Welcome. Come on in. Hopefully you’ve already checked out my previous AL-Only rankings. If not, have at it! You’ll want to pay extra attention to my Catcher Rankings as that’s where I introduce the process I follow to produce these rankings. All I’ll say here about them is that all my rankings are based on the projections you see right next to each players name. If you trust the projections, trust the rankings. Enough on that. Now let’s jump right into the players I’ll be targeting and avoiding from my AL-Only Third Base Rankings for the 2019 fantasy baseball season.
If you’re like us you can’t wait until spring to get the 2019 fantasy baseball season started? Well, you don’t have to. Leagues are already forming at Fantrax.com, so head on over and start or join a league today.
Top Third Base Targets
For being a rookie from New York it sure doesn’t seem like people are giving Miguel Andujar the credit he deserves for a great season in 2018. The best part is there’s nothing in his peripherals or minor league track record that suggests any of it was a fluke. He hits for power, doesn’t strike out (61.0 K%) and certainly looks like a player who can flirt with .300 on a yearly basis. He doesn’t run and the Yankees aren’t too happy with his defense. Fantasy owners will excuse the lack of SBs and his lousy defense won’t affect us unless he gets traded or moved across the diamond because of it. I’m in on Andujar and expect a repeat or maybe even a small step forward.
Rafael Devers is the other young third baseman I’m looking real hard at. He’s not quite the all-around hitter Andujar is, but his power upside is immense and when/if he breaks out the numbers will be obscene in that ballpark and lineup.
If the hype gets too high on the two young sluggers above, settling for old and boring is a solid option. Kyle Seager is never gonna hit .300, but 2018 was the first year where his batting average really hurt. It was mostly the result of a 21.9 K% which was up from 16.9 in 2017. I’m willing to give him a one-year mulligan and take the 25 to 30 homers along with a .255ish batting average.
Third Basemen to Avoid
Avoid is such a strong word. I like Matt Chapman. He’s an incredible defender and showed more with the bat than I expected in 2018. I can buy into the mid-20’s power, but the .278 average was boosted by a .338 BABIP. Except for 15 plate appearances in Rookie League, Chapman has never hit over .257 at any level. In case you’re wondering Chapman never had a BABIP over .300 in the minors except for those same 15 plate appearances in Rookie ball. Again I like Chapman, it’s just that many people seem to see him as the next big thing, when he’s really just the next pretty good thing.
The Big Question
Of course the big elephant in the fantasy room is Vladimir Guerrero Jr. When do you pounce on him in drafts? If it’s a keeper or dynasty league and he’s somehow still avaiable you jump on him as soon as your selection comes up. But these rankings are for re-draft leagues where it’s a much bigger question. Many analysts will have him ranked ahead of Andujar and I get it. Why should Andujar be ranked higher just for arriving a year earlier. I won’t argue too hard against that. For me there’s just enough question about when the Blue Jays will actually call him up to move him down that one slot for 2018. If I didn’t like Andujar so much, Vlad Jr. would be my No. 3 third baseman.
2019 AL-Only Third Base Rankings
The rankings below are bases on the traditional 5X5 rotisserie scoring categories, with 20 games played at third base in 2018 in order to qualify.
Rnk | Player | Tm | HR | R | RBI | SB | AVG |
1 | Jose Ramirez | CLE | 32 | 103 | 96 | 26 | .316 |
2 | Alex Bregman | HOU | 33 | 103 | 101 | 11 | .305 |
3 | Miguel Andujar | NYY | 30 | 89 | 99 | 2 | .297 |
4 | Vladimir Guerrero Jr. | TOR | 29 | 78 | 80 | 4 | .302 |
5 | Jurickson Profar | OAK | 23 | 90 | 86 | 11 | .272 |
6 | Rafael Devers | BOS | 31 | 84 | 92 | 5 | .267 |
7 | Matt Chapman | OAK | 29 | 103 | 90 | 2 | .258 |
8 | Jeimer Candelario | DET | 23 | 84 | 81 | 3 | .255 |
9 | Yulieski Gurriel | HOU | 15 | 70 | 80 | 3 | .293 |
10 | Kyle Seager | SEA | 26 | 70 | 83 | 2 | .255 |
11 | Joey Wendle | TB | 8 | 60 | 53 | 10 | .278 |
12 | Zack Cozart | LAA | 17 | 69 | 59 | 2 | .265 |
13 | Matt Duffy | TB | 6 | 64 | 55 | 8 | .280 |
14 | Yolmer Sanchez | CWS | 10 | 66 | 58 | 12 | .246 |
15 | Renato Nunez | BAL | 19 | 63 | 66 | 0 | .249 |
16 | David Fletcher | LAA | 7 | 61 | 53 | 5 | .274 |
17 | Patrick Wisdom | TEX | 15 | 50 | 56 | 7 | .240 |
18 | Hunter Dozier | KC | 17 | 56 | 64 | 5 | .225 |
19 | Eduardo Nunez | BOS | 5 | 27 | 25 | 2 | .274 |
20 | Neil Walker | NYY | 9 | 39 | 40 | 0 | .250 |
21 | Isiah Kiner-Falefa | TEX | 4 | 47 | 30 | 8 | .239 |
22 | Aledmys Diaz | HOU | 7 | 23 | 24 | 2 | .285 |
23 | Brandon Drury | TOR | 6 | 27 | 31 | 0 | .252 |
24 | Russell Martin | TOR | 6 | 22 | 21 | 0 | .220 |
25 | Ehire Adrianza | MIN | 3 | 20 | 17 | 2 | .241 |
If you like these AL-Only Third Base Rankings check out the rest of the 2019 FantraxHQ Fantasy Baseball Draft Kit. We’ll be adding more content from now right up until Opening Day!
Doug Anderson is a 10-year veteran of the Fantasy Sports industry. His work has appeared on RotoExperts.com, Yahoo.com, SI.com, and NFL.com, as well as in the pages of USA Today’s Fantasy Baseball Weekly and various other magazines. Doug has participated in both LABR and Tout Wars, the two preeminent expert fantasy baseball leagues in existence. Doug was formerly the Executive Editor at RotoExperts and is now Managing Editor here at FantraxHQ. You can follow him on Twitter @RotoDaddy.
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