Welcome to the positional rankings! In addition to the expected positional ranks, there are two other additions:
First, a foreword by author Nate Schwartz! These give a breakdown of the position as a whole and provide an additional view on how to approach it on draft day.
Second, at the end of the article, you’ll find a table of all of the players at this position who wound up in my Top 300.
We hope that these rankings and the notes throughout give you something to think about as draft day approaches and help you feel as prepared as possible when it comes to hitters in your 2026 drafts.
- As a reminder, these rankings are geared toward a standard, daily, 12-team H2H redraft league, which is typically the most popular fantasy baseball format. They will only factor in the five standard categories: runs, RBI, home runs, batting average, and stolen bases.
- These are not best ball or draft and hold rankings. The 12-team redraft format with daily moves is the fundamental opposite of that. Pure volume plays are not valued as much here as in those no-move formats.
- The listed positions are based on five starts or 10 appearances, matching Yahoo’s eligibility rules. I use this because it’s the most inclusive standard across major platforms. If you’re in a format like ESPN or CBS, you may find certain players do not have one of the listed eligibilities. The most jarring example is Maikel Garcia, who could have anywhere from one to five eligibilities based on your site’s rules.
Ranking Philosophy
To keep things in the same ilk, here are a couple of notes on how I generally evaluate hitters before we dive in:
- In 12-team formats, I don’t see much value in guys who only provide stolen bases. It’s an important category, especially in Roto, but in shallower formats, there are too many other (and better) ways to get the steals you need without sacrificing production in the other categories.
- No stat is an island, and they should all be taken in proper context. For ranking purposes, the primary starting points I use are plate discipline, wRC+, quality of contact metrics (also known as Statcast batted ball data), lineup context, and the skills we can measure using tools such as our PLV Hitter Attributes (available for PL Pro members). I also use various projections (some free, some I buy) and dollar value generators.
- Positional eligibility, specifically multi-eligibility, is neat but isn’t a huge factor in many 10- and 12-team leagues anymore due to the prevalence of multi-eligible players. It’s of more value in deeper contests like the NFBC or in leagues with limited roster moves (draft and hold leagues, transaction limits/costs, extremely short benches, etc.). Still, the value is fairly situational and context-dependent.
- Similarly, I don’t penalize players for only qualifying in the utility slot. At most, it is a mild inconvenience if a DH-only player is available at a great value and you already have filled your utility spots.
- Regardless of true talent, anyone talented enough to make it to the big leagues can be brilliant or putrid for 50 to 100 at-bats. It could even last over a month with no change in potential or skill. It also could be wildly meaningful. We can’t and don’t know which will be valid until it’s over, though track record, scouting, and trends can give us hints.
- One of the most difficult things to account for in these rankings is the dynamic between low-ceiling players who have clear roles and players who could have higher ceilings but are without a clear path to playing time. I try to note this in the blurbs as much as I can. NOTE: PROJECTIONS AND AUCTION CALCULATORS WILL ALWAYS FAVOR THE FORMER OVER THE LATTER.
Read The Notes
If you’d like input on a player or have any feedback, your best bet is to contact me on Bluesky (@scottchu.pitcherlist.com), X (@ifthechufits), or Reddit (u/ChusephEsquire)
I also host an AMA in the r/fantasybaseball subreddit every Friday (starting sometime in late March) with Nate, starting around noon ET that lasts through the rest of the day and into the weekend, so feel free to join the fun and ask questions or make comments.
For additional insight, also check out the Hacks & Jacks podcast! This is a hitter-focused pod with myself, Brett Ford, and occasional special guests. We will soon be releasing episodes breaking down these rankings.
Want more from Nate? Check out The Approach Angle podcast, his weekly articles, or jump into our Reddit AMAs during the season! You can also find him on Bluesky (@nschwartz.bsky.social), X (@_nateschwartz), or Reddit (u/NateSchwartzPL).
Foreword
By Nate Schwartz
Third base continues to be a top-heavy position, with significant contributors existing early and cliff earlier than you might realize. José Ramírez is as consistent as always in the first round, and Junior Caminero looks to be an elite power bat for years to come. After that, Jazz Chisholm Jr. still has some durability concerns, and Manny Machado is a stable, but older, stalwart.
