Third Basemen in the System

[nsacpi]

Here is what they have produced so far this year:

Garcia age 32 .222/.259/.321

Ruiz turns 23 in May .213/.263/.320

Valenzuela 23 .284/.324/.418

Demeritte 22 .243/.333/.378 (playing second, but could probably move to third)

Riley 20 .239/.286/.391

Yepez 19 .316/.357/.500

We came into the season without an obvious internal solution at third for the next few years. And nothing has changed. A couple guys have hit well in April. Valenzuela is one but profiles more as a utility bench guy. Yepez is the other but is very young and several years away, and it is unclear he can stick at third.

And of course there is Maitan who is even younger and at least four years away.

This is going to be a position of need for the next few years. I suppose Rodriguez could take over the position next year, but he would be a one-year stop gap.

[JohnAdcox]

The sad (sadder?) thing is, I have a hard time even thinking of one available outside the system.

[The Chosen One]

The sad (sadder?) thing is, I have a hard time even thinking of one available outside the system.

Kind of funny how the Braves being terrible/mediocre ruins my interest in following other teams around the Majors like I used to before. Kudos to those here that still follow everything despite these rough times.

[nsacpi]

The sad (sadder?) thing is, I have a hard time even thinking of one available outside the system.

Solarte and Prado might be available by trade later this season. Moustakas is headed to free agency.

[JohnAdcox]

Solarte and Prado might be available by trade later this season. Moustakas is headed to free agency.

Hard to get excited there....

[clvclv]

The sad (sadder?) thing is, I have a hard time even thinking of one available outside the system.

Have been big on Moustakas for a good while - whether we trade for him and extend him or just "buy" him this winter. 4 years and $64 million to $72 million ought to get it done, and I just don't see Ruiz developing enough pop to keep from needing to go ahead and spend that money. No reason not to really - with Big Sexy's deal off the books and a cheap replacement for at least one of the rotation vets there should be plenty of money to cover that. Royals can't match that, and I'm not sure who else would want to get in a bidding war over him since nobody stepped up to make it any harder for the Dodgers to keep Turner last winter.

[sturg33]

I know Coppy doesn't believe in trading for position players, but I'd like to buy low on Ryan McMahon from Colorado... coming off a down year and is blocked, may be able to get him cheap.

Off to a great start this year though.

[Tapate50]

Stats worth updating up top?

[nsacpi]

Stats worth updating up top?

I'll probably do it toward the end of may

[zbhargrove]

Hard to get excited there....

Solarte is a pretty good player... no thanks on Prado anymore

[nsacpi]

Here is what they have produced so far this year:

Garcia age 32 .222/.259/.321

Ruiz turns 23 in May .213/.263/.320

Valenzuela 23 .284/.324/.418

Demeritte 22 .243/.333/.378 (playing second, but could probably move to third)

Riley 20 .239/.286/.391

Yepez 19 .316/.357/.500

We came into the season without an obvious internal solution at third for the next few years. And nothing has changed. A couple guys have hit well in April. Valenzuela is one but profiles more as a utility bench guy. Yepez is the other but is very young and several years away, and it is unclear he can stick at third.

And of course there is Maitan who is even younger and at least four years away.

This is going to be a position of need for the next few years. I suppose Rodriguez could take over the position next year, but he would be a one-year stop gap.

Updating the numbers:

Garcia now at .234/.256/.355 a little better but not good enough

Ruiz at .250/.303/.429 better but not there yet...not walking as much as in years past

Valenzuela .292/.330/.434 not much change...solid

Demeritte .265/.344/.436 numbers moving up...not bad

Riley .288/.345/.477 has heated up...right now looks like our best third base prospect (other than Maitan)

Yepez .289/.324/.412 has cooled off...overall numbers still look decent

Overall comments: Nice to see Riley step up. Would be great if one of these guys established himself as a bona fide prospect.

[Tapate50]

I think the TD BB\K ratio is the most promising trend. Hoping it continues.

Riley too.

