Colorado Rockies: Is Ryan McMahon one of the top 10 3B right now?

On Thursday, MLB Network released their list of the Top 10 Third Basemen right now. The list had a current and former Colorado Rockies player on the list … but Ryan McMahon did not make the list.

The newest member of the Colorado Rockies, Kris Bryant, did make the list at no. 10, despite only playing in 55 games at third base in 2021. However, that was the most games he played at any of the six positions that he played last year.

Former Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado also was at no. 8 on “The Shredder’s” list.

Colorado Rockies 3B Ryan McMahon nearly made the list of one analyst, though

There were six people who had their list on “Top 10 Third Baseman Right Now” on Thursday night and only one of them mentioned that Colorado Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon was close to making their list: former MLB infielder Bill Ripken.

The others (host Brian Kenny, special guest Hannah Keyser of Yahoo! Sports, and the “sabermetric super panel” of Mike Petriello and Sarah Langs (both of MLB.com) and former SABR President Vince Gennaro) did not mention McMahon as being close to making their list.

As for Ripken, he said that McMahon largely didn’t make his list for one reason: he wasn’t sure if McMahon would play third base full-time in 2022.

“I think everyone on my list is definitely going to play third base,” said Ripken. “Ryan McMahon was interesting for me for (compiling my list),” said Ripken. “I was thinking, thinking, thinking ‘I don’t know where he’s going to play moving forward.'”

Kris Bryant also wasn’t on his list because of the same reason. Ripken touted some of the players on his list for playing all the time and both McMahon and Bryant did that in 2021. McMahon played in 151 games in 2021, 52 in 2020, and 141 in 2019. For Bryant, he played in 144 games in 2021, 34 in 2020 (he had a few injuries), and 147 in 2019.

Additionally, there was a list voted on by the fans. Unsurprisingly because of Cardinals fans, Nolan Arenado topped the list.

https://twitter.com/MLBNetwork/status/1504572845246107648?s=20&t=cmpXo0LtBHh9GxN6DgyROA

Here is the full list for “The Shredder.”

For what it’s worth, when using rWAR (Baseball-Reference’s version of WAR, which the show used), McMahon was tied for 5th in the majors among primary third baseman at 4.0.

Perhaps, if McMahon can develop more at the plate, he can make it on to the list next year because, as Rockies fans well know, he would definitely be on the list for defense.