The questions come quickly, even early in the draft, about talents being drafted high. Austin Riley, who hasn’t played more than 110 games in either of the last two seasons, is getting lofty projections more akin to his peak. Maikel Garcia is an exciting option, but he is the only stolen base provider in the early to middle rounds. The two third basemen who were the talk of the offseason – Alex Bregman and Eugenio Suárez – aren’t getting a ton of love from projection systems, but they still represent solid third basemen.
There is a significant cliff at third base, with Matt Chapman being roughly the last trustworthy option at the position. That cliff exists around the tenth third baseman off the board, so you want to make sure you have someone solid early enough in the draft. There are some interesting options later that have more than enough potential to overcome the cliff, namely Sal Stewart, Noelvi Marte, Isaac Paredes, and Munetaka Murakami, but these are not names you want to necessarily depend on. The late third base options are more promising than second base, but there’s still a floor that you will not want to be caught at.
Tier 1
1. José Ramírez (3B, CLE) — Thirty home runs, 40 steals, and a strong batting average are just par for the course at this point. He’s the top third baseman in the game. Imagine how great he’d be if this team had someone else, or God forbid, TWO someones at the same time to thicken this lineup a bit.
If you’re wondering why I am slightly higher than J-Ram than others, it’s because no other player has been a top-five overall hitter in five of the last six seasons. In fact, no one has done it more than three times. He’s as bankable as they come.
2. Junior Caminero (3B, TBR) — When you hit 45 home runs in your first full season, you get noticed. The most common narrative about Caminero this offseason will be the home/road splits, as his OPS at home was over 200 points better than his road OPS, but it’s worth noting that he hit more dingers on the road than he did in his home park (by one, but still!). The real difference came from a huge spike in infield flies when on the road, which feels more like a random distribution than it does a predictable pattern. You can look for 30-35 home runs, if not more, as well as 100 RBI, though the ratios might fluctuate a bit. Being eligible at third base helps, too, as it’s a position where there will be the haves and the have-nots.
Tier 2
3. Jazz Chisholm Jr. (2B/3B, NYY) — Jazz’s struggles with contact make him a volatile player. Still, his dynamic skillset and eligibility at two critical positions make that easy enough to gloss over. Sure, he’ll have months where he hits .180, but in between, you’ll get a 30-30 season (or even 35-35). I’m also encouraged by a second straight season with at least 130 games (just barely) and the improved walk rate we saw this season, which helped Chisholm finish with a wRC+ above 100 in every single month in 2025. His streakiness will drive you crazy, but the juice is worth the squeeze to get all that power and speed with solid counting stats.
4. Manny Machado (3B, SDP) — Steady ol’ Manny Machado continues to be the guy you expected when you drafted him. In every non-COVID season since 2015, Machado has at least 27 home runs, 75 runs scored, and 85 RBI with a batting average no lower than .258. Those numbers alone would be a borderline top-60 hitter, but that’s the worst of each category that we’ve seen from him over a decade. The only thing to really keep in mind here is that Machado suffers a four-to-six week slump every year where people finally think his age is catching up to him. It’s a small price to pay for the hot streaks and year-over-year consistency we get from Machado.
The other thing to keep in mind is that Machado’s ceiling may be slightly capped, at least from a counting stat perspective, because this lineup is a Ramón Laureano regression away from being just three hitters deep. It’s possible things break right with Laureano and Xander Bogaerts and maybe even Gavin Sheets, but runs scored might be a struggle with the lack of dangerous hitters behind him.
Tier 3
5. Eugenio Suárez (3B/DH, CIN) — Suárez is coming off a 49 home run season and back-to-back campaigns with at least 100 RBI and 90 runs scored. Suárez is an extreme pull hitter and puts a lot of balls in the air, so hitting 40+ once again is very much in play with a return to Great American Ballpark. The supporting cast around him is volatile, but this is a solid power source with a very high floor, even if it comes with painful ratios.