[nsacpi]

Imo, the most likely transaction we make for a third baseman over the next year is a trade for Prado. The fish will be looking to reduce payroll. Prado is owed 13.5M in 2018 and 15M in 2019. My guess is Moustakas will get a higher AAV for four or five years. So there is less risk with taking on Prado for two years.

He's been on the DL twice this year, driving down his value. With his contract, there is little or no surplus value. So we don't have to part with a significant prospect. Something like a straight up swap of Prado for Adonis Garcia might work for both teams.

[zitothebrave]

I think the right call is to bring Ruiz up.

I said before this year Garcia last year was a pumpkin. And even as a pumpkin wasn't that great. Ruiz probably won't be good. Could easily be worse than Garcia, but who cares? Garcia is sucking, might as well try out Ruiz and see if something clicks.

[nsacpi]

Updating

Garcia is out a while. His last numbers were .247/.282/.351. Slightly better but not good enough.

Ruiz in the majors is at .209/.312/.343. Only 77 ABs. I projected he could produce a .700-.750 OPS in the majors in a platoon. He isn't there right now but he should be given the opportunity to show what he can do.

Demeritte is at .252/.328/.453. Not much change.

Valenzuela is at .275/.312/.402. That's down some.

Riley is at .254/.317/.405. Down quite a bit.

Bottom line. No one within the system (unless you want to count Maitan) projects as a regular major league third baseman.

The best internal option probably involves Ruiz as part of a platoon. With Garcia, Santana or Camargo in the short run. With Demeritte in a couple years.

A good case remains that we should find an external solution. Moustakas. Prado. Solarte. Longoria. Those are some options. Some more ambitious than others.

[Enscheff]

I think the plan was always to have SRod get the most ABs at 3B once Albies was ready to take over 2B.

That has to still be the plan if he heals up.

[auyushu]

Moustakas. Prado. Solarte. Longoria. Those are some options. Some more ambitious than others.

If we are spending the type of money to pay for Moose or Longoria we'd be better off just waiting and signing Donaldson after 2018. We aren't going to be a playoff team next year anyway, so we might as well wait until 2019 to fix it when we will likely have Folty, Newk, Allard, and Soroka in the rotation and have a chance to be a pretty solid team.

[Garmel]

If we are spending the type of money to pay for Moose or Longoria we'd be better off just waiting and signing Donaldson after 2018. We aren't going to be a playoff team next year anyway, so we might as well wait until 2019 to fix it when we will likely have Folty, Newk, Allard, and Soroka in the rotation and have a chance to be a pretty solid team.

Donaldson will be 33 in 2019. I don't think I'd go that route.

[auyushu]

Donaldson will be 33 in 2019. I don't think I'd go that route.

I wouldn't either really, unless we could get him on a high dollar 3 year deal. Assuming Maitan is the real deal he should be ready to start at 3B at the beginning of 2021, so I'd rather go for a shorter term player. I'm just saying going after Donaldson on a shorter deal is immensely preferable to signing Moose to a 5-7 year deal or trading crazy prospects and dealing with Longoria's crazy long contract. I'd probably see if we could get Solarte from the Padres, depending on cost. He seems like a perfect buy low candidate, and his contract fits perfectly with our timeline since it's options for 2019 and 2020 and would all us to both cut bait if he sucked and allow us to let Maitan come up when ready.

[nsacpi]

I wouldn't either really, unless we could get him on a high dollar 3 year deal. Assuming Maitan is the real deal he should be ready to start at 3B at the beginning of 2021, so I'd rather go for a shorter term player. I'm just saying going after Donaldson on a shorter deal is immensely preferable to signing Moose to a 5-7 year deal or trading crazy prospects and dealing with Longoria's crazy long contract. I'd probably see if we could get Solarte from the Padres, depending on cost. He seems like a perfect buy low candidate, and his contract fits perfectly with our timeline since it's options for 2019 and 2020 and would all us to both cut bait if he sucked and allow us to let Maitan come up when ready.

I wouldn't go past 4 years on Moose. There are no ideal options. We can go limited risk/limited upside with guys like Prado or Solarte. Or take on some risk/upside with the others. For the next few months, lets kick the tires on Ruiz.

