Baseball is a tough sport to predict on a day-in and day-out basis, and it becomes exponentially more difficult to predict looking years into the future. But that’s exactly what we’re going to be doing here.
The following is the fifth installment in a series we’ve dubbed, “B/R’s MLB 20 for ’20.” In this series, we’ll attempt to project the top 20 players at each position five years down the road in 2020.
We’ve done catchers, first basemen, second basemen and shortstops so far, so now we’ll move on to the third basemen. Players will once again be graded according to a 100-point scale:
- Offense (60 points): Third base is a bit more of an offensive-centric position than the middle infield spots, so the offensive points will be bumped up from 55 to 60 for this round. Contact rate, batting average, approach, on-base skills and overall power were all taken into account.
- Defense/Speed (35 points): Middle infielders were awarded 40 points for defense and first basemen were given 30, so we’ll go right in the middle with the third basemen. Speed on the bases was also factored heavily into this section.
- Upside Factor (5 points): On a scale from 1-5, players were given a bonus based on their upside moving forward. A three-point bonus indicated that a player is expected to be at essentially the same level five years from now, while more or less than that indicated expected progression or regression.
- Tiebreakers: On more than one occasion, players graded out with the same overall point total. In that case, the first tiebreaker was who had the higher upside factor. If that still didn’t solve things, the second tiebreaker was overall offensive score.
All basic statistics and WAR numbers come courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com, while advanced stats were pulled from FanGraphs. Stats are current through July 16.
Hopefully that paints a clear picture of how players were graded and where the information is coming from. So with that out of the way, let’s get things started.