third most rbi of anybody
on this list. But that is an elite ish number. But he's a
low OBP guy and really no good barreler hard hit numbers like there is with
Jake Berger, who comes in at one sixty five. I know, thirty
four homers, two fifty average, three on nine OBP, eighty rbi,
seventy one runs in one hundred and forty one games. The last three key
Brian Hayes, who hit two seventy one with fifteen homers, ten stolen bases.
Again, another low OBP guy. You've got Max Munci thirty six homers,
one hundred and five rbi, which I believe were tops at the position,
ninety five runs, but he only hit two twelve which stunk. He
he did have a three thirteen OBP over one hundred point difference. And then
finally Esoch Paratees, who played one hundred and forty three games, hit thirty
one homers with a two to fifty batting average, ninety eight rbi. Very
good OBP, very bad expected numbers that tell. So that's a lot of
guys. I just threw it you. There's are seven players that encompass one
hundred to two hundred here. There's a couple obviously that are likable, and
I think there's a couple that are avoids for me. But why don't you
give us some stats on some of these players? Yeah, I mean to
start with Spencer steerre as you mentioned, twenty fifth biggest negative difference between what
he actually slugged at four sixty four and has expected slug at four seventeen,
so he was expected to slug way less forty seven points less last year.
Also, big lefty righting splits three thirteen versus lefties two fifty six verst righties,
but he still had twenty three bombs and fifteen swipes right three fifty six
obp. The numbers are middling, not a lot of hard hit in barrel
percentage stuff. His average is fine, is slugging is fine, even though
there was a big negative difference. It's just a little below average. But
roster resource has him hitting third, right in the mid smack dab in the
middle of that Red's lineup, and playing left field every day. So if
that's gonna be the case, a guy that can run and steal in a
good ballpark in this lineup is getting better. This is why he's going near
Alex Bregman and all of those guys, is for that opportunity to be a
guy that can have power and steal and hit in the middle of that lineup
in that good ballpark position. Flexible. He was flexible very much multiple spots,
which is really nice. And having a guy that you can move around
is in there. Let's just jump over to Burger for a second, because
Burger's fascinating on this list. Sixth hardest hit ball of the year one eighteen
point two. Let me give you a couple more crazy, I got a
couple more. Six in max exit Velo like you said. Seventh in Barrel's
per plate appearance percentage ten point seven percent, twenty third and hard hit percentage
in the league forty nine point six percent, almost fifty percent of his hits
are hit hard. Nineteenth in slugging, twenty fourth in expected slugging. This
guy was outstanding. He had big splits. Home and away was three zero
five to one ninety eight two twenty verse two seventy nine in the first and
second half. But thirty four bombs. You're getting nothing. I mean,
we watched him Terry's achilles, uh, you know, playing for the White
Sox in spring training one year. So you're getting nothing from him stealing.
He's a big boy. He ain't gonna steal. He had one. Uh,
but the power is there. Uh. The underlying numbers are very good
for him, and he's an everyday player. So there's a lot to like
about shake Berger. Yeah, he got a lot better to he hit just
two fourteen when he was with the White Sox. He then hit three oh
three and fifty three games with Miami un lockedown. I'll also say this,
he was one of only sixteen players in all of MLB to have a five
hundred plus slugging percentage and a five hundred plus expected slugging percentage. Oh,
by the way, underperformed his batting average an XBA of two seventy, so
he hit two fifty expected to seventy. We'll have to see, like,
you know, where it goes full time when he's you know, solely in
Miami. But you know, if you're talking from a late power thing,
I'm very I think like projections don't like him this year as much. It's
actually the power is way down twenty seven, but they have him still hitting
two fifty to forty nine. To be exact, if I'm looking for that
late power, this is a guy that I'm targeting because he also underperformed some
of his stats and has insane outliers for the hard hit and he's going to
hit in a prime spot. Yeah, that's why you look at him at
one sixty and I go all right, well, you know, if I
went high speed, I go to him, or if I went the high
power guys like we talked about, and then I went really hyper focused on
speed, I needed to come back onto the power. Jake Berger's a guy
I'm gonna look at it absolutely and you look at the lineup ahead of him,
it's good. Behind him, we'll make you queasy. But if he's
cleaning up in front of a rise Bell and Jazz Chisholm, that's a good
three to be driving in. And you know rises on baits almost every time.
