Excuse the exposition and this clunky intro into aforementioned exposition, but here’s the catchers to target, 1st basemen to target, 2nd basemen to target, shortstops to target and something to stick to your dartboards to target. These 3rd basemen to target are being drafted after 200 overall. Keep in mind, nephew (and five niece readers), your Uncle Grey likes to have a corner man drafted by the time these guys appear, so you’re looking at potential utility men more than anything. Now, this is a (legal-in-all-countries-except-Indonesia) supplement to the top 20 3rd basemen for 2017 fantasy baseball. Click on the player’s name where applicable to read more and see their 2016 projections. Anyway, here’s some 3rd basemen to target for 2017 fantasy baseball:
Yoan Moncada (ESPN 238, Yahoo 321) How many guys can you draft near 250 overall that can give you 17 HRs and 35 SBs if he breaks camp with the club? Zero comes to mind. Zero is also the amount of interest I had in The OA after watching three episodes. I’m sorry, but you need to put upfront that this show is going to start working in interpretative dance into the main storyline. Like the logline needs to be, “Supernatural show that leads to some bullcrap about interpretative dance. Y’all been warned.” I can see this show being greenlit, “It’s like Stranger Things.” “It’s as good as Stranger Things?” “God no. This show is terrible but there’s kids in it.” “We can sell that!” Okay, I need to move OA from The OA. So, will Moncada break camp with the White Sox? It seems unlikely, but it’s not like the White Sox are fueling up the tank for a pennant run. They have so little to look forward to that their fans are actually looking forward to the ceremony retiring Mark Buehrle’s number, though that might be partly because they want some kind of guarantee that Buehrle will no longer be pitching for them. It would surprise me if Moncada breaks camp with the team, but not shocking.
Eugenio Suarez (ESPN 244, Yahoo 223) I was thisclose to not including Eugenio here, because I think he’s a Neil Walker-type, i.e., you draft him because you’re like, “M’all ears why I shouldn’t be drafting a solid, no upside guy late,” then you get to April 15th and you’re like, “I wanna drop this no upside guy to waivers and pick up someone that’s hitting.” By the way, m’all ears is my new favorite saying.
Pablo Sandoval (ESPN 223, Yahoo 320) Um, holy shizzballs there’s no late 3rd basemen to draft. I mean, there’s Hernan Perez, Schimpf and Brandon Drury, but I went over them in the 2nd basemen to target. For 3rd basemen who I haven’t covered before? Well, there’s Sandoval, and we can only cover him now because he lost 277 pounds this offseason. Otherwise, there’s just not enough fabric in the world. As for the positives on Sandoval, well…Um…He doesn’t need to put two scales together to weigh himself anymore. Okay, his lineup should be good and he’s supposedly the everyday starter, but Rutledge and Holt could end that quickly. For full disclosure purposes, I just drafted Sandoval at around the 350th pick in my NFBC league. Guys taken around him: Sandy Leon and Austin Hedges. Ya know, that ol’ “Man, two catcher leagues suck” run.
Mike Moustakas (ESPN 237, Yahoo 205) Pro Tip Alert! Draft a 3rd baseman and a corner man before you get to the top 200 overall, because you don’t even want these guys as your corner man. Utility? Fine, we’ll see what happens. Though, likely shizz will happen.
Jose Reyes (ESPN/Yahoo NR) I could see teams winning leagues this year, and looking back on their team and being like, “He didn’t win the league for me, but Jose Reyes was mighty helpful.” The Mets will play Wright if he gets healthy, but that ‘if’ has its own solar system, and, even if Wright somehow gets back on the field, I think the Mets know they’re better with Reyes leading off so that means a 2nd base platoon with Asdrubal and Walker and Reyes playing.
Yulieski Gurriel (Yahoo 234, ESPN 290) He’s the stereotypical 3rd baseman for this poor year for 3rd basemen sleepers. There could be upside, but likely he’s Yunel Escobar without the flashy average. By the way, I did give 3rd basemen sleepers this year, they just aren’t being drafted after the top 200 overall.
Nick Castellanos (Yahoo 238) Okay, we should start calling him Nick Falling-for-the-banana-in-the-ol-tailpipellanos. Agreed, but he was on the verge of breaking out last year and then came down with a broken hand. He’s a relatively safe 20-homer, .270 guy with upside who is still only 25 years old, i.e., not to many anos on Nick!
Adonis Garcia (Yahoo 332) Member the other day when I said there was a huge difference between rankings of Dansby? How could you forget, it’s all I talked about in the shortstops to target. Well, we found another one, y’all! Adonis Garcia is ranked at 194 overall at ESPN, and *sees where he’s ranked at other sites* Okay, forget the Dansby comparison. Now I see ESPN is crumby with crackers. The average ranking of Adonis is around 350 overall and no one else has him before 200 overall. Maybe I shouldn’t have looked at Klara Bell’s rankings for ESPN. That reminds me, I have a dart competition I need to train for. Toodles!
