2012 First Base Tiers: May
With the calendar now flipped over to May, it’s time to update our position rankings. Here are our first base preseason tiers and consensus rankings. Due to popular demand, I’m leaving the catchers — Mike Napoli, Carlos Santana, Joe Mauer, Buster Posey — out of the first base tiers from here on out. We all know they’re far, far more valuable behind the plate both in real life and in fantasy. Remember, these rankings are geared more towards what players are expected to do from here on out, not necessarily what they did during the first month of the season.
Tier One
Miguel Cabrera
Joey Votto
Prince Fielder
Adrian Gonzalez
Albert Pujols
So, how worried are you about Pujols? The ZiPS rest-of-season projection still loves him (.291/.376/.532) and I’m sure he’ll still whack 20-something homers the rest of the way, but is he still a lock for .300/30/100? I find that hard to believe at the moment. I’m not going to drop him out of the top tier after one bad month, but consider him officially on notice.
Meanwhile, did you know that Gonzalez has hit just 13 homers in his last 478 plate appearances dating back to last season? What’s up with that?
Tier Two
Paul Konerko
Billy Butler 
Eric Hosmer
Lance Berkman
Mark Teixeira
I’m a believer in Butler and I think that at 26 years old, he’s starting to find his power stroke as he enters his peak years. Konerko and Sandoval have both been mashing all season and while Hosmer hasn’t, I’m pretty confident he’ll turn it around. I can’t say the same for Teixeira, who looks completely lost at the plate and showed signs of slowing down last season. I’m sure he’ll still finish the year with some strong counting stats, however.
Berkman hasn’t played much this year due to injury, but he took batting practice with the team yesterday and could return to the lineup relatively soon.
Tier Three
Edwin Encarnacion
Nick Swisher
Adam Dunn
Freddie Freeman
Howie Kendrick
Michael Young
Ike Davis
The funny thing about EE is that he could always hit, but he often battled sporadic playing time because his defense is so terrible. Since bottoming out at .250/.287/.364 late last June, Encarnacion has hit .294/.365/.551 with 24 homers in 440 plate appearances. He’s right in the prime of his career at age 29, so believe people. The bat’s legit.
In a not-so-shocking turn of events, Dunn has reverted back to the guy he was from 2004-2010. He’ll kill your team batting average, but hooray for counting stats. Swisher is a) currently shelved with a non-DL hamstring injury, and b) a very underrated fantasy asset in my opinion. I’m an Ike Davis fan, but … oh boy. He needs to pick it up soon if he wants to avoid a precipitous drop in the rankings.
Tier Four
Carlos Pena
Luke Scott
Brian LaHair
Michael Cuddyer
Paul Goldschmidt
Adam LaRoche
Kevin Youkilis 
Mark Trumbo
Lucas Duda
Gaby Sanchez
Mark Reynolds
LaHair is off to a scorching start but his numbers will come back to Earth a bit once his .545 (!) BABIP returns to normal. That said, the man can definitely hit. Trumbo’s playing time is a bit of an issue and I’m not entire sure when (or if) it will get sorted. It’s probably going to take an injury or a trade at this point. Reynolds can’t really be this bad, can he? That power has to show up at some point.
Tier Five
Kendrys Morales
Chris Davis
Todd Helton
Brandon Belt
Adam Lind
Daniel Murphy
Carlos Lee
Garrett Jones
Justin Morneau
Yonder Alonso
Mitch Moreland
Morales (ankle) and Morneau (concussion) have been solid in their returns from injury, but nothing more at this point. I have much more faith in the former getting on a roll and returning to his previous levels of performance, however. Belt has been freed, at least temporarily. It sounds like Aubrey Huff will be returning to the lineup relatively soon following his anxiety-related DL stint, and that’s sure to take a bite out of the youngster’s playing time.
Tier Six
James Loney
Justin Smoak
Matt Carpenter
Shelley Duncan
Kila Ka’aihue
Brett Pill
Ty Wigginton
John Mayberry Jr.
Casey Kotchman
Mike Carp
Chris Parmelee
Casey McGehee
Daric Barton
Aubrey Huff
Jesus Guzman
Juan Rivera
Brandon Allen
In our spectrum of adequacy, these guys range anywhere from regrettable to participatory.
Off The Radar
Pablo Sandoval
Mike Morse
Ryan Howard
Mat Gamel
Victor Martinez
Anthony Rizzo
Brett Wallace
Matt LaPorta
Sandoval (broken hamate, no timetable yet), Morse (June), Howard (late-May/early-June), Gamel (likely out for season), and V-Mart (likely out for season) are all down with injuries of various degrees. When healthy, Morse is a Tier Two guy while Howard is more Tier Three material. Rizzo is again tearing up Triple-A and he might be stuck down there for a while given how LaHair is hitting. Probably isn’t the worst thing for his development either.
Mike writes about the Yankees at River Ave. Blues and baseball in general at CBS Sports.