6. Maikel Garcia (2B/3B/SS/OF/DH, KCR) — Garcia’s 16 home runs in 2025 were five more than he had in all of 2023-2024 combined, and he did it with a better batting average than ever before. Garcia doesn’t have a gawdy barrel rate thanks to his propensity to hit ground balls, but his average exit velocity of 91.3 mph shows he does have some thunder in his bat if he can get it up in the air to the pull side, which is precisely what he improved on in 2025. These changes can sometimes be fluky, but with a guy who can play several premium positions, enough raw power to make it believable, and the ability to steal over 20 bases in his back pocket, Garcia is a solid choice for managers who need speed and batting average boosts without sacrificing power entirely.
7. Austin Riley (3B, ATL) — It’s been back-to-back disappointing and injury-shortened seasons for Riley, who from 2021 to 2023 hit at least 33 home runs each year with a high batting average and boatloads of counting stats. There are plenty of reasons to be hopeful: Riley will only be 29 next season and showed high barrel rates and strong quality of contact despite the less-than-expected outputs for the last two seasons.
Still, it’s tough to shake two straight seasons finishing outside the top-150 hitters. Mild-to-moderate injury and performance risk have pushed Riley down draft rankings, but there’s still top-25 potential if he finds his old form. I’m a little nervous about investing in such a risky third baseman, especially considering how low the replacement level will be, so it would behoove you to grab someone else either before or after Riley with third base eligibility.
8. Alex Bregman (3B, CHC) — Bregman was stuck on the IL for a large portion of the summer, but he did manage to hit 18 home runs in 114 games (roughly a 24 home run pace) while getting back to his double-digit walk rate ways. Bregman is an extreme pull hitter, particularly on fly balls, and while a similar profile was not a huge success in the past (Isaac Paredes), Bregman’s historical home run spray chart suggests that Wrigley won’t rob very many home runs from him. In fact, Wrigley should be better for home runs than Fenway was, though Fenway had the potential to boost his batting average in ways Wrigley simply cannot.
9. Matt Chapman (3B, SFG) — Chapman hit the IL twice in 2025, spraining a bunch of fingers in June and then again in August for discomfort in the same hand. Perhaps that’s the reason the power output was lower than we hoped, as the chart below suggests his power was sapped and did not improve. If it were merely the hand injury, then this ranking likely has Chapman about a tier too low. Still, Chapman hasn’t driven in 80 runners in a season since 2019, and while his runs scored totals used to be a strength, it’s unlikely the Giants will have him hitting second as he did in prior seasons.
IMPORTANT NOTE: This is the last of the “safe-ish” third basemen. After this, you run into a lot more unknowns, and if possible, you should make sure you have at least one third baseman by this point.
Tier 4
10. Munetaka Murakami (3B, CHW) — Murakami is a high-risk, high-reward import from Japan who brings a ton of power and a ton of swing and miss to a team that, frankly, has done a poor job developing this type of player. Still, he’s definitely their first baseman for 2026 and should be eligible at third base in most leagues, as it was his primary position in Japan. I’m expecting a strikeout rate well over 30%, though he should also take some walks and hit 30 home runs in a full season. He could be ranked even higher in OBP formats, but in standard leagues, we’ll be lucky if he hits his weight (currently listed as 213).
In deeper formats, I would move Murakami close to where Kazuma Okamoto ended up, as he is the risky option with Okamoto being the safer option with lower upside, but in shallow formats, gimme the upside over the floor at this stage of the draft.
11. Jorge Polanco (2B/3B/DH, NYM) — The injury risk is the primary concern, as he spent time on the IL in 2025 and hasn’t played at least 140 games in a season since 2021, and he’s only played close to a full season three times in his career (with one of those being the shortened 2020 season). From 2022 to 2024, he missed over 40 games each year, though when he was healthy, he did hit for power. A healthy Polanco can be a top-75ish player with power who can cover at least one tricky position (he had five starts at third base, which qualifies him for the position in Yahoo leagues and almost nowhere else), but there remains significant risk that he misses a large chunk of the season at a spot where the replacement level is far from ideal.
Also, for what it’s worth, he’ll gain first base eligibility in April, but that’s not really where you’re likely to use him.