So uh so it looks like Burger is gonna get it in at batana
first inning almost every single game. So yeah, I mean, Burger is
a very very good option if you have weighted and you need power. For
sure, Pariates is gonna be a really interesting one. He's in a lot
of trade rumors. He's one of the weirdest he had so check this out.
His home runs and RBI ranked inside the top five at third base.
He did this while putting up the lowest qualified hard hit percentage of any of
these guys at twenty eight point three percent. But what did he do?
He had the highest launch angle of any third basement twenty two point two degrees
and what do you do with a high launch angle? You pull the ball
and guess what. He had the biggest pull rate of anyone at the position
at fifty four point five percent of the time. He overperformed almost like across
the board, like his expected stats. But this is a guy who a
doesn't hit the ball hard, but knows exactly how to do it. So
I pay attention to where he goes, Like those rumors of him going to
Seattle. There's not great ballpark factors necessarily in Seattle, so we probably want
to dig in a little bit more to like how is he going to do
pulling the ball there? But what we know is he gets the ball in
the freaking air and he pulls the crap out of it. So like if
you were go to Houston, I'd be like, that's pretty sweet actually,
because we know Bregman can do that. So just pay attention to the ballpark
factors. But he's weird because it is bad quality of contact kind of if
you look at it. Yet he knows how to just absolutely maximize every little
bit of his game. So I thought he was Yeah, when he hits
it, he hits the s out of it. But when he doesn't hit
the s out of it. He ain't hitting it at all. That's really
the thing. To seventeenth worst max exit velocity among qualified players in the league,
and that's out of two hundred fifty eighties to forty one, sixteenth worst,
and a hard hit percentage as you mentioned, twenty eight and a half
percent. He had the second biggest negative difference between his x slug and slug
it was one hundred and forty six points, and the third biggest negative difference
in his wOBA to ex wOBA by forty seven points. So the underlying numbers
are just strange. They're very, very weird for him, as you mentioned.
And Tampa Bay not the best spot to be in for a guy like
him, especially when you know they have the guys that they can play at
third now and I could see him being very very platooned. So why don't
think he'll be on the team. So hopefully he's gone, yeah, and
hopefully it's a spot that you mentioned, But if he goes somewhere that isn't
pole friendly, he's probably not gonna be a very good player. So a
player, so I'm not like super into him. I like that he maximizes
it, but I think they're as every system is going to think there's major
aggression the other one, the last one in this tier at least I'll talk
about just like Alec Bohm. Alec Bohm to me is all the stuff that
Bregman does, but like worse. And what I'm saying about that is like
he gets on base. He's a good contact hitter, which is great.
You got to like that he doesn't strike out as well. That's a huge
positive for him that he is. He's improved that he had a higher expected
batting average. In his actual batting average, he had a two to eighty
seven XBA, which ranked second among all qualified third basemen. He lowered a
strikeout rate to fifteen point four percent, which was the third lowest, only
behind Hoser Ramirez and Bregman. But five point seven percent barrel rate, forty
one percent hard hit rate. That's not great. He doesn't want to be
beat by offspeed breaking pitches, which hurts his ability to hit fastballs. And
then here's this on the home run standpoint, seven of his twenty homers were
stat cast labeled doubters, which indicated it would have only been a home run
in one to seven ballparks. So if you take twenty homers and you make
was that thirty five forty percent of them potential doubters. I just don't like
the possibility with also low hard hit rates and stuff like that in barrel rates
for you to really increase that number. So I tend to start to think
maybe he's capped around that twenty marker, great points leagues, doesn't strike out,
gets good batting average and stuff. I'm not super interested yet he had
like almost one hundred rbi because this is that, like you put a guy
in a really great offense so he can get RBI totals. But I'm not
enamored with Bohm. And those were some of the reasons why I think that
the comparison to Bregman is perfect, honestly, because these guys aren't They're not
gonna hit the crap out of the ball, but they are going to hit
the ball. I mean, Alec Bohm was eighteenth in the league and expected
batting average and that was to ninety. That was sixteen points better four.
