2020 Positional Power Rankings: First Base
Earlier today, Meg Rowley introduced this year’s positional power rankings. As a quick refresher, all 30 teams are ranked based on the projected WAR from our Depth Charts. Our staff then endeavors to provide you with some illuminating commentary to put those rankings in context. We begin this year’s series with first base.
First base just ain’t what it used to be. For the first time in the span covered by our strict position splits (i.e., including only the time actually spent at the position), which means as far back as 2002, not a single first baseman produced a season worth at least 5.0 WAR. Even Pete Alonso, who set a rookie record with 53 homers while posting a 143 wRC+ and playing better-than-advertised defense, topped out at 4.8, with Freddie Freeman and Anthony Rizzo the only other ones to reach 4.0, though Carlos Santana and Max Muncy surpassed that latter pair if you include their time at other positions. Alonso and Freeman were the only ones who cracked the top 10 in MVP voting, placing seventh and eighth in the NL. The highest-ranked AL first baseman in the voting, José Abreu, placed 19th.
On the offensive side, first basemen collectively hit for a 108 wRC+ for the second year in a row, matching their lowest mark of the aforementioned period. In other words, they almost perfectly kept pace with the majors’ rising tide of offense, gaining five points of on-base percentage relative to 2018 (from .333 to .338) and 24 points of slugging percentage (.from 438 to .462); the league as a whole gained five points of the former and 26 of the latter. Collectively, the 47.2 WAR produced by first basemen was just 0.3 ahead of last year for the lowest mark in that period.
What’s going on? It’s probably just cyclical turnover. Of the top 10 first basemen in value from 2015-18, all but Freeman, Rizzo, and Santana have fallen on hard times, while Cody Bellinger, who arrived in 2017, showed he was athletic enough to play the outfield regularly, and now only spots at first. Meanwhile, Joey Votto, Paul Goldschmidt, Brandon Belt, Miguel Cabrera, Abreu and Eric Hosmer, who collectively averaged 3.5 WAR per player-season over that four-year span, combined for just 5.3 WAR in 2019, with Goldschmidt (2.9) and Abreu (1.9) the only ones escaping the gravitational pull of replacement level. There just isn’t a lot of young talent filtering into the position, either. Alonso and Matt Olson were the only first basemen 25 or younger who produced at least 2.0 WAR in 2019, with Olson and Bellinger the only ones doing so in ’18, though a strong sophomore showing from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was recently moved across the diamond, could help arrest the trend some.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
It’s going to take me a while to adjust to the shortened season statlines. I saw 1.5 WAR as the leader and had to do a double take.
Assuming we still get a season (Lately I have my doubts) It is going to be an interesting one to contextualize some 20 years down the road.
I’m wondering if it will be viewed more like the ’94 strike-shortened season or (perhaps depending on how many people end up opting out) if it’ll be closer to the “fake baseball” WWII-era seasons.
Hal Newhouser hates your “fake baseball” comment. Or, he would, if he were alive.
Gosh, same here.
Going to be fun explaining Trout’s 3-4 WAR season down the road.
Why do you feel compelled to propagate the “service time shenanigans” story? It was debatable at the time, it’s clearly moot now, what is the value added here? Feels like a gratuitous dig.
Probably because it’s still common practice and still an incredibly gross practice that still needs to end!
All true, and very fair in the case of Vlad Jr; however, Pete Alonso is one of the weaker cases of service-time shenanigans- it was never anywhere near what happened to Bryant or Guerrero or many others. There was always a legit case for the Mets giving other guys PT in Sept 2018 (specifically Dom Smith, a genuine prospect in his own right who had been jerked around earlier in the season and never got steady time). And Alonso clearly got a fair shot in spring 2019 and was given the job he earned.
Sorry, but that’s easier said than done. No matter where you put the borderline, there are always going to be borderline cases that are easily manipulated. MLB might as well just leave the borderline where it is and try to come up with some kind of creative disincentive to fight the practice. At least those who are affected already get Super Two status as partial compensation.
