2021 Points League Rankings - Third Base

March 19, 2021

Nicklaus Gaut breaks down his 2021 fantasy baseball H2H points league rankings at third base. These 3B tiered ranks are for head-to-head points leagues.

It's Friday and that can only mean one thing...More hot points action coming straight at you.

So let's do some point ranks, shall we? If you've forgotten from last year, I have strong opinions on point leagues. TL;DR? You can't just transfer over value from roto and you can't just take players with good BB/K ratios. You must make your values based on your specific rule and not assume that someone who is good in one scoring system will hold the same value as in another system. If you don't, you'll be behind from jump street. Or, at least you won't be as set up for success as you could be.

We've been going around the horn in terms of general athleticness and after covering shortstop and second base, it's time to avoid getting burned by the hot corner. And how do we do that? By shooting a Seager on a silver bullet right up near the top-100, of course! Let's get weird.

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Methodology and Common Terms

If you've already been reading along at home, feel free to skip ahead to the ranks. If not; welcome!

I'll mention this often ( and have mentioned it often); player values can vary wildly depending on your individual league settings. Whether using the standard scoring of the major platforms (ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, Fantrax) or custom setting, understanding how players score in your system and how roster sizes affect value is supremely important. The more you leverage this understanding, the more powerful the position you'll be starting from.

Here are the standard roster settings on the aforementioned platforms:

Here are standard scoring settings on the aforementioned platforms:

Hitters

With values varying, it can make doing a general point ranking a little tricky. For example, Ronald Acuna Jr. is a top-five player for me on every platform besides ESPN, where I'd probably put him closer to #20. That's a big swing. So what I've done is to use a "generic" point system as a baseline for doing ranks, as well as talking about per-PA scoring rates. It gives the one-point per-base that all systems generally use, with two points for stolen bases and -.25 points for a strikeout.

This gives us a common baseline so we're at least speaking close to the same language, no matter your platform. But if you're on ESPN, know that you'll need to make heavier adjustments for speed/high K% players.

General System notes

• Yahoo started mirroring their scoring to their daily fantasy game, making the scoring wildly different than other platforms.
• ESPN (-1) and CBS (-.5) both subtract points for strikeouts. This is a monster difference and must be properly accounted for. Take Ronald Acuna Jr. versus Juan Soto in 2019, as an example of the difference over a full season. Acuna had a 26.6% K%, while Soto posted a 20.0% K%. That translated to 188 strikeouts for Acuna and 132 SO for Soto, putting Acuna in a 56-point hole under ESPN scoring. That's a big difference.
• ESPN only gives one point per stolen base. The more a player's value depends on stolen bases (in other scoring formats, as well as roto), the more their value will take a negative hit on ESPN. It's not as an extreme difference as the strikeout scoring but still needs to be accounted for.
• Players who steal a lot of bases and strikeout a lot are going to take big hits on ESPN. Adalberto Mondesi is the most extreme example of players who are essentially not draftable on ESPN when comparing their scoring to likely ADP. But  Jonathan Villar is in a similar boat, as is the aforementioned Acuna Jr. Let's just say that if you see an ESPN point rankings that have Acuna Jr. in the top-10, you should run away.

Data Notes

• Statcast data is taken from EV Analytics and can be slightly different from Baseball Savant due to EV's own methodology. From their glossary:

Note: Statcast stats are calculated live by in-ballpark cameras and radar. These occasionally fail to record data on certain batted balls. All data and projections displayed at EV Analytics that rely on Statcast data identify these missed balls and estimate what they should have been. Internal tests showed this to be slightly more accurate than either ignoring the missing data or using MLB's.

• Barrel - From MLB.com:

"The Barrel classification is assigned to batted-ball events whose comparable hit types (in terms of exit velocity and launch angle) have led to a minimum .500 batting average and 1.500 slugging percentage since Statcast was implemented in 2015. 

To be Barreled, a batted ball requires an exit velocity of at least 98 mph. At that speed, balls struck with a launch angle between 26-30 degrees always garner Barreled classification. For every mph over 98, the range of launch angles expands."

