Deep League Value: Third Basemen

Before we all got fat off of Pecan Pie this week, we checked the position at the hot corner and found that the final tier was lacking and the position was relatively shallow for those in mixed leagues. Let’s take a look at a couple of third basemen that came in just below the fold and could outproduce their draft positions in deep leagues.

Alex Gordon, perhaps because of his draft position or because of the uniform he wears, has been oft-discussed as a figure of projection more than production so far in his career. There’s no doubt that if he puts together a season close to his upside, he will be a huge value to those that select him. At times he’s shown the selectivity at the plate, the power in his bat, and the speed on the basepaths that had people thinking good thoughts. In his sophomore season, he improved his walk rate, strikeout rate, reach rate, fly ball and contact rates. Though all of the increases were incremental, the thought was that he was on his way, just a little slower than we all expected. Then came the hip surgery.

With his struggles after his return, where is Gordon now? On the good side of the ledger, even in 2009, Gordon held on to his gains in his walk rate, reach rate, and contact rates. He took a little step back in his strikeout rate, didn’t hit any line drives, and hit a few too many ground balls. If we blame the line drives and lack of power on the hip injury – not everyone can heal as well as Alex Rodriguez, who also had the surgery earlier than Gordon and also struggled in the early goings in 2009 – then we can regain some of our optimism about the young Royal third baseman. Bill James, ever the optimist, has Gordon down for .272 with 20 home runs and 12 stolen bases. If you are willing to blame the hip, you can take a chance on those numbers and get them for cheap in 2010.

Andy LaRoche is another once-hot prospect that has struggled so far in the big leagues and finds himself on the fringe in positional rankings once again. Of course, his big league team won’t be complaining any time soon – with his good defense (+3.9 UZR/150 career at third) and passable offense (.324 wOBA), he’s already outproducing his cost. And knowing that the Bucs are likely happy with his production is valuable – at least he should stick all year. But will fantasy owners want his stats all year? His fantasy stats (.258, 12 home runs, three stolen bases) were underwhelming, and this was despite his ‘luck’ evening out from early-career lows (.287 BABIP in 2009, .177 BABIP in 2008). The problem seems to be that though he has decent walk and strikeout rates (around 9% and 16% respectively in the last two years), he doesn’t make good contact (17.1% line drive rate career).

On the other hand, the good news in the numbers also come from his contact rates – LaRoche has improved his zone contact rate from 78.6% to 91% and his overall contact rate from 69.3% to 83.2% over the last three years. If he can continue that arc and get the line drive rate up to 20% he could outproduce his projections. It’s worth noting that his line drive rates in the Los Angeles system were consistently around 18%, so there’s a sliver of upside here. Don’t overpay for it, because it’s clear that he has issues making contact, even if he’s making strides.

We will revisit some of the other deep league options in future posts. Let us know in the comments if there is a particular third baseman you’d like to know more about.