Is Third Base About to Take over as MLB's Premier Superstar Position?

Hey, you. Yes, you there. If I were to ask you about the defensive position in Major League Baseball with the most talent, which would come to mind first?

Maybe you'd think center field, where Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen roam. Or maybe shortstop, where you can find Troy Tulowitzki. Or maybe first base, where Miguel Cabrera and Jose Abreu reside.

But here's a hint: If third base doesn't come to mind, you're behind the times, friend. Though the hot corner was lacking in talent very recently, it's quietly become one of MLB's most star-studded positions.

And in 2015, there's a chance that it will become the most star-studded position in MLB.

But first, let's take a moment to go back in time. Not very far. Just to 2011. For it's around then that talent at third base was actually quite hard to find.

According to FanGraphs, it takes at least four wins above replacement to qualify as a star player. In 2011, FanGraphs (fWAR) and Baseball-Reference.com (rWAR) could agree on only three third basemen—Evan Longoria, Pablo Sandoval and Adrian Beltre—who made the grade. And overall, the 60.5 fWAR produced by the position was easily the lowest of any defensive position.

Now let's fast-forward to the present day. Curious where third base ranked among the positional power structure in 2014?

Again according to fWAR, right here:

Rank	Position	WAR
1	Center Field	120.3
2	Third Base	89.3
3	Left Field	84.1
4	Catcher	78.8
5	Shortstop	68.6
6	Second Base	65.9
7	First Base	64.6
8	Right Field	62.9

In only three years, third base went from being the least productive defensive position to the second-most productive defensive position. Some rise, that.

And no, 2014 wasn't just a good year for third basemen compared to 2011.

Since the league expanded to 30 teams in 1998, fWAR puts the 2014 season up there with 2006, 2008 and 2009 among the best years for third basemen. Ask rWAR, and it'll tell you that only 2004 produced more star-level third basemen than the 2014 season's 10.

Included on that list are some usual suspects. Beltre is one of the best third basemen of all time. Josh Donaldson has been an MVP candidate the last two years. Juan Uribe revived his career at third in 2013, and kept going in 2014. Todd Frazier was a Rookie of the Year contender in 2012.

The top players at third base, however, were mainly newcomers. Anthony Rendon, Kyle Seager, Nolan Arenado and Trevor Plouffe built on underlying talent and put together excellent all-around seasons. Josh Harrison and Justin Turner, both former utility players, were bigger surprises in doing the same.

With usual suspects doing their thing and breakout players popping up left and right, you can only imagine how strong third base would have been in 2014 if other stars had played their best baseball. That list includes former All-Stars Longoria, Sandoval, David Wright, Manny Machado, Matt Carpenter and Aramis Ramirez, as well as former National League MVP contender Chase Headley.

Anyway, you get the point. Both in terms of numbers and names, third base fairly stands out from the crowd these days. And after a year like 2014, you can't help but wonder what kind of encore is in store.

Here's a spoiler: There's a decent chance the bar will only be heightened.

Mind you, there's no guarantee the bar will be heightened. Baseball is obviously very hard to predict to begin with, and one reputable projection system says not to count on third base getting any better.

Using Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections, I tallied up the projected WAR that teams are expected to get out of their likely starters at each position. In all, PECOTA expects the projected starters at third base to produce only 62.2 WAR, compared to over 70 WAR for center field and right field.

This, however, isn't a deal-breaker. There's another projection system to turn to, and it has a more optimistic outlook.

Repeating the experiment with Steamer's projections and mixing in FanGraphs' Jeff Sullivan's best guess for the Arizona Diamondbacks' new third baseman—more on him later—I got a projection of 82.9 WAR at third base. The next best projection is for catchers at 73.6, nearly 10 full WAR lower.

This, obviously, is the more optimistic of the two projection systems. But when you look more closely, you realize it's really not taking too much for granted.

Player	Team	Projected WAR
Josh Donaldson	Blue Jays	5.5
Evan Longoria	Rays	5.4
Adrian Beltre	Rangers	5.3
Manny Machado	Orioles	5.1
Anthony Rendon	Nationals	4.7
Kyle Seager	Mariners	4.2
Pablo Sandoval	Red Sox	4.0
Chase Headley	Yankees	4.0
Brett Lawrie	Athletics	3.8
David Wright	Mets	3.8

For one, Steamer expects that Donaldson, Beltre, Rendon and Seager will once again be among the league's top third basemen. Donaldson and Beltre are no-brainers, while Rendon and Seager could be among the best of the best even if they do regress. 

