Fantasy Baseball: Third Base Positional Preview for 2025

The 2025 MLB season is right around the corner, and for fantasy baseball managers, this is peak draft season.

Ahead of drafts, we're previewing every fantasy baseball position, and this is the breakdown for third base.

Top Fantasy Baseball Third Basemen for 2025

Here are the top 12 third basemen and their current average draft position (ADP), according to FantasyPros' ADP.

Jose Ramirez is in a tier of his own at third base, but the position otherwise has similar depth as first base. Including Ramirez, six players fall inside the top 40 picks and nine crack the top 100.

Ramirez has consistently been a five-category contributor over his career, and he produced one of this best seasons yet in 2024 with 114 runs, 39 home runs, 118 RBIs, 41 stolen bases, and a .279 average. He'll be hard pressed to match those numbers again, but few have shown a higher floor than Ramirez across the years, making him an easy click as a top-five pick.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is a fantastic consolation prize, though he's often eligible at just first base due to playing only 12 games at third last season, so be sure to check your league's rules. While Guerrero won't provide much speed, he should put up high marks in the other four categories and even projects for the league's third-best batting average (.295), per ATC.

Jazz Chisholm, Austin Riley, Rafael Devers, and Manny Machado are the other top fantasy third basemen. Outside of Ramirez, Chisholm is one of the few corner infielders who can provide power paired with elite stolen base upside. Riley, Devers, and Machado all project for 30+ home runs while being a plus in batting average.

Jordan Westburg, Mark Vientos, and Junior Caminero round out the 3B options inside the top 100 picks, and they share some similarities as young players with intriguing upside but limited track records. Westburg and Vientos logged roughly 450 plate appearances apiece in 2024, and Westburg profiles as an all-around fantasy asset, while the latter is more of a pure power option. Caminero is still just 21 years old and has all of 213 career MLB plate appearances, but he's one of this season's most popular breakout candidates.

Of the remaining names in the above chart, Alex Bregman figures to be the one who could creep up draft boards after signing with the Boston Red Sox in mid-February. Bregman doesn't steal bases and likely won't blow you away in any one category, but he projects to bat in the heart of the order, consistently carries a low strikeout rate (13.6% K rate in 2024), and should benefit from utilizing the Green Monster at Fenway Park.

Undervalued Third Basemen for Fantasy Baseball

If you miss out on the top names, here are a pair of solid 3B choices outside the top 100.

Matt Chapman (SFG) | ADP: 119.8 (3B13)

Matt Chapman has always been a strange case in the Statcast era, consistently showing great-to-excellent marks in barrel rate, hard-hit rate, average exit velocity, and maximum exit velocity, yet exceeding 30 home runs just once over a largely injury-free career. Still, Chapman's smacked exactly 27 dingers in three of the past four campaigns, and he even unlocked a speed component in 2024 with 15 swiped bags. The San Francisco Giants stole the second-fewest bases last season, so replicating those stolen bases could be difficult, but his sprint speed (84th percentile) shows it wasn't entirely a fluke.

Isaac Paredes (HOU) | ADP: 184.3 (3B16)

In many ways the opposite of Chapman, Isaac Paredes ranks near the bottom in Statcast quality of contact metrics but still managed to slug 31 home runs two years ago. As his spray chart shows, he relies heavily on pulling the ball (53.7% pull rate in 2024), so his limited power sinks or swims depending on a ballpark's left field dimensions. Well, it just so happens the well-known Crawford Boxes (315 feet from home plate) at the Houston Astros' home venue will do just nicely for Paredes, and he could be poised for a bounce-back campaign following a poor finish last season.

Late-Round Third Basemen for Fantasy Baseball

Finally, these are two players outside the top 250 picks who stand out.

Ryan McMahon (COL) | ADP: 272.8 (3B25)

• At this point, we pretty much know what we're getting from Ryan McMahon, who's good for 20+ home runs, a batting average in the .240s, and a handful of stolen bases. Entering his age-30 season, we probably can't expect much more than this, but there's always value in rostering a Colorado Rockies regular you can plug in whenever the team is at Coors Field.

Connor Norby (MIA) | ADP: 288.0 (3B27)

• Connor Norby will get a chance at regular playing time for the Miami Marlins this season, and in a limited MLB stint in 2024 (194 plate appearances), he showed promising marks in barrel rate (94th percentile if he qualified) and sprint speed (94th percentile). However, it also came with a shaky 33.0% K rate. It remains to be seen if he can cut down on the punchouts, but if he can produce a non-crippling batting average, he could end up being a strong power/speed fantasy option.

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