12. Sal Stewart (1B/3B, CIN) — Stewart doesn’t have nearly the same prospect pedigree as the others in this tier, but he does have an exceptional minor league track record, including a 152 wRC+ across Double-A and Triple-A in 2025 and five home runs in his first 18 major league games with a bunch of balls that he hit really hard.
Projections love what Sal Stewart brings to the table, with most major systems projecting him for 20+ home runs if he wins a full-time role. Even if he doesn’t, he could still threaten that mark with solid ratios. As of now, the Reds don’t have any real threat to Stewart’s chances at being a regular in the lineup, but they are known to do weird things in Cincy, and resigning a guy like Hays could cause Sal to drop hard in the ranks.
13. Alec Bohm (1B/3B, PHI) — After back-to-back seasons of 97 RBI, Bohm disappointed by delivering just 59 in 2026 due to a combination of injury and poor performance throughout the season. He had been carved into the cleanup role for the last few seasons, but due to a slow start and never really finding his groove until late in the year, Bohm spent quite a bit of time hitting in the bottom half of the order, and it showed us that his value is tied to his lineup position. Bohm doesn’t have the power or speed to make an impact unless there is a steady stream of runners on base for him to drive home with singles and doubles (and the occasional home run). If he returns to the four-spot (as he did by the end of the year), he can outperform this rank, but the risk if Bohm doesn’t hold that spot is a hitter who can’t quite crack the top 100 even on his good days.
14. Caleb Durbin (2B/3B, BOS) — Durbin is a line-drive focused hitter who puts a ton of balls in play while hitting in the bottom third of the Red Sox lineup. Durbin should return to a similar role in 2026, and what we saw in those 136 games is more or less what I’d expect from a player with his tools. There will be times that the BABIP wheel spins in his favor more than usual and gets folks talking about him, but ultimately, this is a guy who will just barely clear 10 home runs per year, steal 16-20 bases, and have poor counting stats and a slightly positive batting average (but a poor OBP). You can bump him up in points leagues, though, as he rarely strikes out.
Virtually nothing changes for Durbin landing in Boston, except maybe a slightly better batting average on fly balls that bounce off the Green Monster.
15. Kazuma Okamoto (3B, TOR) — Okamoto looks like the third baseman for the Blue Jays in 2026, and while he doesn’t bring the explosive power of Murakami, he does bring a very safe floor as a guy who can hit 20 home runs, hopefully hit .260, and play most of the time. He may well end up being a better player in fantasy than Murakami due to Murakami’s potential to crash and burn due to the strikeout issues, but he’s also unlikely to be more than a decent backend option at third.
I wouldn’t love leaving my draft with Okamoto as my starting third baseman due to the risk that he struggles to adapt quickly (as has been the case with many players from Japan for a variety of reasons), but as a bench guy, he makes a ton of sense.
16. Royce Lewis (3B/DH, MIN) — You know the drill: Lewis is a player with explosive upside and who has never stayed healthy. He missed the first month of 2025 due to injury and struggled for the entire first half before finding a groove mid-way through August, hitting eight home runs and stealing 11 bases in his final 38 games – a 33 home run, 46 steal pace if he somehow played a full season. Odds are this won’t be the case, but third base is a challenging position to fill, and if you want to play the upside game, there are few players this far down the list who have flashed the skills we’ve seen from a healthy Royce Lewis.
17. Noelvi Marte (3B/OF/DH, CIN) — When Marte is good, he’s excellent. He was raking before being slapped with an 80-game PED suspension (three home runs and four steals in 14 games with 16 RBI) and also showed his upside when he returned, slashing .288/.328/.508 for 48 games in July and August. When Marte is bad, though, he’s horrendous. For the final 23 games of the season, Marte had a .502 OPS with 32 strikeouts to just three walks and five total extra-base hits. We’ve seen this narrative throughout his career, from his exciting 2023 debut to his incredibly disappointing 2024 and what I just described in 2025.
