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Third Base Defense

More PMR, as David Pinto starts in on the corner positions. This one's a little weird, because all but two of the players listed wound up making more outs than expected, but that aside we can still compare players to the positional average. Note that, just as for outfielders, the values listed are outs above or below average (per 150 games), rather than runs.

Pedro Feliz: +32.9 outs
Chone Figgins: +32.8
David Bell: +14.2
Adrian Beltre: +7.1
Eric Chavez: +0.3
Alex Rodriguez: +6.7
Hank Blalock: -16.7
Russ Branyan: -14.9
Joe Randa: -29.3
Jorge Cantu: -35.3

For what it's worth, the value of a ball in play not fielded by a third baseman is probably in the neighborhood of one run (for middle infielders, it's about 0.75), so these values double as decent approximations of runs saved.

What have we learned? First of all, that PMR - like pretty much everyone and everything else - likes the idea of having Lopez/Betancourt/Beltre fielding ground balls next year, as those guys promise to make Felix look even better than he already is. I'm tempted to include Sexson in the group based on reputation and wingspan alone, but the majority of advanced fielding metrics have been less than impressed with his glove, so I'll hold off for now.

Beyond that, Pedro Feliz looks like an underrated gloveman and a reasonably decent everyday player when you combine his raw power with his fielding ability (he was also one of the top third basemen in PMR a year ago). Jorge Cantu doesn't, as he was beyond awful at both of his semi-regular positions (2B, 3B). And with Hank Blalock...man, that defensive infield the Rangers had last year might've been one of the worst of all time. You'd think that building a strong team defense would only become more of a priority when you play in a park like that, but I guess not.