Steamer also expects Machado, Longoria and Wright to be among the elites. We saw how good a healthy Machado can be back in 2013, and Longoria's and Wright's track records speak for themselves. And though Wright did lose a whole bunch of power in 2014, Citi Field's new dimensions could fix that.

Stephan Savoia/Associated Press

Also projected to be among the elites are Sandoval and Headley. This looks like a bigger roll of the dice, but perhaps not. Sandoval will be trading in AT&T Park for Fenway Park, and Headley will put Petco Park behind him and gear up for a full season at Yankee Stadium.

Granted, one guy who doesn't quite fit among the projected elites is Brett Lawrie, who's been about 17 kinds of inconsistent since a promising breakthrough in 2011. But if he doesn't find his way into the upper echelon of third basemen in 2015, there are plenty of other candidates to take his place. Among them are Harrison, Frazier, Uribe, Arenado, Ramirez and Plouffe.

Or maybe it will be one of the new kids on the block in Arizona and Chicago.

The Diamondbacks are planning to use high-priced Cuban slugger Yasmany Tomas at third base. How he'll work at the position from a defensive standpoint is a good question, as is how consistent his bat is going to be. The good news is that 20-25 homers may be in order, as Tomas has that kind of pop.

As one scout told ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick: "It's huge power. He's a big, strong-body guy, and he can shrink a field pretty easily. When he hits the ball, it stays hit."

As for the Cubs, they're likely to graduate Kris Bryant to the majors in the near future. All Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year did in 2014 is hit .325 with a 1.098 OPS and 43 homers, and you can take it from his father that his potential is every bit as big as those numbers suggest.

"He can be Miguel Cabrera," Mike Bryant told Bryce Miller of USA Today last fall. "Cabrera, only with more speed and a better arm. Do I sound too much like a dad?"

In my calculations, I assigned only 3.0 WAR for Bryant, and 2.3 WAR for Tomas. Given the immense talent of the former and the legit power of the other, there's a strong chance that both will outplay these projections in 2015. If they do, a strong crop of third basemen will be even stronger.

If you're wondering where all these talented third basemen came from, that's actually a good question. It could, however, be a sign of the times.

Back in 2013, Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports wrote that the rise of Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Nomar Garciaparra in the 1990s didn't quite usher in an era of bigger, more offensive-minded shortstops like everyone expected. 

Which is true. Teams no longer seem hung-up on finding clones of those three. And if a team does have a bigger, offensive-minded shortstop, you tend to hear talk of that player one day moving to third base. For example, that's what happened with Machado.

For two, there's how the catcher position has changed. As FanGraphs' Dave Cameron noted last year, teams seem to be prioritizing good receiving catchers over strong-armed catchers. That opens up opportunities for strong-armed players to play elsewhere, and it is surely part of the reason why Donaldson and Sandoval went from the crouch to the hot corner.

Lastly, the increasing influence of sabermetrics in front offices seems to have spurred greater appreciation for the defensive spectrum. According to FanGraphs, research has found that third base is arguably as important as center field, and easily more important than left field, right field and first base.

So if you have a good hitter who also has some defensive talent, it makes more sense to play him at third than it does in a corner outfield spot or first base. That's probably why we're anticipating Bryant and Tomas at third base rather than, say, in right field.

Basically, third base has become such a hot position seemingly because it's benefited from fresh ways teams are looking at the game. Talent that might have ended up elsewhere in years past has been filtered to the hot corner, resulting in a growing collection of stars.

Don't be surprised if this trend lasts well beyond 2015.

Bryant and Tomas will be the new blood in 2015, but it's not just them waiting in the wings. Joey Gallo is an heir to Beltre in Texas. Miguel Sano should soon supplant Plouffe in Minnesota. Maikel Franco could soon be the answer in Philadelphia. Corey Seager, meanwhile, could make like Machado and make the move from short to third, in which case he would take over for Uribe in Los Angeles.

So if you like the idea of keeping your gaze focused on the position that has the most to offer, it might be a good idea to focus on third base in 2015. It also might be a good idea to keep it there.

It's not so much the hot corner anymore. It's the hottest corner, and it may stay that way for a while.

Note: Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted/linked.

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