So he hits the ball. It's not always hard, but he's always always
making good contact. And because he's always making good contact, sometimes the ball
is gonna fly out, specifically when you play in a lineup or not in
the lineup, but in a ballpark like Citizens Bank, and in a lineup
that is going to turn over a decent amount. So I think the floor
is very high with Boem. But I think if you look these numbers and
want a little bit extra, like you said, you're probably not getting more.
This is probably what it is. Maybe there's a little bit more power
in there, just because power is one of the final tools to develop fully
for most of these guys, but you can't go in expecting it. The
only other guy I want to talk about in this range is Key Brian Hayes,
and I just want to ask you one question about him. Is it
worth it to draft him? The ADP is what one sixty eight one sixty
eight, But I mean he was in and out of that lineup, and
it seemed like that. I mean there was at least one time or he
came off the il, played half a game and then immediately went back to
the al. The guy cannot stay on the field, and when he is
on the field, he's not one hundred percent. It's just he's incredibly frustrating.
And everything you say about the good ballpark factors with you know, Boem
and Bregman, it's the opposite for him. The lineup's bad. The ballpark
is okay, it's probably middling, but the lineup is so bad, I
just I don't know if it's even worth rostering Key Brian Hayes. Most of
the time, I probably fall in again. It posts like pretty good hard
hit numbers, a good batting average, stolen bases, of their low strikeouts.
One of the reasons I'm a little bit enamored me and you know,
I've talked about him, because it's like the underlying stuff gets you excited.
He finally started pulling the ball, raised his pole percentage by four percent.
It's still too low, way too low, thirty one percent, but like,
if you start to do that with those hard hit numbers, it's gonna
have good results. That lowered his ground ball rate dramatically, which you really
you really need to start seeing, and I wonder if those changes are going
to kind of move over. He finished the year strong also. He hit
two ninety nine. Ten of his homers came in just forty nine games,
versus the two fifty average, with five homers in the first seventy two games.
So my point is is, like the poll rate started to happen,
results started to get there, he also steals bases. I just don't think
it's and then he's the realm of yeah no, But I just don't think
it's a out of realm of possibility that we finally get that like twenty five
fifteen to twenty five twenty type of season from him. I'm not saying it's
going to happen, but I'll probably fall in, you know, if I'm
looking for the cheaper stolen bases and if he if he gives me a little
bit of like value, yeah, let's see him do it. Let's see
him get traded to the Mets and do it there. That's what I want.
The last group that will focus on gets us into the three hundred Ryan
McMahon twenty three homers to forty batting average in Colorado this past year. We're
starting in the two twenties. This guy, if I bet if we were
if we looked right now, actually, while I'm going through these, we
look at this, yeh NFBC do like January fifteenth on because Junior Camonaro has
a two twenty eight obi uh obb to twenty eight NFBC Draft. I bet
you that's closer to one to eighty to one. Well, I mean you
November fifteenth, on right, he said, Yeah, what did I say?
I'm sorry, I meant November. Yeah, that's exactly you know,
you know how to decipher my brain. Okay, okay. I was just
like, oh, we're looking November November fifteenth like the last month, so
let me get through these and then tell us what it is. But he's
hit the numbers through the roof. As far as what he did in the
miners, he was one of the He was the only teenager to hit thirty
plus homers. He hit like five more in the Dominican Winner League. He
didn't have this insane great debut, but he is an elite hitter. Mikel
Garcia very interesting one, actually hits the ball really hard. Only four homers
though twenty three stolen bases in one hundred and twenty three games. We got
Matt Chapman, who doesn't have a home yet, seventeen homers, one of
the worst years he's had statistically, but through the roof hard hit numbers.
