Here’s the primer for this series.
Notes
Kris Bryant is going to get a lot of roto love in drafts coming up, but if we look at the graph PECOTA charts out for him, we find him lacking. This is a situation we’ve encountered before with players like Matt Wieters and Jurickson Profar: PECOTA doesn’t like his playing-time forecast but it does have him putting up a solid slash line. Ultimately, Bryant is the wildcard of the position—he could out-earn everyone or merely be a middle-tier third baseman.
Todd Frazier could take a step back in stolen bases and average, and still warrant four-tier status at the position because of his power potential. I think 10-15 is a reasonable estimate for his stolen-base numbers, and even if he hits .260, that’s still really valuable.
Chris Davis’ track record is still outweighing his abysmal 2014 season. I’m still willing to bet on him, and he has extra value at third. The position drops off pretty severely in the one-tier group.
Ultimately, third base is populated by a thin upper crust and an analogous middle and lower class.
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As a result, in the case of Wieters, it was BP that was guilty of doling out the "love."