The Hitting of Third Basemen is Becoming Offensive – Just Not in the Good Sense ...Middle East

Third base was once an all-mighty hitter’s position. It’s not so much anymore as OPS reflects a decline this decade, particularly in the last two MLB seasons.

Astute baseball fans have probably noticed this has not exactly been a banner season at the plate for MLB players who call third base home.

That’s putting it kindly.

Of course, it’s not everyone. Jose Ramirez is still a superstar. Alex Bregman has been great when healthy in Boston. Manny Machado is doing Manny Machado things and Eugenio Suarez is popping home runs in the desert at a rapid rate (including his tying the all-time single-game high).

But as a group? It’s been pretty ugly.

We only need to look at positional OPS to see just how ugly. OPS is, of course, a batter’s on-base percentage plus his slugging percentage. It’s a quick and easy way to look at how good (or bad) a batter is at not just reaching first base safely, but reaching second base and third base and trotting all the way around the bases with a home run.

Does he get on and does he do damage?

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Yearly Ranking for Third Basemen

For starters, let’s compare third basemen in 2025 to third basemen over the past 50 years, using the Opta database (which looks only at plate appearances by batters playing third base in that specific game) going back to the 1976 season.

Spoiler: It isn’t good for the modern crew.

… yada, yada, yada …

Yep. We told you it’s bad. And it’s not just a fluke situation, where a few bad months in the first half of the season are skewing the results. It’s the continuation of a trend toward what appears to be a new normal.

It wasn’t terribly long ago that third basemen, as a group, were pretty stellar. You saw above that the 2019 group posted the second-best OPS in the 50-year stretch. That season, 15 players who had more than half of their total plate appearances (400 or more) at third base posted an OPS of .845 or higher.

Now, let’s look at the entire list for the first half of 2025 (minimum 200 PAs):

That’s quite a difference. Looking at the opposite side, of the 30 third basemen with at least 200 PAs this year, exactly half of them have an OPS below .700. In 2019, only three of 33 third basemen with at least 300 PAs had an OPS below .700.

The same pattern holds true for OPS+, which normalizes OPS across the entire league by accounting for external factors such as ballparks. This year, 17 of those 30 third basemen have an OPS+ below 100 – note, 100 is league-average – while only eight of the 33 in 2019 were below 100.

2025 Positional Rankings

That .703 OPS is pretty crummy, you might be thinking right about now. But how does it compare to other positions around the diamond?

Glad you asked.

If you’re like me, the first thing that jumps out to you is third basemen having a lower OPS than shortstops, and also that it’s identical to catchers. Both of those positions have placed a premium on defense since the early days of the sport, often allowing for offensively inadequate players who are strong with the glove. That hasn’t changed.

But third base has long been a production spot. An adequate glove is required, but a premium defender is considered more of a nice bonus.

How common is this scenario? Maybe fake a surprised face: It’s not common at all.

In fact, in the past 50 years, there was only one season when shortstops finished with a higher OPS than third basemen: 2024, when shortstops had a .728 collective OPS compared to third basemen’s .701.

Somewhere, Mike Schmidt just threw up in his mouth.

Even in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when shortstops like Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra, Miguel Tejada and Derek Jeter were putting up rather insane offensive numbers and putting at least one shortstop in the top five of MVP voting just about every year, third basemen still were more productive at the plate in terms of OPS.

Take the 2000 season as an example. Garciaparra and Rodriguez each posted an OPS above 1.000, with Jeter at .896 and Barry Larkin at .876. As a group, shortstops posted an OPS of .737, which was well behind the .782 of third basemen. The best season for shortstops in the past 50 years was .772 in 2019, but still behind the .798 of third basemen.

Oh, and in the past 50 years, catchers have never had an OPS equal to or better than third basemen.

So … Why?

You’re probably wondering what’s happening. It’s a combination of things.

Look at the lists of third basemen from 2019 and this year.

Bregman and Suarez make both lists. Aside from those two, though, all we see are stark reminders that time is undefeated. Arenado is not nearly the same hitter now in his age-34 season (.693 OPS). Rendon has been a shadow of himself at the plate the past several seasons and hasn’t played at all in 2025 (and may never see the field again).

Devers is no longer a third baseman, having been involved in the season’s biggest trade. Same for Bryant and Turner. Chapman has been productive for the San Francisco Giants this year, with an OPS of .772 in his age-32 season.

Maybe the biggest issue, though, is that the younger generation of third basemen hasn’t picked up the torch quite yet.

The Chicago Cubs, for example, still have high hopes for Matt Shaw, but his first go-round in the major leagues has been a struggle; the rookie has a .556 OPS.

In Texas, Josh Jung was a revelation in 2023, swatting 23 homers, making the MLB All-Star Game and finishing fourth in the AL Rookie of the Year voting. But last season was basically a lost season with injuries, and he’s struggled so much in 2025 that the Rangers had to send him back to the minors to find his swing.

Jung’s brother Jace failed his 2025 MLB audition and is back with Detroit’s Triple-A team.

In New York, the tandem of Mark Vientos and Brett Baty has struggled with the Mets. In Pittsburgh, it looks like perennial Gold Glove candidate Ke’Bryan Hayes (.576 OPS) might never become an adequate big-league hitter. In Philadelphia, Alec Bohm has had his fair share of big moments, but owns just a 103 OPS+ through 690 career MLB games.

The examples go on and on and on.

With this lack of reinforcements in mind, the recent MLB Draft seems relevant. Eighteen shortstops were taken in the first 40 picks on Sunday, and in that same stretch, only one third baseman was taken, with the No. 20 overall selection.

Now, it should be said that, of course, not every player drafted as a shortstop will be a shortstop in the bigs. Especially in high school, the best athletes tend to play the premium position, and then for any number of reasons – including they don’t have the glove to stick at shortstop in the pros, grow too big and muscular to stay there, and injuries – they wind up playing somewhere else on the diamond.

The ex-shortstops with good arms move to third base or the outfield, and ones with weaker arms slide over to second base. But we see a similar story playing out in the minor leagues, too.

Let’s look at Baseball America’s current top-100 prospects list, which was updated in early July. Six of the top eight players on the list are shortstops – players that high on BA’s prospect rankings are much more likely to stick at the position than draftees – and 24 shortstops made the top 100.

How many third base prospects made the top 100? Just three, at No. 62, 89 and 94.

Welcome to the new normal, it seems.

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The Hitting of Third Basemen is Becoming Offensive – Just Not in the Good Sense Opta Analyst.

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