Trevor Plouffe is never a name that gets called out on draft day followed by a hearty “hell yeah!” However, he’s a solid, cost-effective option at the hot corner if you don’t want to go all in on the elites of the position. The data makes such a statement clear. Here are his rankings last season amongst third basemen.
Plouffe hit a mere .244. We’ll get back to that, but let’s just say that number stinks.
Plouffe stole two bases. Nothing to see there.
Plouffe hit 22 homers. That’s the same mark as Mike Moustakas and one more than Evan Longoria.
Plouffe drove in 86 runs. That’s the same mark as Manny Machado and three more than Adrian Beltre.
Plouffe scored 74 runs. That’s the same as Longoria and one more than Moustakas.
Add it all up and Plouffe hit 22 homers with 86 RBI and 74 runs scored. The only other third sackers to hit all three of those numbers last year were Nolan Arenado, Josh Donaldson, Kris Bryant, Todd Frazier and Manny Machado. Pretty good company no doubt, though he is by far and away the least sexy name on that list.
AVERAGE
Plouffe is not going to help you here. In fact, he might hurt your fantasy squad.
For his career Plouffe has hit .245. That’s not good, and is worse than the league average in that time (.260). Moreover, there’s no real area in which his batting average stands out.
vs. left: .271
vs. right: .235
Home: .258
Away: .231
Night: .245
Day: .246
First half: .250
Second half: .240
Plouffe is not going to help you in the batting average category. In fact, he’s likely to hurt you a bit. You will have to plan around his batting average if you roster him.
POWER
It two of the last three seasons Plouffe has hit 22 or more homers. Over the last four seasons he’s averaged 18.5 homers a season. That’s not an impressive number but it’s not a terrible given that he’s averaged just 498 at-bats over those four seasons.
Plouffe has an 11.6 HR/F ratio for his career. He’s been under that mark in two of the last three seasons but he was over it at 12.0 in 2015. The league average is 9-10 percent. Plouffe is slightly better than the league average here.
Plouffe has a 40.3 percent fly ball ratio in his career. The league average is about 34 percent meaning that Plouffe hits a good deal of his batted balls skyward. In four of the last five seasons that mark has been at least 40.0 percent, but only once has it been over 41 percent (43.6 percent back in 2012). Truth is, he’s an extremely stable fly ball option.
According to Park Factors from 2015, Target Field was actually a much better homer park than you likely thought. In fact, it was slightly better than average coming in 13th amongst all parks while it’s 1.058 mark says that the park was 5.8 percent better than the league average. Not a huge homer haven by any means, but at least it’s fair for batters.
RUNS BATTED IN / RUNS SCORED
Where will Plouffe hit? That’s a good question and it speaking directly to his RBI outlook as well. Last year here is what we got in terms of games in each spot in the batting order.
3rd | 14 games |
4th | 69 games |
5th | 58 games |
6th | 11 games |
Who have the Twins added? Byung-ho Park and… yep, not much. Therefore, it’s hard to envision a scenario in which Plouffe isn’t hitting cleanup or 5th this season. It probably boils down to how Miguel Sano performs. In his 80 games last season he hit 4th, so I would wager a guess that Plouffe will open the year batting fifth, a nice spot given his skill set (he might be even better suited to hit 6th or 7th, but alas, the Twins just don’t have the bats to do that).
Plouffe has driven in 80 and 86 runners the past two seasons. Last season Plouffe crushed it with runners in scoring position posting a .316/.378/.610 slash line. Wow is right. Don’t see there is any way that he keeps that pace up, not with his overall hitting talents and his career RISP mark (.252/.324/.408). Growth in the RBI column? Unlikely. Stability. Fair.
Plouffe has never scored 75 runs but has been at 69 and 74 runs the past two seasons. Will that number grow? It’s unlikely. Here’s why.
1 – Plouffe is on an offense that isn’t exactly considered deep. It’s unlikely that great bats will be behind him to knock him in.
2 – Plouffe has never hit 25 homers and as noted he’s been just under 19 homers a season the past four years. He’s not a big time power bat so he loses a few runs batted in because he doesn’t drive himself in as much as the elites at the position.
3 – Plouffe doesn’t strike out at a crazy level, his 20.4 percent career K-rate ain’t bad, but he’s also not going to set the world on fire in the walks column either. Plouffe has never walked 55 times in a season, and his 7.8 percent walk rate is pretty much league average stuff. He also doesn’t get hit by a bunch of pitches, and average of four the last five seasons, so his OBP is never impressive. Basically you can add about .060 points to his batting average to find his OBP from season to season. If he was a .275 hitter we’d be talking about a .335 OBP and we could live with that. However, his career batting average is a previously mentioned, and terrible, .245. The result is a career .308 OBP that is awful terrible. In fact, it’s worse than the league average of .322 since his career began. Hard to score a bazillion runs when you don’t even get on base at a league average pace.
Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the 2016 MLB Draft Guide which includes more than 600 Players Ranked, auction values, rookie reports, hitting and pitching targets as well 
as all the info you need if you’re ready to start playing DFS.
OUTLOOK
Plouffe is what he is, basically the modern day Casey Blake if you will – solid but kinda just a guy. He’ll turn 30 in June and likely will produce at the same levels as we’ve come to expect in 2016, that is if the Twins stick with their plan and leave Plouffe at third and Sano in the outfield (given that they just agreed to a more than $7 million salary for Plouffe in 2016 one would have to think that they intend to follow through on that plan).
10-team Mixed: He’s not worth starting in this format. Even as a corner infield option you can do much better than a guy who is only going to help you, at best, in three categories.
12-team Mixed: A viable corner infield option because of his counting category production but one that will have to be teamed with a series of high average batters in order to defer the pitfalls that his game brings. When the draft reaches the age you can be drafted (18 here in the states), you can start to consider rostering this moderate talent.
15-team Mixed: The most viable place to use him with little concern in a mixed league scenario. In mixed leagues of this size you end up mixing and matching in a more aggressive way (be it because of injury or poor play). Plouffe has to be drafted since he has a wide open path to 150 games played, and there could be some winning teams that use him this season. Don’t reach but when the draft rounds get toward the drinking age don’t be worried about striking.
AL-Only: Be careful with your league rules in this setup. It’s possible the Twins look to move Plouffe, and if he’s dealt to the NL do you lose him or retain him in your setup? Plouffe’s batting average may not concern as much as in mixed leagues making him slightly more interesting. He’s a top-10 option at third base in this setup.
To see where Plouffe ranks take a look at our 2016 Rankings that are part of the MLB Draft Guide.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).