It also wasn’t service time shenanigans. There was almost no reason to bring him up in 2018 and he started from day 1 in 2019. Had they brought him up 2-3 weeks later in 2019 then there’s an argument.
Clarification: I meant this WRT Pete Alonso. Vlad Jr. was indisputably shenaniganned. (I initially missed that you used similar language about both).
I thought the same about Vlad jr, but looking back on it, if he insisted on playing 3b then his defence really did need more work in the minors. He was wretched when he came up and I believe it hurt his offense too. If he was a realist and committed to 1b from day one, then I would agree with the manipulation take today.
Even with Vlad, they only kept him down for a couple of weeks in April- hard to believe the team thought 9 games at AAA made him significantly more ready defensively. The shenanigans are absolutely a thing- as is using the prospect of MLB playing time to get guys to sign extensions, which is gross. But Alonso is a weak, weak case to be using as a poster child for the problem, and it’s frustrating to see him lumped in with the other guys. Honestly, I feel like continuing to use him as an example weakens the case, because he wasn’t ultimately adversely affected- the team could even argue that holding him back until the spring was beneficial to his development and success as a rookie.
To be fair Vladito hurt himself in spring training so there was a more legitimate reason to have him start the season and get up to speed in the minors. But the jays were fully committed to playing service time games from the beginning. Just like they were going to do with Nate Pearson regardless of how their pitching staff looked in spring training.
Not the least of which meant that Pete Alonso wasn’t exposed to that clubhouse at the end of the 2018 season…. which by some accounts was not a fun place to be… there’s plenty of reason to not want to bring your top position prospect into that environment at the end of a lost season with a floundering rookie manager who is already trying (at the time) to get 1B at bats for Dom Smith, who played half of September at that position.
While I wouldn’t necessarily agree with the practice, I could see a not-(the-same-type-of)-shenanigans in the context of Vlad Jr. and being held down for his defense. If it really were the case (fully accept and admit that it’s unlikely) that he were sent down because of his defense and not to manipulate his Arby clock, then it could be because the org may have wanted to send a punitive message about his glovework as much as or more than actually thinking he would get more time to work on it.
Then again, the odds are strongly that he was just simply shenanigan’d.
Great work. I think the Rays and Nationals deserve to be higher since their platoon matchups are perfect. Choi and Martinez combined, adjusting for handedness, could approximate the wRC+ of a healthy Freeman
I guess it’s 60 games and anything is possible in baseball. The Pirates could also win the division. Very unlikely, but possible.
Choi career vs RHP: 128 wRC+
Martinez career vs LHP: 160 wRC+
Freeman: overall career 137 wRC+ (with a 114/147 platoon split)
It’s not nearly as unlikely as you seem to think
Martinez’ numbers are buoyed by huge numbers his first two years compared to the last two. Also, his overall production has been in free fall the last couple of years, which is pretty standard for a big-bodied late bloomer on the wrong side of 30. Aside from being 29, you could say the same thing about Choi, though he was still productive last year (he’s also very big-bodied).
Also, in addition to the extremely sunny outlook you’d have to take on these guys to come to this conclusion, you must know that platoons just don’t work out so perfectly; expecting a perfect allotment of at bats is crazier than thinking Martinez will hit 160 wRC+ against lefties. I mean, if you want to share an example of a team riding a platoon of relative nobodies to a wRC+ of 135+ at any position, I’d be happy to hear about it. My guess is for each one of those, I could point to a mediocre Pirates-like team winning a soft division.
The likelihood of a platoon combination of Choi, Martinez, Tsusugo, Nate Lowe, and Yandy Diaz equating or bettering the 1st base production of the Braves is greater than the likelihood of a bad Pirates team winning a 60 game shootout. The Rays have so many options at 1st base. The Pirates have so few options anywhere.
The original argument was against “a healthy Freeman,” but honestly I’m not sure this is correct even without fully guaranteeing Freeman’s health. The chances of Freeman losing significant production because of COVID-19 probably aren’t that high.
