Clearing The Bases\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 March 22, 2011<\/p>\n
By George Kurtz<\/p>\n
Outside of Shortstop, Third Base may be the toughest position to judge come draft time.\u00c2\u00a0 There are a bunch of interesting players here but what order to put them in is the big question.\u00c2\u00a0 Traditionally 3B is a power position, so you would like a player to hit at least 30 home runs, easier said than done.\u00c2\u00a0 Speed is more of a bonus at the hot corner than a must.\u00c2\u00a0 My order is not the norm as I have Wright at the top where most pundits have Longoria, but for my money he has the best combination of power and speed at the position.<\/p>\n
1.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 David\u00c2\u00a0 Wright, New York Mets:\u00c2\u00a0 Wright’s first season in Citifield was pretty much a disaster as he hit only 10 home runs while trying to adjust to the dimensions in his new home ballpark.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, he adjusted pretty well last season as he hit 29 home runs, drove in over 100 runs, and stole 19 bases.\u00c2\u00a0 Who wouldn’t take those numbers once again.<\/p>\n
2.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay Ray:\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t get me wrong, I love Longoria, if I was starting a professional baseball team tomorrow and could pick any player in the major leagues, Longoria would be at the top of my list.\u00c2\u00a0 Fantasy wise however is a different ballgame.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure he is a great player, but his HRs took a serious dip last season (22) and the loss of Carl Crawford to free agency may just allow opposing teams to pitch around him, at least until Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon prove their up to the task.<\/p>\n
3.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Alex Rodriguez, New York Mets:\u00c2\u00a0 I was very tempted to put ARod 2nd on this list as I do believe that he will have a bounce back season this year.\u00c2\u00a0 Bounce back, can anyone really complain about 30 HRs and 125 RBIs.\u00c2\u00a0 Probably not, but those were his numbers last season yet most think he had a down year.\u00c2\u00a0 Well Arod seems to have believed so also and reported to camp 10 pounds lighter, which has given him greater flexibility, and he has been tearing the cover off the ball all spring.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps he will even steal 12+ bases again.<\/p>\n
4.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Ryan Zimmerman, Washington Nationals:\u00c2\u00a0 The face of the Nationals franchise just keeps getting better with age.\u00c2\u00a0 Zim is the last of the top tier third basemen, or at least the last of the players who don’t come with some concern.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure he plays in a ballpark that is not conducive to the long ball, and he lost protection when Adam Dunn left in free agency, but he is still a lock to hit 25+ HRs, drive in 90+ runs, and bat around .300.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll take that every time.<\/p>\n
5.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays:\u00c2\u00a0 Where, when, or how much you spend on Bautista all comes down to one simple question, do you believe?\u00c2\u00a0 Bautista hit 54 HRs last season.\u00c2\u00a0 Expecting that to happen once again is probably foolish, but 30+ HRs is certainly well within reach.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone believes that last season was just an aberration, and it may very\u00c2\u00a0 be, but one should remember that Bautista’s renaissance began in September of 2009 when he made an adjustment in his batting stance, not just last season.\u00c2\u00a0 The fact that he has outfield eligibility doesn’t hurt any either.<\/p>\n
6.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Adrian Beltre, Texas Rangers:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Why does it always seem to be that Beltre has his best season’s when his contract is about to end.\u00c2\u00a0 His last season in Los Angeles, he hit 48 HRs, signs a big contract with Seattle and hits only 103 HRs in five seasons, than goes to Boston on a one-year contract and hits 28 HRs, his most since that big season with the Dodgers.\u00c2\u00a0 Makes you wonder what his motivation is.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, he’s playing on a very good offensive team, and we all know how the ball flies out of the yard in Texas once the weather gets hot.<\/p>\n
7.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Aramis Ramirez, Chicago Cubs:\u00c2\u00a0 Ramirez had a better season in 2010 than most people realize.\u00c2\u00a0 When one looks at his final numbers, 25 HR, 83 RBI, .241 AVG, one has to remember that he played in only 124 games as he had a thumb injury, and it’s not like that injury magically healed himself once he came off the disabled list.\u00c2\u00a0 He could have an even bigger season in 2011.<\/p>\n
8.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Casey McGehee, Milwaukee Brewers:\u00c2\u00a0 McGehee starts the third tier of 3B, players who are solid, should put up good numbers, but won’t cost you a high pick, or a big percentage of your auction.\u00c2\u00a0 Throw in the fact that he plays in a strong lineup in a good hitters ballpark, and you have a player who could be a steal later on in your draft.<\/p>\n
