This week we’ll take a look at two third basemen who’ve burst onto the scene this year. Do the peripheral stats predict future success or do they indicate these guys are going to fall back to pack?
Todd Frazier
Frazier first burst onto the scene in the 1998 Little League World Series as a member of the Toms River, NJ championship team. Frazier went on to become both the career and single season homerun record holder for Rutgers leading the Reds to select him with the 34th overall pick in the 2007 draft. After a nice rookie season followed by a so-so sophomore season, Frazier has broken out this year resulting in his first career all-star selection. The 28-year-old is currently batting .279 with 22 homeruns and 17 steals.
Frazier’s batting average is legitimate. The .279 mark he currently sits at is a slight improvement over his rookie year (.273) and vastly better than last year’s .234. During 2012, 2013 and 2014, Frazier’s BABIPs have gone from .316 down to .269 and now back up to .320. His inability to make hard contact as consistently last year seems to be the culprit for the sub-par BABIP as his line drive rate over the same three years has gone from 22.4% to 18.1 % back up to 23.1% (the league-average rate is 20%). As long as Frazier can avoid whatever it was that plagued his hard contact rate last season, it seems a batting average just below .300 can be expected from Frazier throughout his prime years.
To make predictions about Frazier’s power output, we’ll look at a statistic known as isolated power (ISO) which is a rate that measures how many extra bases a hitter earns per at bat. The league-average ISO is about .150 and Frazier has consistently been above this level. His ISO in 2014 is currently .181 and he’s never let his ISO drop below .173 as a Red. In the minors, Frazier’s ISO was always above .169 during each stop where Frazier accumulated over 50 at bats. As long as he calls Great American Smallpark, err Ballpark, home, Frazier should find himself pushing past the 20 homer mark regularly.
One of the weirdest things about Frazier’s breakout season has been his stolen base total. Corner infielders are hardly known for their speed and Frazier was no different throughout most of his professional career. Coming into 2014, Frazier had 10 steals in 17 attempts in his major league career. This season, he’s stolen 17 bases in 23 attempts. In his minor league career, Frazier reached double digits in the stolen base department twice. If you look at Frazier’s monthly splits for this season, they indicate his current steals total is an aberration. Almost half of Frazier’s stolen bases occurred during June when he had 8 steals in 11 attempts. He’s only attempted six more steals in all of July and August. It seems highly likely Frazier’s career high in stolen bases is happening in 2014.
Even without the steals, a third baseman who hits .280 with 25 homeruns is a rare commodity these days and Frazier seems destined for several more All Star teams before he hangs them up.
Anthony Rendon
Anthony Rendon was a star at Rice in college and was taken by the Nationals with the 6th overall pick of the 2011 draft. He played at five different levels of the minors during his first professional season in 2012 and only played three games in AAA in 2013 before making his MLB debut. After a decent rookie year where he logged time at both second and third base, Rendon has broken out in his first full season at the MLB level and is doing a little bit of everything offensively with a .275 average, 17 homeruns, 13 stolen bases, and 95 runs scored placing him at the top of the charts among MLB third basemen in that category. Rendon narrowly missed making his first All-Star team as he lost the Final Vote to the Cubs Anthony Rizzo. Do the statistics suggest Rendon has another chance at playing in baseball’s Midsummer Classic?
Rendon’s BABIP in 2014 sits one tick below what’s largely considered league-average at .299. Rendon’s line drive rate sits slightly above average this year at 20.9%; however, in his rookie year Rendon posted an exceptional line drive rate of 25.5%. If his true hard contact rate is somewhere in the middle, Rendon’s batting average is likely to creep toward .300 or above throughout his career.
Rendon’s power is also legitimate. Rendon played more games at AA than any other level of the minor leagues. At that level, Rendon posted an excellent .206 ISO in 22 games in 2012 and a phenomenal .284 mark in 33 games during 2013. Although these are extremely small sample sizes, Rendon never played more than 22 games at any other level of the minor leagues. In the majors last year, Rendon’s ISO slipped to .131 but he’s turned that around this year by posting a solid .183 mark. Homerun totals in the twenties seem regularly attainable for Rendon.
With David Wright slipping, Ryan Zimmerman wounded, and Pedro Alvarez forgetting how to throw, Anthony Rendon and Todd Frazier should be the premier third basemen in the National League for the next few years.
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