Keep in mind that Martinez’s defense really sucks, so that platoon isn’t as perfect as you claim if you have Jose playing the field against lefties.
To be fair, they never said the platoon would be as good as Freeman, only that it could approximate his wRC+. I passed on criticizing defense because no claim about defense was made.
I probably don’t disagree, 1B just isn’t a deep position in the league, but also suspect the 60 game format is less platoon friendly than 162…Basically I think the teams with horses have an advantage, like someone with a higher max bench probably being able to throw up more reps at a lighter weight if I knew anything about working out (I am naturally powerful)
At the cost of two bodies for one position slot — an ever-more-costly option with 13-man pitching staffs becoming the norm as we speak.
Anthony Rizzo trash FWIW
Coming from you, it’s worth nothing.
Cry Cubbie fan
So anyone who objects to your immature, unimaginative, repetitive trolling — and judging by the downvotes you get, there are many — is a Cubs fan? Got it.
Cry Cubbie fan
I dislike the Cubs, but I also dislike your trolling and disagree with you. Die mad about it.
I had a mini freakout when I saw the season projections… gentle to remind myself this is for far less than 600PA…
Something worth noting Re: Hoskins – the end result might have been “ordinary”, but the course to ordinary was far from a straight line.
Through August 7, Hoskins had 131 wRC+ in 500 PA, which ranked 26th out of 108 players (min 400).
After that, Hoskins entered a freefall, recording a 69 wRC+ in 205 PA. This is 7th worst out of 108 players.
Some traditionally streaky players are going to look like candidates for MVP or DFA.
and a guy who relies on his fly balls getting over the fence might naturally be streaky.
Your discussion of the Mets and Pete Alonso is way off base. The service time question was completely misrepresented. There was little or no discussion of him being brought up during the 2018 season but there was considerable conjecture about whether he would be sent to Syracuse to begin the 2019 season. It was seen by many as a surprise when he was not sent down and the Mets deserve credit, not ridicule, for not playing service time games with Alonso at the start of the 2019 season. Using his defense as a smoke screen for blaming the Mets is also quite a cop out. The entire industry was calling him the second coming of Dick Stuart and were very reluctant to give him credit when he showed up with a glove.
Bringing a guy up for opening day is quite a weird way to accomplish service time manipulation. There would be no real difference between that and being him up in late-June 2018.
I don’t like the argument that Alonso making the Opening Day 2019 roster proves the Mets weren’t manipulating his service time.
1) Brodie Van Wagenen hadn’t been hired as GM until the 2018-2019 offseason.
2) There was speculation that he’d get a September big league look. He was tearing up the PCL and it’s not like the 40 man roster spot was valuable for the September version of the 2018 Mets.
Even though there were legitimate reasons to showcase Jay Bruce’s capability of playing first base and giving Dominic Smith consistent playing time, the Mets had nothing to lose by promoting Alonso as a reward for having a great minor league season and to see how he looked against some major league pitchers. The only reason to not promote him would be to potentially lessen the amount of time he’d have to be stashed in Syracuse to begin 2019 as a way to get an extra year of control. It seems most likely to me that the changes made to the front office between September 2018 and March 2019 led to Alonso not getting a September call up and then making the OD roster.
I think that by making the 2019 opening day roster, Pete Alonso will hit free agency at the same point as if he had been called up on September 1, 2018. The league pension only kicks in an additional quarter-year of service with 43 days of service time in a single season, which September 1 call-ups don’t reach.
So, yes, his making the Opening Day 2019 roster proves that the Mets weren’t manipulating his service time. There’s no financial incentive to keep a guy down in September and then break camp with him on Opening Day. (Am I wrong on this? Does Pete Alonso hit free agency or arbitration earlier or accrue any additional financial benefit if he is called up in September 2018 since he broke camp with the Mets in 2019?)
Service time manipulation is, of course, real, but it didn’t happen here.