Jamer Candelario is going to move up because he's now with Cincinnati He ended up
having twenty two homers, seventy seven runs, seventy RBIs with a two to
fifty one batting average. Johannio Suarez comes to Arizona after hitting twenty two homers
with ninety six rbi B batting average. Though, then you got Willie Castro
and Luis Ringuifo Rnguifo coming back from injury. So you can see how far
back that really pulls. What is that ADP on kemen arow two thirty three?
So it actually lowered? Oh so I was completely wrong, all right?
Now do it real quick? Now do it December first? On December
first, on okay, I mean give me one draft where he was drafted
really hot, all right? Oh? I yeah, And then I'll also
look at his max and all that. I'm surprised he hasn't topped the top
two hundred then an average. Yeah, I mean, I think people are
just questioning to eighteen his highest draft spot is. That's only fifteen drafts.
By the way, since December first, he did go one to fifty nine
as his high so and it looks like the only other guy up to two
oh eight drafted in the top one sixty was who is that Canoah, I'll
give you perspective. Quite a few people are gonna have Camonaro. As there
is a top twelve third basement this year. It's not showing up here.
The twelfth third basement on NFBC is technically nouelvie Marte. At one fifty three,
you want to take off a couple of guys because of positional stuff.
You're still looking at the one sixties. That's where camon Aro's gonna go as
it moves on. If he is guaranteed the job, I think he'll crack
the top one fifty just because the power is elite. The bat is in
the top end. He's not a big strikeout guy who's made improvements like that's
where he's gonna go. Camon Aro is named the everyday third baseman him herick
to Alec Bohm, who do you want Camonaro? Okay, Cameron Aro versus
nouelvie Marte. That one's tough because of stolen bases. I don't believe a
lot of that, So I actually will go Cameron Aro and Spencer Steer Michael
Cameronaro too, Okay, So I mean you wouldn't take him over Bregman,
would you know, Okay, well that's the line then, because Bregman is
a one O two spears six, you know that's the line. I am
my initial ranks I haven't posed yet. I actually do have them above Bregman
right now, you really, I just noticed that I do. I have
them above. I have them let's say three, four or five. Let's
see six seventy. Do you have him ahead of Young? I have him
at twelve, I have him at twelve. Do you have him ahead of
Josh Young? I don't. Okay, yeah, well then that would be
the line. But that would also so that is a possibility, like you
know, I outside of that, outside of Cam and Arrow in this group,
though, I mean, who else excites you? I think Matt Chapman's
destination could be interesting, you know again, like really good hard hit numbers,
maybe in a good ballpark like its like I had thought he would go
to Arizona before Johnnyo got drafted, So I thought, that's one mikel Garcia.
If I'm chasing stolen bases, there are some like pretty solid underlying stats
that support him. The lineup kind of stinks, but if he's hitting at
the top, I could get down with him, and then you know,
Candelario's in an awesome ballpark. Like I said, the only ballpark that he
had expected thirty plus homers in last year would have been Cincinnati if he played
all his games. That's friendly, and he should have every day playing time.