[50PoundHead]

I think the plan was always to have SRod get the most ABs at 3B once Albies was ready to take over 2B.

That has to still be the plan if he heals up.

I think full-time SRod would be a bad plan.

[auyushu]

I wouldn't go past 4 years on Moose.

I wouldn't either, but he's going to get a longer deal than that given the year he is having right now. If we could get him for 4 years he'd be a perfect fit, but I don't see that happening given this is his chance to get a long term deal during his peak.

[nsacpi]

I wouldn't either, but he's going to get a longer deal than that given the year he is having right now. If we could get him for 4 years he'd be a perfect fit, but I don't see that happening given this is his chance to get a long term deal during his peak.

We have to find someone with a favorable risk/return profile, who can give us 2 wins or more at third. There are other options.

[nsacpi]

The situation at third has become quite fluid. Freeman at least looks the part so far early in the experiment. I've expressed some doubts about the experiment but the team should continue with it for at least a few more weeks. It also appears likely that Sean Rodriguez will be activated soon after the break. He may play some other position(s) but will certainly be another option at third.

In terms of the minor league guys, Demeritte and Riley have been struggling in the past month. I think those two will probably have to repeat at their current levels.

I do want to say a few things about Ruiz and Camargo, mostly centered around BABIP. Ruiz put up a BABIP of .222 in his brief stint in the majors. He has been hitting better in AAA since his demotion and his BABIP there is .336, pretty much in line with career norms. I don't want to overstate the case for Ruiz as a regular major league third baseman, but he is a much better hitter than he showed in his 91 major league plate appearances this year.

In contrast, Camargo has put up a BABIP of .378 in 101 major league plate appearances so far this year. In AAA, he had a BABIP of .340, which itself is at the high end of what he has typically achieved in his prior minor league seasons. I like Camargo as a utility player. He seems to be developing some doubles power. I think he has an outside shot as a regular (as does Ruiz). But be aware that the BABIP gods are a fickle lot. More telling to me is the 23% strikeout rate that Camargo is carrying so far in the majors. I've made a similar point with respect to Swanson (whose strikeout rate went down in June but is back up this month). A strikeout rate north of 20% for a player who does not have much power ultimately will make it very difficult for that player to be a productive hitter.

[nsacpi]

Season's nearing an end, time for an update on what we have in-house at third.

Riley has done very well in 194 AA plate appearances. But dig a little deeper and we see a BABIP of .374 (he was at .289 at high A). This effectively masked a spike in his strikeout rate to 25.3% in AA from 21.8 in high A. Also worthy of consideration is that the sample at High A consisted of 339 plate appearances and should probably be given more weight than the significantly smaller sample in AA.

Ruiz hit better in AAA after his demotion. But as with Riley if you just emphasize his hot streaks and ignore his struggles, you aren't going to get as good a picture as if you take the entire sample into account. And that sample shows a AAA slash line this year of .247/.322/.446. Relative to last year, when he was also in AAA, the strikeout rate was up, the walk rate was down, but the ISO showed a nice increase.

I don't think either Ruiz or Riley projects as a major league regular. But there is still a plausible scenario out there where they form an effective platoon.

I also want to touch on Johan Camargo, who has had a very nice season both in AAA and the majors. As is often the case, the most informative number is his BABIP, which was .340 in AAA and .364 in the majors. The .364 in the majors masked a problematic strikeout rate (21.8%).

The most intriguing thing about Camargo are indications that the power is starting to develop. His ISO numbers both in AAA and the majors were up significantly from prior seasons. I can see a scenario where the strikeout rate drops below 20%, the ISO improvement is sustained and the BABIP stabilizes at about .320. Couple that with strong defense and your would have an acceptable everyday major league third baseman. However, I put the odds of that kind of scenario at 30-40%.

To me Camargo has a better chance than Riley or Ruiz of developing into a solid everyday player, but the odds are still less than 50%. However, the three of them collectively have enough promise that I'd be inclined not to invest in an everyday third baseman this off-season. I'd let the internal options play out for at least the first half of 2018.