Well, (s)he’s saying that the original plan was to keep him down both in September 2018 AND the first two weeks of 2019, but the plan changed with the offseason front office overhaul. I don’t know if there’s any truth to that, but it does make sense as a possibility.
The sentence I’m taking exception to is this one:
The only reason to not promote him would be to potentially lessen the amount of time he’d have to be stashed in Syracuse to begin 2019 as a way to get an extra year of control.
It’s just not true that this is the “only reason.” The Mets front office was in a very strange place in Fall, 2018. Sandy Alderson stepped away from the team with a recurrence of his cancer diagnosis. Interims were in charge of the front office but it was known that a new regime was coming. I would submit that there are other things that those interim executives didn’t do; it was almost a passive, hold-the-lines approach from a lame duck front office because everyone knew that Alderson was not coming back and that changes were coming.
On the field, the Mets called up Dom Smith, who had been at AAA. If you call up your top prospect AA first baseman, you’re doing it to get him a couple of AB’s in September when Smith and Bruce were going to get the bulk of the work. You have to weigh that around whether you want to bring your top prospect up into a strange clubhouse environment with a failing rookie manager and a handful of lame duck coaches.
Remember that in the 2018 offseason, the Mets also hired Chili Davis and Luis Rojas , re-assigned Gary DiSarcina from bench coach to 3rd base, and jettisoned a number of other coaches. It is not revisionist history to note that even Fall 2018, the first season under Mickey Callaway was seen as underwhelming and it was clear that coaching staff changes had to be made to strengthen the dugout given his inexperience. The coaching staff in Fall 2018 was a complete flipping mess and I was THRILLED that Pete Alonso (then known as Peter!) wasn’t called up into that dysfunction.
I feel like a lot of people criticized the decision not to bring up Alonso in Sept 2018 in anticipation of them also keeping him down to start the 2019 season- basically, blaming the team in advance for a decision that hadn’t been made and that would ultimately be made by a different administration. All of which seems pretty unfair.
Service time may have been part of the consideration in September of 2018; but to say that it was the “only reason not to promote him” presupposes Alonso’s career development exists in a vacuum, and that the only question is whether he is ready. That is just never the case. There are so many other factors in play, as you say.
The idea that this was a clear-cut, black and white example, and that it was egregious enough that it warranted being brought up prominently in this particular feature is frustrating. I don’t see any reason why it’s necessary to frame the section about Alonso, and presenting it as matter-of-fact is ignoring the complexity of the situation. Why? I can’t see any reason other than a desire to paint the team in a negative light. There is practically a pathology here (and elsewhere) that anything positive about the Mets needs to be qualified and counterbalanced with something negative. Mets fans could help a struggling website by signing up for memberships, but this site insists upon telling us that we’re stupid for being Mets fans.
Agreed, though I’m not sure how much of it is about the Mets (where there are plenty reasons to be skeptical of ownership and management’s financial decisions, but this ain’t one of them) and how much of it is about authors who want to bang the “service time manipulation” drum every time they can (and, in this case, banging it out of turn weakens the valid overall argument rather than strengthening it.)
It was a poor choice of words for me to say “the only reason.” I should have said “the main reason” because yeah, there were definitely other factors at play. The point I was trying to make was that if service time wasn’t a factor, Alonso would have been called up. Even if not promoting him didn’t end up delaying his free agency, the decision at the time to not promote him seemed to be because the Mets’ decision makers didn’t think getting him some at bats in meaningless September games was worth starting his service clock. To me, that’s service time manipulation.
I really don’t think you can fairly say it was the main reason, let alone the only reason. What were the pros and cons?
Pros: you let a guy get his feet wet before starting the next season, and you reward him for a great seasons in the minors. Can’t argue with that. What are the other pros?
Cons: either you play him at the expense of other players (Dom Smith & Jay Bruce), or you give him sporadic at bats, maybe a lot of pinch hitting, such that he may struggle to find a rhythm and have a bit initial experience. It’s the end of a season that has gone badly, and the clubhouse and front office are not in a good place. You burn a 40 man spot that you don’t need to use, which could be important because of guys coming off of the 60 day DL and also chances to take advantage of the Rule V draft. Making the decision to bring him up limits your flexibility. Also, sure, the service clock.
