Third base has been a notoriously difficult position to find quality ATB players and the addition of the Negro Leagues has done very little to change that. Please understand, there have been plenty of historically great major league third basemen, but hardly any translate well to Diamond Mind Baseball and ATB. In the resims, just 5 averaged an OPS over .800, only slightly better than second basemen (4) and shortstops (2). Conversely, 8 left fielders, 10 center fielders, 12 right fielders, and 13 first basemen recorded an OPS at least as good.
At the hot corner, Judy Johnson was the best of Negro Leaguers. Elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1975, Johnson enjoyed a long career with a lifetime average well over .300. He is credited with finding the great Josh Gibson and played on the famous Homestead Grays alongside Gibson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, and Oscar Charleston.
For our purposes he rates as an excellent ranging back up infielder. On paper Johnson showed promise, batting .362 / .399 / .541 with 41 doubles and 16 triples during the 1924-1925 seasons. However, In over 230,000 resim at bats he hit just .270 / .304 / .384.
Elsewhere, A.D. Creacy showed some pop, maintaining a .391 slugging in 16,000 at bats but his horrid .283 on-base percentage makes him basically unusable. Newt Joseph also made the cut, but his .570 resim OPS precludes him from any interest on draft day. In the table below you'll see few other options but I do wonder how the .390 OBP for Dave Malarcher will translate.
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