Common Terms

• Barrel% - Barrels per batted-ball event
• Air% - total percent of balls hit in the air (fly balls + line drives)
• Air% average EV - average exit velocity of non-groundballs
• Air % 100+ mph- the percentage of balls hit in the air that had an exit velocity of 100 mph or greater.
• Average EV Top-5% - The average exit-velocity of a player's top-5% hardest-hit balls.
• Average EV Next-20% - The average exit velocity of the next 20% of hardest-hit balls.

In addition to rankings, the charts include how players have scored the last three years in the generic scoring system, as well as what I am currently projecting for 2021. Also included in 2019-20 strikeout rates to better help those who play in leagues where they are punished, make adjustments, as well as wOBA and xwOBA for 2020.

Third Base Rankings

Tier One

Jose Ramirez took a year off from being totally amazing in 2019 (.334 wOBA, 104 wRC+) but was right back at it in 2020. Ramirez slashed .292/.386/.607 over 254 PA, with 17 HR, 46 RBI, and 45 runs scored, finishing with a .415 wOBA and 163 wRC+. But honestly, Ramirez really wasn't that awful for points in 2019, he was only bad by the standards he'd previously set:

Cleveland has continued to purge talent in the offseason and fears that Ramirez's value will take a hit without Francisco Lindor sharing the lineup with him. But while Cleveland won't be able to completely fill the Lindor-sized hole in the order, I don't think Andres Gimenez is so awful (in fact, I kind of think the opposite) as to put a significant drag on what Ramirez will do under most scoring systems.

Try not to get too distracted by the .259 and .256 averages that Manny Machado put up in 2017 and 2019; Machado is continually an offensive force and I don't see any reason to assume otherwise in 2021. Machado posted a .385 wOBA and 168 wRC+ that were both career-highs, with a .063 HR per-PA that was also his high mark:

I'm not necessarily on board with the power-spike continuing, as Machado has seen his Air% exit velocities drop over the past few seasons. However, maybe the home run surge wasn't a total illusion, as increases in Pull% and 38+ LA% (percentage of launch angles of 38-degrees, or more, which is indicative of more uppercut swings that can increase home runs but also drag down batting average) may indicate that Machado was selling out more for power:

Regardless of whether the home run spike continues, I'm still in, as even the worst version of Machado is going to be good for 30+ HR. And with Fernando Tatis Jr. and Trent Grisham preceding him in the order and a host of solid hitters behind him, any hit taken by fewer dongs should be balanced by the other counting stats. Not to mention his above-average walk-rate (10.2% in 2020) and elite K% (14.6% in 2020) that already help make him a point league superstar.

What to do with Nolan Arenado? Normally, the answer would be "take him at the end of the first round, lock in automatic first-round value". You know, because Arenado is a stud hitter and happens to play half of his games at a thin-aired launching pad? But just like many of us, 2020 punched Arenado right in the eye...And basically everywhere else besides his glove and K-rate:

Welp. That wasn't great. And unlike the aforementioned Jose Ramirez (who still did well in points, compared to roto, in his down year of 2019), Arenado's rate of scoring tanked right along with everything else:

His .69 pts/pa represented a 25% decrease from recent seasons, giving him a rate of scoring that was only just behind those of Rio Ruiz and Yoshitomo Tsutsugo. Wooo-ooof. Add that horrible year to trade rumors that will continue to persist and you have a fantasy community wary to pay a high price for someone who might not get the Coors effect all season.

Count me not among the wary, and will gladly salivate in drafts where his early-30's ADP holds true. I'm counting on Arenado to return to his aggression from previous seasons, particularly in the strike zone, where he fell back to league average in 2020:

Maybe we're past the MVP-candidate version and I certainly wouldn't love a trade away from Colorado but even a lesser version is going to be a high-level accumulator, with Arenado reaching at least 662 PA from 2015-19. If he reaches 660 PA again, even at last year's scoring rate of .69 pts/pa, Arenado would be a top-60 player. But if he does what Depth Charts is projecting (and I'm slightly more bullish), he's in the top-25.