If we were talking about upside alone, this is a guy who could hit 25 home runs, steal 15 bases (it would have been higher, but Francona is much less aggressive than the prior manager), and hit .270 (albeit with a crummy OBP because he doesn’t walk). Unfortunately, the floor is especially low based on what we’ve seen, and he’s not yet shown he can break out of those slumps in-season.
Tier 5
18. Isaac Paredes (3B/DH, HOU) — Paredes’ season was limited to 102 games due to an injury over the summer, but what we saw from him appeared to be a return to his 31-home run form from 2023 as he smacked 20 home runs with excellent plate discipline. Paredes isn’t going to jump off the page with his batted ball quality, but the master of the pulled fly ball should find a way back to 30 home runs, should he stay healthy in 2026 (though he’s missed 19 or more games in three of the last four seasons) AND find a way into the normal lineup.
Paredes dropped over 50 spots from his October ranks, and that’s entirely because the Astros may be content to let Paredes sit on the bench against righties and let Correa be the starting third baseman. I feel this is a depressing outcome for a guy who absolutely has what it takes to be an everyday bat, but we will have to see how this all plays out. There are several teams that could use his services if he were made available, though with his uncertain health, teams may wait until the spring to see if he’s ready to play before thinking about a trade.
19. Willi Castro (2B/3B/OF, COL) — Willi Castro is interesting because he’s in Coors. He doesn’t hit the ball hard, nor does he force himself into most lineups every day, but in Coors Field, his limited power and willingness to spray the ball should turn into something like 15 home runs and a .260 batting average as an everyday player (which he can be for the talent-starved Rockies). He might even steal 15 bases, too. Those in deeper formats that utilize a middle and corner infield spot (like the NFBC format) should move him to the top of this tier, though, as he can be plugged into many of the most difficult spots to replace on the wire (MI, CI, and OF), which helps keep you flexible when looking for replacement options on the wire.
20. Max Muncy (3B, LAD) — Muncy returns to LA for one more round, and when on the field, he should continue to be a power-hitting third baseman with a poor batting average and a strong OBP. The only issue, really, is the “on the field” bit. Muncy has never been known as durable, but he has played in just over half of his team’s games over the last two seasons combined, and it’s hard to imagine that at age 35, he’s going to be less of a risk. He’s a nice add if you’re light on power late, just be careful in deeper leagues as he’s almost certain to miss 40-50 games (if not more).
21. Carlos Correa (3B/SS, HOU) — It’s all too easy to look at the numbers Correa had when he returned to Houston and feel like he’s going to have a much better season in 2026; however, the truth is rarely so simple. Correa actually hit the ball harder in Minnesota (by about 1.5 mph, on average), and the other batted ball quality metrics were not different enough to explain the big difference in production.
So where did this success come from? His line-drive rate. In Minnesota, he had a line-drive rate of 20.7%, which is roughly in line with his career norms. In Houston? 27.1%. That gave him the eighth-best line-drive rate among qualified hitters from August 1 to the end of the season. That is very unlikely to continue in 2026, though he can still be a very useful contributor at two critical positions while batting fourth for this top-heavy offense. In deeper formats that require a middle infielder and corner infielder, you might consider moving Correa into the previous tier.
22. Addison Barger (3B/OF, TOR) — Barger was a revelation over the summer, hitting 15 home runs with a 133 wRC+ over 76 games across May, June, and July. That promise faded, though, as he posted just a 75 wRC+ over the remaining 49 games. It remains to be seen if Barger can find that power he displayed in the middle of the season again, and he’ll open the season locked into a platoon that will be quite difficult to break out of.
23. Colt Keith (1B/2B/3B/DH, DET) — Colt Keith will be a utilityman for the Tigers on Opening Day all over in the infield, and that versatility is his primary asset for fantasy. As a prospect, we expected Keith to blossom into 22-25 home run power if things broke right, but Keith has clubbed just 13 in each of his two first mostly full seasons. Keith’s improved walk rate and batted-ball quality were nice to see, and he’s only 24 years old, but unless Keith shows he can hit 20 or more home runs, he’ll be a replacement-level contributor to fantasy squads. On the bright side, if he DOES do those things, he’ll be a solid infielder who can cover a lot of positions with decent counting stats to boot.