9.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Michael Young, Texas Rangers:\u00c2\u00a0 Young is a tricky player to judge right now because there is no guarantee that he will be playing in Texas come Opening Day, or the middle of May for that matter.\u00c2\u00a0 The Rangers are once again said to be thinking about trading Young, and his value will almost certainly change depending on where he ends up.\u00c2\u00a0 Do the Phillies make a move for Young to replace Utley?\u00c2\u00a0 Do the Rockies get involved again?\u00c2\u00a0 Hard to tell, but either way, Young can hit, and that shouldn’t change no matter where he ends up.<\/p>\n
10.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Mark Reynolds, Baltimore Orioles:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Some people have moved Reynolds up their draft list because he is playing in a stronger lineup in Baltimore and in a hitters ballpark.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s all true, but it wasn’t like Arizona was the Grand Canyon of stadiums and now he will face an awful lot of hard throwers in the American League East.\u00c2\u00a0 You think he struck out a ton in Arizona, he could easily top those numbers this season.<\/p>\n
11.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Pedro Alvarez, Pittsburgh Pirates:\u00c2\u00a0 Just because he’s on Pittsburgh, don’t discount the power of Alvarez.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s already locked up the cleanup spot in the Pirates lineup and seems close to a lock to hit 30+ home runs.\u00c2\u00a0 His average could be a concern, but he did hit .256 in 95 games last season, and if he can maintain that over a full season, he may not help you in AVG, but won’t hurt you either.<\/p>\n
12.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco Giants:\u00c2\u00a0 Like ARod, Sandoval lost some weight during the off-season.\u00c2\u00a0 Unlike ARod however, Sandoval absolutely had to as his weight had gotten out of hand, so much so that Sandoval had trouble bending over to field ground balls at third base.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopefully a better diet will allow Sandoval to approach the numbers of his\u00c2\u00a0 rookie season, but upside still seems limited as the Giants still don’t possess the best of offensive teams (should be better than last season however), and San Francisco is not a good hitters park by any stretch of the imagination.<\/p>\n
13.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 David Freese, St. Louis Cardinals:\u00c2\u00a0 Freese is not a player that should be forgotten about in your draft.\u00c2\u00a0 He was in line for a breakout season in 2010 before an ankle injury derailed those plans, but Freese has once again looked great this spring.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s looked so good in fact that manager Tony LaRussa has changed his mind on how much he will play Freese at the start of the 2011 campaign.\u00c2\u00a0 First it was going to be two out of every three games, now he has upped it to six out of every seven games.\u00c2\u00a0 Freese will not provide the kind of power you would like to see out of a 3B, but he would be a solid CI.<\/p>\n
14.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Placido Polanco, Philadelphia Phillies:\u00c2\u00a0 Like so many of the Phillies, Polanco has been battling the injury bug this spring training.\u00c2\u00a0 He has missed time with an elbow injury but as of right now he is expected to return in time for Opening Day.\u00c2\u00a0 If Chase Utley were to miss a significant part of the season with his own injuries and the Phillies found it easier to acquire a 3B rather than a 2B, one has to wonder if Polanco would be moved to the right side of the infield once again.<\/p>\n
15.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Chipper Jones, Atlanta Braves:\u00c2\u00a0 This could be Chipper’s farewell season and he has been hitting the cover off the ball this spring so I just can’t leave him off this list.\u00c2\u00a0 The problem with drafting Chipper is that he should come with an extra DL slot for your fantasy team as you know he will end up on the DL at some point this season.\u00c2\u00a0 Therefore if you do draft him, better make sure you have some 3B insurance on your bench.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Clearing The Bases\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 March 22, 2011 By George Kurtz Outside of Shortstop, Third Base may be the toughest position to judge come draft time.\u00c2\u00a0 There are a bunch of interesting players here but what order to put them in is the big question.\u00c2\u00a0 Traditionally 3B is a power position, so you would like a player […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":785,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13522,3868],"tags":[1481,6331,4618,1099,2295,13419,5702,3551,2299,13423,13795,6232,1100,1485,535,13797,11100,2141,13796,13798],"class_list":["post-13020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clearing-the-bases-fantasy","category-fantasy","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-arod","tag-ballgame","tag-bounce-back","tag-carl-crawford","tag-clearing-the-bases","tag-david-wright","tag-draft-time","tag-evan-longoria","tag-george-kurtz","tag-home-ballpark","tag-hot-corner","tag-johnny-damon","tag-manny-ramirez","tag-new-york-mets","tag-power-position","tag-professional-baseball-team","tag-rbis","tag-team-tomorrow","tag-top-of-my-list"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/785"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}