Brian’s Top 14 Third Basemen Rankings and Projections for ’13

by rotobrian


"Follow me to freedom!"

“Follow me to freedom!”

I always struggle to come up with a good story line or metaphor for the third basemen. Last year I wrote about how I finally succumbed to the reality that Jose Bautista was actually a good player; and, of course, he got hurt. For two years I fought the Bautista bandwagon. But he finally broke me down. Like a player who is hitting on a pretty girl at a bar; his charm knocked down all my walls. And then, with one quick motion, he ripped my heart out, and as I stood there, looking at my heart leisurely beating on the bar, I knew it would happen like this. It couldn’t have ended any other way.

Thankfully, Jose is no longer a third baseman. So, I just wasted a paragraph, and three minutes of your precious time.

This is the first year that Miguel Cabrera will enter the season with third base eligibility since the 2009 season (depending on your eligibility rules). He wasn’t even on this list last year, as I refuse to rank players at a position who have yet to gain that eligibility. Gosh, I’m saying eligibility a lot. Cabrera is easily the best third baseman, and quite possibly the best player in Major League Baseball, depending on who you talk to. I’ve said for years, Miguel Cabrera is the key to a fantasy championship. Go ahead, try and argue against it.

I wrote extensively about how I dislike Chase Headley this year, only to end up with him in a 12-team keeper league this past weekend ($17 in an auction draft; got caught trying to raise the price on him. Truly thought he would go for much more). You can read about my reasoning by following the link on his name.

Like I said, I find it hard to come up with metaphors for these guys. So here are the rankings.

There are four tiers for this position, indicated by the underline.

1. Miguel Cabrera- 110, 39, 128, 3, .328

2. Adrian Beltre- 90, 34, 104, 1, .314

3. Evan Longoria- 85, 27, 87, 4, .283

4. David Wright- 80, 19, 82, 14, .290

5. Aramis Ramirez- 88, 26, 100, 4, .295

6. Ryan Zimmerman- 79, 23, 82, 6, .288

7. Brett Lawrie- 80, 17, 70, 19, .282

8. Chase Headley- 75, 15, 80, 14, .275

9. Will Middlebrooks- 65, 23, 70, 9, .280

10. Pablo Sandoval- 60, 16, 68, 1, .280

11. Martin Prado- 87, 17, 76, 18, .290

12. Manny Machado- 70, 17, 68, 10, .265

13. David Freese- 75, 22, 75, 2, .290

14. Mike Moustakas- 65, 23, 80, 5, .255