MLB Players Of The Decade: Evan Longoria Vs. The Field For Best Third Baseman

Here is the list of the top 35 pitchers in the Majors that Ryan Zimmerman had to face last year against a division rival:
Roy Halladay (2nd)
Josh Johnson (4th)
Roy Oswalt (16th)
Anibal Sanchez (23rd)
Tommy Hanson (24th)
Cole Hamels (34th)

And here’s the list of similar pitchers that Longoria faced:
Jon Lester (10th)
CC Sabathia (13th)
Ricky Romero (28th)
John Lackey (31st)

This is a pretty comparable list — if you throw out Halladay and Johnson on the NL East side! Seriously, it’s not even close: Zimmerman has to face TOUGHER pitching on a day-to-day basis than Longoria.

Of course, it would certainly help if Zimmerman was on a team where he had more RBI opportunities and guys on base to help give him more at bats in meaningful opportunities. If I remember correctly, Zimmerman’s usually had early season slumps and he had one right before the all-star break last year.

Longoria is certainly the choice, but I’m certainly rooting for Zim to pounce.

Hey Rob, I’ve read your columns a lot, never really made a comment until now, because I think I can take a random shot in the dark and say I think i know who it is.

I believe it is Shin-Soo Choo. A player who largely gets dismissed for being on the Indians, but I have a good friend who is an Indians fan so I hear about him.

If I were a betting man I’d take the field. Always take the field. But if the field were not an option I’d put Wright 2nd behind Longoria. Wright was better younger than Zimmerman and his outstanding years are too recent to dismiss.

I get 10 guesses? Okay, how about:

Carl Crawford
Ryan Braun
Matt Holliday
Jayson Werth
Ichiro Suzuki

Well, that’s five. Jordan12’s guess of Choo is a good one, too.

In this post — and the rest of your players of the decade posts — you cite WAR from Baseball-Reference (or rWAR, as it sometimes referred to). If you like Fangraphs’ defensive metrics more, why don’t you use their WAR valuations instead?

But David Wright’s age and his recent history simply exclude him from this conversation, as a serious candidate. And I say that as a big fan.

Jordan nailed it (regarding No. 3). More on that next week.

I’ll try to transition to fWar. Baseball-Reference’s stuff is easier to sort, especially the multi-year stuff. But I should just suck it up and do stuff by hand if necessary.

Rendon would have been worth a mention, I suppose. But we would have said exactly the same things about Alex Gordon, right? I just don’t have much use for players who haven’t faced professional pitching yet.

His sophomore season was dismal, but he’s got a nice chance of a rebound and his 2009/half of 2008 were pretty off the charts. I think he rates at least an also-ran mention.

/blatant homerism

That’s just a gut feeling. Third baseman, as a general rule, don’t seem to age well—at least as third baseman. For some reason, it seems like more of them fall off a cliff by age 30. Third baseman who continue to hit but lose a bit of quickness or speed tend to be moved to 1st base. And sometimes 2d basemen and shortstops are moved to 3d base as their defense declines a somewhat. I’ll vote for an unknown young third baseman who can reach star power around 2013 or so.

As a Mets fan, Wright is my favorite player. Still, as much as I love watching him play, the strikeouts over the last 2 seasons and shotty defense (by metrics standards) are a bit concerning. As long as Wright is striking out at a clip of ~25% or more, hes probably not going to return to the elite hitter he was in 2006-2008. I have a little more faith his defense will rebound, but probably not enough to get him back to the kind of value years he was putting up prior to 2009.

I went with Longoria.