And there's always the chance you Haineo Suarez can pick up the batting average
a bit in Arizona. It's kind of a hitter friendly environment. So I
mean, I gave you there's technically five players I could get down with outside
of Camanaro. None is a starting third basement right this Again, that's a
rank thing we'll get into. But these are like corner infielders, and I
think they belong mostly as corner infielders, but there are category chases. Jamer
might be one of the more complete players. You know, Hanio's power,
Chapman his power, mikel. Garcia is stolen bases, and Kemnaro lives in
the world of the upside, not mentioning Ryan McMahon, who has the best
ballpark factor in here, and he's actually kind of fine. Twenty three homers,
eighty runs, seventy RBI two forty you can manage that in kind of
deeper league corner infield for him. But only Kevin Arrow is a starter out
of this group in my eyes. Yeah, and you know, just looking
more and more, there are there are fifteen to me, even in a
fifteen man league, there are fifteen acceptable starting third basement and the rest,
you know, the rest of these guys you need to put in the you
know, CI conversation and so. But if you skip that spot because some
of these guys aren't good enough for there's better players around, it just looks
ugly. I don't want to be starting Estoc Paratus or Max Munci or even
Matt Chapman, who could improve. I don't want those guys. And honestly,
if I don't want them at third, there's enough good first baseman at
CI to where I I don't want them at CI either. Maybe I want
them if I've waited on third and I've drafted a third basement later, so
I have someone like just in case that person falls off the cliff, I
have someone waiting in the wings. I have a backup, I have a
plan, you know what I mean. But for the most part, I
don't want, you know, one of these guys on my bench. Maybe
but don't I just don't want these guys Ryan McMahon, mikel Garcia, Chapman,
Candy, even Suarez who could improve show me the improvements. Great,
then I want you, but I don't want to go into the I don't
want these guys on my roster for the most part. Well, we'll explore
that when we get into the ranks into February or so. Where we are
going to do you guys, you kind of have to make those decisions.
Now. Luckily there are if you're doing like NFBC based drafts, but you'll
have some time to ruminate on that. But luckily, there are quite a
few players in the top end that qualify at other positions that you probably would
prioritize them as a third baseman because the position is kind of it's kind of
wonky a little bit, and you probably want to invest early win possible.
Doesn't mean you have to have Riley or Devers, but you know you're gonna
start getting down to having to take Aeronaudo's maybe a decent floor Machado if healthy.
But you know, we laid it out for you. You guys make
those decisions, and you can also be on the lookout here shortly for the
Fantasy Black Book, which is going to be coming out, which you'll get
to read all of my profiles. One more thing on third basement before we
go, Welsh, Are there any prospects that you see could sneakily make an
opening day roster. We do have this new rule that teams are trying to
take advantage of, and you know, maybe someone starting on the opening day
roster would be big towards them getting into the AL and L Rookie of the
Year race. Yeah, so Kevin Arrow's the number one prospects. Noelvie's right
there. I'd also say, like, you never know, Lawler could get
there, but he doesn't qualify a third. There are two that I think
are worth paying attention to. Number one, Colt Keith. Colt Keith played
more third base, but he might come up as a second baseman. They've
got multiple spots. He would be somebody in deeper leagues I pay attention to
if given a roster spot, you want him. He hit three h six
with twenty seven homers last season across two levels. He hit three twenty five
at Double A and two eighty seven at Triple A. Strikeout numbers aren't overly
worrisome. He doesn't run a bunch. He's not a great defender at third
watching him in the AFL, so I think he could go to second,
but that might be thirty homers at second base, Colt Keith pay attention to,
especially as you've got Riley Green and Spencer Torkelsen trending in the right direction.
The other one this could even potentially be on another team is Kobe Mayo,
who has I've really turned a corner on as far as like my love
of wanting to invest in Kobe Mayo. The hard hit numbers are crazy.
I mean, I'll just give you a couple of things I had written down.
He had his forty five doubles led all of minor league baseball in Triple
A. This according to Prospects Lives Triple A batabal data, he had a
one to twelve max EV, a ninety one point six average exit velocity,
a fifty one point five percent hard hit rate, and a nine point five
barrel percent right and he finished the year hitting two ninety with twenty nine homers.
