Many have asked the question, “Is Nolan Arenado the best third baseman in baseball?”
Sports Illustrated did so on Wednesday night and they’re just the latest in a line of media outlets and hundreds of thousands of fans to pose that inquiry.
That’s not what they should or anybody should be asking. Despite what the Nationals’ Twitter account and Daniel Murphy may think, Anthony Rendon is not the best player to play the hot corner in the majors. It’s clearly Nolan Arenado.
It’s easy to understand why one may draw the conclusion of Rendon being better than Arenado: the Washington third baseman’s fWAR is higher, considerably so. Baseball Reference disagrees and says it’s basically a toss up. A quarrel one can take up with Fangraphs is the rating of Rendon as a better fielder than Arenado. If the four Gold Gloves don’t do the talking, it only takes a brief conversation with someone in the game to tell you Arenado is a generational defender.
Escaping the third-baseman mold, because the question remains bigger than that: Is Arenado the best player in baseball?
By Baseball Reference’s WAR (Wins Above Replacement) Arenado is sixth in baseball at 4.5, almost one WAR behind the co-leading Jose Altuve and Aaron Judge at 5-plus. The top player in the NL is Rendon at 4.8, while his teammate Bryce Harper is just below Arenado and Rendon at 4.4.
So let’s look at how Arenado lines up against Altuve, Judge, Rendon, and Harper, two of the best AL players and two from the NL:
Altuve: 92 G, .353/.420/.556, 14 HR, 52 RBI, 27 2B, 2 3B, 65 R, .979 FLD%, 9 Total Zone FLD
Judge: 91 G, .312/.433/.645, 30 HR, 67 RBI, 13 2B, 3 3B, 77 R, .988 FLD%, 8 Total Zone FLD
Rendon: 87 G, .318/.423/.593, 20 HR, 64 RBI, 22 2B, 1 3B, 51 R, .972 FLD%, 11 Total Zone FLD
Arenado: 94 G, .309/.356/.584, 21 HR, 80 RBI, 30 2B, 5 3B, 63 R, .988 FLD%, 12 Total Zone FLD
Harper: 86 G, .337/.442/.632, 22 HR, 73 RBI, 22 2B, 1 3B, 79 R, .987 FLD%, 7 Total Zone FLD
Bold leads league, Blue best among five players
There is a lot of Arenado leading those five players, but Judge has been a power-hitting revelation and Altuve is hitting almost 50 points higher, and neither are slouches on defense.
“He’s maybe the best defensive third baseman in the game and a guy who hits in the heart of their order,” Bruce Bochy said in 2015. “I haven’t seen a better third baseman in the game now.”
Getting recognition from a rival manager, let a lone one of the game’s best, is high praise.
“Nolan Arenado is the best player in baseball besides Mike Trout,” Adam Ottavino said in May.
“Nothing Nolan does surprises me… he’s the best in the business,” Mark Reynolds said earlier this year.
When Jeff Hoffman was asked on the BSN Rockies podcast earlier this week who was the best player he has ever played against or with he said this:
“It’s Nolan Arenado by far. I say it all the time, everyone asks me how good is he and stuff, and I was on MLB Network recently and I told them that he finds a way to surprise you every day, even though you don’t think you can be surprised by the plays he makes and does in the field, he finds a way to open your eyes and step back… he’s incredible on both sides of the ball he will, knock on wood, go down as one of the best third baseman to play this game.”
But how much does one have to go back to seasons past to assess?
When climbing back to last year Mike Trout quickly comes back into the picture and you remember, it is he who is indeed the best player in baseball, but one other name pops back into the picture: Mookie Betts. Betts is third in MLB with a 5.0 WAR this season and last year was second to just Trout at 9.5. Altuve is up there once more at fourth in MLB last season while Arenado finished ninth.
The best players in the game, in my estimation, are:
1: Trout
2: Betts
3: Altuve
4: Arenado
5: Paul Goldschmidt
6: Judge
7: Bryant
8: Harper
9: Joey Votto
No, Arenado isn’t the best player in baseball, but with Trout missing a big portion of the year and the inability of Kris Bryant to repeat his 2016 MVP year, leads to the initial question.
Nolan Arenado might be the best player in the National League; if he’s not, it’s marginal between him and whoever you feel necessary to put atop.
