The Re-Evaluation: Third Base
A fresh look at the third base position for 2026 fantasy leagues
Third base day! It’s a lot easier and more organized to go through the pre-season ADP and then fill in the newcomers as we go.
ADP 1-50
Jose Ramirez
Junior Caminero
Jazz Chisholm Jr.
This was the big three. Really, it was a big two as most people were drafting Chisholm as their second baseman.
Jose Ramirez is hitting just .228 this year. His K% is a five-year high… ALL THE WAY up to 13%. He’s also walking more than ever before at 14.6%. But the guy has eight dingers and 20 steals, so he’s still been pretty studly.
The .234 BABIP is 40 points lower than his career. He’s usually a .270-.280 guy, so there’s been bad luck there. His xBA is .289. So he’s perfectly fine. The Guardians don’t have many hitters supporting him this year, so it will probably end up being a pretty R+RBI season by his standards. But I think he’s still clearly the #1 guy.
Junior Caminero has 13 homers this year with a .278 batting average. He’s nowhere near the top of the league in homers, which you were kinda hoping for when you drafted him. His 12% Brl% is down two points from last year. And that’s kind of the “issue” with him. He hits too many balls on the ground.
He’s like Vlad Guerrero Jr. Good contact ability, hits the ball harder than anybody, but just not the proper launch angle profile to pile up a ton of homers.
He’s one of the few guys in the league with an average EV above 92, but his launch angle is below 10 degrees.
We’ll see if he can figure this out as his career progresses. Or maybe he doesn’t even want. Maybe they’re fine with him just hitting screaming line drives at the expense of 5-10 homers a year.
Either way, he’s a good option and he’ll be near the top of the list.
We already went through Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the second base spot. I think he’s a fine buy-low. He’s got 14 steals and but a career-worst 2.6% HR%. Only six homers through 56 games. The batting average is around .240, which is what we thought it’d be.
He’ll always be better in roto than points, because he won’t walk and the batting average has a real cap with how often he strikes out. But if he hits 20 bombs with 20 steals the rest of the season, it wouldn’t be surprising.
I’ll populate the new ranks as we go through this.
Jose Ramirez
Junior Caminero
Jazz Chisholm Jr.
ADP 50-100
Manny Machado
Austin Riley
Maikel Garcia
Three huge disappointments here. And that’s a bit of a theme at this position. It doesn’t seem like any of the studs are being the studs they should be.
Manny Machado is hitting .179 this year. His .625 OPS is the
The angles are a mess, the EV is down a bit. But his 75th percentile bat speed with a normal K% for him are good signs. He’s 33 years old. Which is up there, but not to a point where we’d expect his career to be falling apart.
I can’t point to the savant page and say he’s a screaming buy-low. But you can just trust that he’ll return mostly to who he’s been in his recent career.
100 points down in SLG, it’s just not going to stay like that. The K% is up 3.5 points, which I guess we should take seriously. 82% zone-contact%.
Last year was really good for him. 27 bombs, 14 steals, .275 average. Maybe he’s like a 24 homer, 8 steal, .255 guy now. But you can buy him for less than that right now.
Austin Riley has had a couple of bad seasons now. Last year it was because of injury. His 16 homers in 102 games were solid.
But it’s now been 2023 since he was a true must-start stud at the position.
So it’s fair to be pretty worried about him. Maybe he’s just lost the juice? He whiffs a lot (67.5% Cont%) and has a .213 xBA with a .300 xwOBA on a 10% Brl%.
A 29% K% and 10% Brl% just aren’t going to cut it. And he doesn’t have elite EVs to fall back on.
This is the most concerned I’ve been about Riley since he was a 30% K% rookie.
Maikel Garcia faked us out with the 16 bombs last year. He has just three this year and he didn’t hit a single on in May. And now he might go on the IL.
Oh, and he has one more steal than Austin Riley.
The silver lining is an 86% Contact% with a 14% K% and the 12% attempt rate being decent. But I see no reason to be thrilled about the guy. You’re just hoping that he can get the batting average up to .280 again (which is where his expected is at, so that’s good) and go back to being a 30-steal pace guy, but he hasn’t been on that pace since 2024!
Updated Ranks:
Jose Ramirez
Junior Caminero
Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Manny Machado
Maikel Garcia
Austin Riley