I think Kobe Mayo could push that elite level stuff. The problem is
he is blocked at in Baltimore. So if Baltimore decided to like move a
Kurstad and Westburg and stuff like that, that might open up. Mayo can
be a third or a first baseman, or he could be the cog of
another trade. Those jump out to me as the top guys the others to
pay attention to. Justin Henry Malloy maybe a kind of a utility player would
probably come up as an outfielder. Graham Pall with the Padres, who we
just saw in the Arizona Fall League, has huge power. Brian Ramos is
getting closer and this could be the year with the White Sox and they they're
dismantling of the rosters, and then the well, there's a couple of deeper
ones. Austin Shenton with Tampa Bay. They he might be the reason why
they can also get rid of a guy like Esak Paratees. But I have
one other I have to throw it too, sorry now that I'm looking at
it. Davisondalla Santo's he got claimed to the Rule five draft by the Guardians
by virtue of them claiming him. He's got to be on that roster,
right, they would theoretically put him up. He is someone that could get
there. One of my favorites, though I don't know how he would get
playing time, but you know, from like an age level perspective, we
might be getting there. But he just played in the Arizona Follage. He
finished second in the home run derby. He had twenty games on Triple A.
I'm talking about Damiano Palmagiani, who is affectionately nicknamed Cheese. Huge,
huge hard hit numbers for him, very impressive. I'm talking like, let
me see if I can pull up my neck now. He was in the
home runner. Didn't he win the AFL. No, he was in the
final second. Yeah, he finished second. But check this out. Those
were his Triple A numbers one O nine max ev. He had a ninety
four average exit velocity, his triple A fifty six percent hard hit rate,
and a ten point four percent barrel rate. It was over a shorter sample
size those over twenty games while he was at triple A, but he hit
better at Triple A than double A. So I throw that out to you
to say that Palmagiani might be a real dude and he already hit a triple
A. Those are guys at some point in the season we would probably pay
attention to. Maybe we'll have some more insight when spring training comes and I'll
be able to rank them are more aggressively. But that's a group of third
basemen that you could potentially be on the lookout for at the position. And
those are some underlying stats for you guys. So just looking at the depth
charts and stuff, a couple teams that could use the third baseman. I
think the Yankees need to figure something out. Who is it going to be
over there? Because right now we have DJ Mayhew listed as the starting third.
They've already committed they're committing to that, so all right, well,
I mean I don't know if his body is going to commit to that,
So we'll see what happens there Toronto. Right now it's between Espinall and Bigio.
That's Domiono. That that's an interesting case. Detroit, as you mentioned,
Colt, Keith, Possibility, Verling and McKinstry are the other guys listed.
I mean, Oakland's doing nothing so they can be ignored. Seattle has
Urius, Moore and Rojas competing for a starting spot. We mentioned the Mets
earlier. Washington signed Nick Senzel. Is he the answer at third? Is
a Carter Key boom. I don't know what's going to happen there, and
then the Brewers with Monasterio, Owen Miller, maybe Tyler Black gets it.
Just a couple teams looking for third basement as well. So yeah, there's
there's some options out there. So that's how we profile them. You guys
make your decisions and we'll lead these into the new year when we are talking
ranks. So hopefully you guys enjoyed that episode because coming up next Outfield Profile
Files, oh Bully Outfield, and then pictures to do. Yeah, as
we have a lot of profiles to kind of get under my belt here as
well. We got Outfield and starting Picture coming up in the next two weeks,
so that should be a lot of fun and that will end oubt our
profile series when we're going to get into the full spectrum of mock drafts and
prepped episodes and some other Closter ques. Well yes, yeah, well,
well, one of the things we talked about will have it finalized. There's
a couple of things coming down the pike that you guys are all going to
be very interested in. But one of the things we have been talking about,
I think we've mentioned here is having either like a weekly or at least
monthly Patreon only podcast that's answering questions. It might be as simple as twenty
minutes, but we would literally do a pod just for Patreon answering the questions,
and we'd have a thing lined up there. So that's something to be
on the lookout for Christmas special in a couple of weeks. Ranks all the
other stuff go to in this league dot com and we appreciate you because you're
supporting us, and that is like the coolest thing on the planet. For
Bogman on Twitter at Bogman's Sports. You can find me at is It the
Welsh that'll do it for the third base profiles and we'll talk to you next
week. Right here, I'm in this leak fantasy baseball podcast base Friends Sawyer
mm hmm.