Re, Gonzalez not hitting many homers…
How about you tell me “what’s up with that?”. That’s why I come here.
If over that amount of plate appearances he’s hitting that few home runs, that’s worthy of a serious discussion.
He’s been pretty bad this season but no one’s saying anything, presumably because he’s one who’s earned some slack.
So I looked into it for myself last night. The one big difference that jumped at me was he’s swinging much more overall (career highs in- and out- of the zone) while somehow maintaining his normal BB%. That’s as far as I can take it without looking at heatmaps.
…while somehow maintaining his normal BB%, K%, and BABIP
When did Howie Kendrick become a first baseman?
17 games at 1B last season, including 11 starts.
I’m not sure why people like Dunn so much more than Kendrys. Kendrys is hitting .319, and there’s no reason to believe he won’t get the power numbers up as he gets his timing back post-injury. And he’s hitting in a much better (albeit slumping) lineup.
I’m worried about Pujols.
As far as I can tell, there are three viable explanations for what’s going on now.
1. Slump. The most likely explanation. But it’s been a long slump, and his numbers are concerning, in a small sample size.
2. Skills collapse. It happens. He’s not old, but he is 32, and if you graph his numbers from 2010 to today there’s a pretty clear trend. The reason this has some worrying credence for me is his walk rate and strikeout rate have inverted. His O-swing percent has gone from ~21% career to 40.8 %, a a detour through 31.8% in 2010. He’s also just not hitting the ball very hard. He seems to have forgotten how to hit. Maybe that just adds credence to the slump argument though.
3. Freak Adam Dunn-like year and he’ll be fine next year.
From BP:
Pujols averaged 39 home runs for the Cardinals over the past five seasons. After factoring in some age-related decline and the difficulty of hitting home runs from the right side in Angel Stadium, PECOTA projected him to hit 33 in 2012. The probability that a 33-home-run hitter would go homerless over 107 plate appearances by chance alone is just .3 percent. Either Pujols has been extremely unlucky, he’s declined more quickly than PECOTA expected, or he’s pressing at the plate.
So, more or less what I was arguing, but with that slightly terrifying .3% chance thing. So I guess we’re just stuck until we get a larger sample size.
For what it’s worth, I looked on the graphs section of Pujols’ page here, and almost every one of his stats/metrics have been dropping since 2008: BB%, K%, WOBA, AVG, OBP, SLG. This year is obviously a small sample size, and last year might be a fluke, but it is also very possible that it is all a sign of age-related decline. He was 28 in 2008, so he has almost certainly already peaked and is in some sort of plateau, at least, if not a full-fledged decline.
Gah, that sentence should read: His O-swing percent has gone from ~21% career to 40.8% in 2012 with a detour through 31.8% in 2011.
4. Learning Curve: Pujols might need to get used to the American League pitchers. I think it would be interesting to compare his second series stats against his first series stats once he starts seeing the American League teams a second time…
Pujols has absolutely crushed AL pitching in interleague .348/.438/.632/1.071
Where will Corey Hart fall into if/once he gets 1st base eligibility?
Likely Tier Three.
As someone who has Napoli and Santana, along with some real 1B, I would appreciate knowing roughly what tier they are in. Have they fallen out of the second tier?
I had Napoli, Santana, and Posey in Tier Two and Mauer in Tier Three.
Thank you kindly. First season playing, so I appreciate the response.
If you have Napoli and Santana YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.
Position flexibility and Tier 2 first baseman type stats is “doing it wrong”? You don’t know his league’s settings, the roster sizes or anything like that. If Napoli can out produce hitters like Hosmer, Konerko or Butler, why is him at 1st base any worse or “wrong”? Dude hits home runs, gets on base and is a career .265 hitter with 2011 type upside. Could have been worse, could have overpaid for Mark Teixeira in the draft or banked on a “sleeper” like Ike Davis or Kendry Morales.
The comment on Teixeira is a bit vague. Teixeira is a notoriously slow starter. Why would you attribute his current start to anything other than that?
Busy week, just catching up on google reader. Stopped in to make sure someone a) ranked teix low due to slow start and b) commemnter points out history of Teix to do so. Carry on. More a lock for 30/100 than Pujols imo.
I’ve really gotta learn to stop not-taking Joey Votto.
Bambino Junior LaHair, no joke he’s scorching right now,
I have him in OF, with Votto at 1st and Konerko at UT and I’m destroying people!
Ahem, it’s Bryan LaHair. Bryan. Or you can call him The Man of Men. Either or.
Any major changes in an OBP league? I’d put Pena and Dunn into the bottom of tier 2 in that case, anyone else that moves significantly?
One of the problems with looking at Catchers as true 1B is that – as I’m sure you know – they get days off on which they don’t catch *or* play 1B, and as a result only play perhaps 140-145 games per year. That extra 20 games or so they miss is pretty important in terms of run production. Tex, Konerko and Butler play almost every damn day, and all three should easily top Napoli in both RBI and Runs, barring injury.