Relative to his draft price, Anthony Rendon was a roto-bust in 2020, finishing as the ninth-best third baseman according to the Fangraphs auction calculator, sandwiched between BrIan Anderson and Jeimer Candelario. However, under our generic scoring system, Rendon finished fourth-best at the position and the #55 hitter overall. Still not what players were hoping for after needing to use a top-three pick to draft in 2020 (24 ADP in NFBC) but just shows that even a lesser Rendon can crush points.

We might not see the peak-Rendon from 2019 again but he's long carried elite scoring rates. Even if he only matches his rate in 2020, he'll be a top-30 scorer:

Tier Two

As much as I love talking trash on players who might not be as good now that they don't know when a fastball is coming, we can't go too far with Alex Bregman. He has an elite K% and BB% every year while piling on plate-appearances. Sometimes that's all you need to slay in points:

Wait, what is Eugenio Suarez doing all the way up at #45? Suarez had a 28.5% K% in 2019 and a 29.0% K% in 2020...He's a whiffer! And you've made it clear that you want to avoid whiffers in point leagues, right? Well, no; at least not if you're in a league that doesn't punish strikeouts. In points, it's all about knowing how the totality of a player's scoring profile fits into a particular scoring system. And while Suarez may be a whiffer, he also consistently posts elite scoring rates:

Nothing is screaming out to me that Suarez's rate of scoring in 2021 will be that much different than in the past. My projections have him at .751 pts/pa, which, given the 650 PA  that he's usually good for, makes Suarez a top-50 player for me.

We're going back-to-back with players who I think will far outshine their draft price, as Matt Chapman near a 12o ADP on NFBC after a 91 ADP in 2020 (and was closer to the top-75 in later drafts). So, we're dropping last year's hotness 40-50 spots essentially because he missed the last three weeks of the season with a torn labrum in his hip. Ok, but...

Yes, Chapman had a career-high 35.5% K% and career-low 5.3% BB% but I'm betting on that being more of a function of the short season rather than a decrease in his skills profile. Call me crazy but I'm trusting 1764 PA over 152 PA:

And even with a Sano-esque 35.5% K%, Chapman still only saw a slight decrease in his 2020 scoring rate, compared to 2019:

Putting aside his plate-discipline, let's not forget how much Chapman mashed in 2020. His .066 HR per-PA, .303 ISO, .535 SLG, .539 xSLG, .496 xwOBAcon, and 51.7% Hard Hit% were all career-highs. And Chapman's 18.0% Brl% and 58.0% Air% 100+ mph (two of the best predictors of future power) were also career-highs, both finishing in the 99th-percentile. Just absolutely mashing baseballs.

Tier Three

There were a lot of ugly things in Yoan Moncada's 2020 and I'm not just talking about this monstrosity of blues:

Because digging deeper into his exit velocities, Moncada's 33.1% Hard Hit% (down from 47.9%) was even worse than it looked:

I doubt I'll be targeting Moncada in drafts, given his top-90 ADP, but also don't think he's due for a repeat performance of 2020. Because I'm taking his word on how much his body suffered following his recovery from COVID-19 over the summer and am happy to give a pass on his exit-velocity troubles.

Let's not kid ourselves believing that Alec Bohm will repeat the .338 AVG (.286 xBA) he posted over 180 PA. Something in the .275 range is a lot more likely but Bohm also has a below-average K%, plays in one of baseball's best hitting parks, and will bat near the middle of a solid Phillies lineup, currently penciled in between Andrew McCutchen and Bryce Harper.

Tier Four

Who is leading off in Tier Four, coming in at #107-overall? Why Kyle Seager, of course! That's right; not Corey but Kyle, he of the 270 ADP and boring profile. What time is it? Stop. Kyle-Time.

Seager scored .822 pts/pa in 2020 (just higher than the aforementioned .816 pts/pa put up by Anthony Rendon), a year after a rate of .751 pts/pa in 2019. But I don't need Kyle to put his 2020 numbers again, or even 2019. All Seager needs to do in order to finish near the top-100 in value is to hit .70 pts/pa and reach somewhere near 620 PA. So basically, something he's done a few times before:

Taking a look at the recently released BATx projections, maybe I'm even low on Seager, as it projects him to score .723 pts/pa over 643 PA. Those projections would make Seager the #62-overall scorer. Once again; not Corey. His name is Kyle.