24. Jordan Westburg (2B/3B/DH, BAL) — Injuries limited Westburg to just 85 games in 2025, and while we didn’t see a ton of consistency in his time on the field, we did see similar (though slightly muted) results to his breakout 2024 season, suggesting that a healthy Westburg can be a 23-25 home run hitter with a .265 average with plus counting stats.
Unfortunately, this was the second straight season that injuries cost Westburg more than 50 games, and his ceiling isn’t so high that you can easily brush that aside. It’s also worth noting that Westburg is one of the most aggressive hitters in the league early in the count, and that approach, while successful for him, does lead to those inconsistencies in production as he will often go through stretches where he swings at too many bad pitches and puts them in play. That aspect of his game, combined with the injury risk, makes Westburg a risk-reward play that isn’t compatible with some roster constructions, though if you can take that risk on, you could get excellent value on a guy who can cover two key positions.
25. Miguel Vargas (1B/3B, CHW) — Miguel Vargas doesn’t have the plus power or OBP we thought he could achieve back in his prospect days, but he does have an everyday role in the middle of a lineup (a bad one), and he offers eligibility at both corner infield positions. There’s potential for Vargas to find a little more power in his second full season and push for 20 home runs, and the counting stats should be decent. Still, the batting average and OBP will be pretty low, and his extreme patience at the dish might drive you nuts when he lets too many hittable pitches pass him by.
Tier 6
26. Josh Jung (3B/DH, TEX) — Jung managed to keep the strikeout rate below 30% for the full season, which is good, but the power hasn’t been the same since his 2023 breakout, and injuries have kept Jung out of the lineup for significant chunks of the season throughout his career. Jung was somewhat useful at times in 2025, particularly in July and August, and there’s still a non-zero chance that a fully healthy Jung is a difference-maker in 2026. At a position as challenging as third base, it’s not the worst bet to make, but it’s definitely a bit of a long shot.
27. Ernie Clement (1B/2B/3B/SS, TOR) — Clement finished inside the top-100 hitters in the second half of 2025 and was a sneaky stabilizing presence on many fantasy rosters that had to deal with injuries in the infield. In many formats, he’ll retain eligibility at all infield positions (he loses first base in 20-game formats), which is quite useful as he enters 2025 with a starting role for the Jays. Still, Clement’s soft-hitting ways are brutal to bank on for fantasy value, and repeating his 83 runs scored while hitting in the bottom third of the order seems like an impossible task. He should provide favorable ratios and flexibility, but being a counting stat producer doesn’t seem likely, and double-digit steals and homers aren’t a given either (he fell short on both counts in 2025).
28. Brooks Lee (2B/3B/SS, MIN) — Brooks can play a lot of positions, hit 15 home runs, and possibly hit slightly better than he did last season. Unfortunately, he doesn’t run, and bats last for an offense that projects to be quite awful. He’s a floor guy in deep leagues who will get volume and little else, but guaranteed plate appearances are worth something at this point in the ranks.
29. José Caballero (2B/3B/SS/OF, NYY) — Caballero will be a popular name during draft season for his speed and versatility late in the draft, but it’s hard to see how he stays fantasy relevant once Volpe returns. I also can’t ignore that the Yankees also signed another right-handed utilityman (Amed Rosario) to keep around, and I am not sure why they’d do that if they already had Caballero and planned a long-term role for him.
Caballero fell 40ish spots since my October rankings, but in reality, Caballero is either going to be higher on your board at this point or totally off of it based on whether you need steals, since he is a sandbag in all the other categories.
30. Nolan Gorman (2B/3B, STL) — It appears the Cardinals are giving Gorman one more chance to be a part of their future, and while he’s clearly shown that he has power and will take walks, he strikes out way too much due to severe contact issues. If he somehow finds a way to correct that, he’ll have moments of usefulness at multiple positions. It’s more likely that he doesn’t, though, which is a bummer. It’s a power-hitting lottery ticket that will likely end in a few streaks here and there and a lot of sadness, but the good times are awfully good.
Photo courtesy of Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Aaron Polcare (@abeardoesart on Bluesky and X)