I think either decision would have been justified in September 18, but to me, it’s ludicrous to assert that service time was the main reason not to bring him up, and to vilify the team for making that decision, especially when it in no way affected his opportunity to win the job in ST.
To be clear, I think Jay including the service time comment was nothing but an unnecessary, cheap jab at the Mets. There were enough credible reasons to not bring him up that I don’t think the Mets deserve to be vilified.
But the whole reason that service time manipulation can happen in the first place is because teams can always come up with reasons not to call up prospects. Yes, the Mets reasons with Alonso had more merit than the Blue Jays, Cubs, or Braves reasons with Guerrero, Bryant, and Acuña. But that doesn’t change the fact that service time is more important to teams than “shield him from a dysfunctional clubhouse” or hypothetical Rule 5 draft pics. You can disagree as to what the main reason he didn’t get promoted was but me saying that the service time was the main reason isn’t “ludicrous.”
I’m glad that we agree that Jay’s comment was unnecessary. I apologize if you found the word “ludicrous” objectionable. The biggest problem with the decision to call up prospects is that it is an arbitrary decision that is often dependent on factors outside of a player’s development arc- you could be blocked by other players, or you could be brought up too early because the team doesn’t have any better options. There can be a consensus that a player is ready independent of whether the situation is right. I am going to say this and then shut up: I really don’t know whether service time was the main reason, and it’s possible that it was. But, from the outside, I can see a lot of reasons why you would decide not to bring a guy up in September.
Adding to the lower production at 1B is that with shifts and higher flyball rates a lot of bat-first players that in past times would’ve gotten slotted at 1B/DH are getting more innings at other positions.
I don’t know if that’s true. Most 1B/DH types are never going to be considered to play the middle infield, and the overshifts actually require greater range from your 3B than was needed beforehand.
That’s what’s left after everybody who can fake it elsewhere is allocated.
Historically, a lot of 1B types were passable 3B or LF but passable wasn’t enough. Today’s defensive standards are laxer at 2B, LF, and even SS. If roboumpires work out, you can add catchers to the list.
The bottom of the list lives somewhere between comedy and tragedy. I’m glad the disaster that used to be Chris Davis (nothing personal) saves all-time great Albert Pujols from being #30 out of 30.
In fact, Pujols is a player to watch this year. He’s been on a streak of consecutive successful stolen base attempts (up to 12 now) since 2015.
The bottom third of the list goes from tragedy to farce
Wait, picking a team allows me to see all the positions – good stuff.
other positions, played by Carlos Santana. doodeedeedoodoodeedeedoodoodoo Stop the looting, stop the shooting
man it’s a hot one
this will never get old to me.
Dumb question: Is there a calculation/translation from Bat/BsR/Fld to WAR?
WAR = (Batting Runs + Base Running Runs + Fielding Runs + Positional Adjustment + League Adjustment +Replacement Runs) / (Runs Per Win)
*from the Fangraphs: Sabermetrics Library
Posey opting out of this season should probably be mentioned in the Giants section.
I was confused by his absence.
Nice read. I’ve read some things that make it seem like Lux isn’t necessarily going to be the starter at 2nd however.
Since we’re going to have 2.7x fewer games this season, maybe we should add another decimal place to the WAR projections? We’ve lost a lot of precision in these numbers. I can’t be the only one who needs to more about the relative standings of Ryan O’Hearn and Daniel Murphy.
That would imply that the projections are more precise than they are. I don’t think anyone will say that the guy with 2.0 WAR is definitively better than the guy with 1.9 WAR, let alone comparing 2.00 to 1.99 WAR.
WAR isn’t accurate to the hundredth place. This is why people are always talking about sample size.
As of 1144 UTC on July 14, viewing by team on mobile allows seeing every position.