Yet another Detroit Tiger that I love compared to his price, Jeimer Candelario (250 ADP) isn't getting nearly enough respect following his breakout 2020. Candelario slashed .297/.369/.503, with a .373 wOBA and 137 wRC+, averaging 0.79 pts/pa and finishing as the ninth-highest scoring third baseman.

While I don't think he'll reach those heights again, Candelario has a full-time job and will bat in the middle of the order. Plus, his exit velocity increases may portend another power increase after he averaged .034 HR per-PA - up from .021 hr/pa in 2019 and .031 in 2018:

In our latest entry from the Kyle Seager school of boring, Brian Anderson finished as the #8 third baseman, scoring at a rate of .740 pts/pa after posting a rate of .726 pts/pa in 2019. Anderson slashed .255/.345/.465, with 11 HR and 38 RBI but keep in mind that he hit three home runs (7 RBI) in late-September. Anderson is just 27-years-old and seems a lock for 640 PA or more, batting in the middle of the order every day for the Marlins. Give me boring guys like Anderson to fill my swing slots, all day long.

I wasn't a fan of Ke'Bryan Hayes' offensive potential prior to 2020, thinking he'd always be more glove than bat. But after blowing up during his 95 PA in his major league debut, along with elite exit velocities, it's hard to continue justifying his glove-first label until we get more evidence. I'm not ready to go all-in on Hayes but I'll happily dip my toes in the water considering the unexpected laser power he showed in 2020, finishing in the 82nd-percentile for Air% average EV and the 88th-percentile in Air% (100+ mph).

Tier Five

Josh Donaldson is probably always going to score points at a high rate but let's be honest about the chances of the 35-year-old actually lasting a full season? Because after reaching nearly 700 PA every season from 2013-2016, Donaldson has seen a severe decline in his ability to stay on the field:

If he turns back the dial and plays a full season, Donaldson will likely be a top-100 scorer. But his recent track record of injuries and 185 ADP is making him too risky for my tastes.

Unlike the uncertainty of Donaldson, I know in advance I'm likely only going to get 550 PA out of Justin Turner. But I'm also fairly confident in what kind of scoring-rate Turner will put up:

And while Turner's Air% average EV dropped to 91.4 mph in 2020 from 93.5 mph in 2019, he raised his Air% (100+ mph) to 32.5%, up from 24.1% in 2019, and 19.6% in 2018. He won't be playing every day but when he does it will be near the middle of one of baseball's best offenses.

Tiers Six and Seven

Let the Wanderlust...Begin! There is no guarantee about how much Wander Franco will actually play in 2021. Tampa Bay is certainly not calling him up before maximizing their future control and once they do, who knows how much he'll actually play. One would think that once he's up, he'll play every day. But keep in mind that this is Tampa Bay and no one really knows what the hell they'll do. What I do know, is that Franco will eventually be awesome, even though he hasn't yet reached Double-A. If you can afford to stash him on your bench, he'll give you excellent production but only for about 400 PA.

Continuing the theme, I like Edwin Rios a lot more than I like how much he'll actually crack the lineup for the Dodgers. But I like his chances of reaching 500 PA more than Franco's and Rios' exit velocities make him hard to ignore, even without having an everyday job. Rios averaged 96.2 mph on balls in the air (95th-percentile) and his Air% (100+ mph) of 38.9% was in the 80th-percentile.

In very small samples (56 PA in  2019 and 83 PA in 2020) Rios averaged 0.97 pts/pa in 2020 after 0.91 pts/pa in 2019. Those rates aren't going to hold over a full season (because he's not Juan Soto) but the fact that he dropped to a 21.7% K% from 37.5% in 2019 is promising. With Gavin Lux on the bench also fighting for playing time, Rios will have to keep hitting to stay in the lineup but I like his chances.

Yoshitomo Tsutsugo was a roto-bust in 2020 but his 0.69 pts/pa was more than solid. The problem is that there's no chance you can realistically count on more than 350 PA. Because Tampa, you know? Hard pass. But always remember; the Rays hate fantasy players and you should never trust them to do what you want or what you think should be done. Which, I guess, means that Tsutsugo will finish with 600 PA.

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