First Base Rankings: July
Previous Rankings
It’s been interesting to watch the path of first basemen this season, as some of the big names started off relatively slow. I probably had too many tiers since guys were all over the place and I was still getting my feet wet with this process. I was now able to cut it down to five tiers and I am feeling more comfortable with these evaluations than past ones mainly because the numbers are starting to normalize well.
Alex Chamberlain brought up an interesting question in his rankings, regarding what people are looking for. Should these be rest of the season rankings? End of season? Where players currently stand? I definitely don’t want this to purely be a ranking of what players have done so far, since you can go to other websites and they can quantify that. As I mentioned in my other rankings, these are more predicative, though admittedly, I weighed current season performance more than I have in my other rankings. Although the Jose Abreus, Adrian Gonzalez‘, and Mark Teixeiras gave me some trouble when trying to rank since there should be some bounceback, but their performance so far has not shown much of it (at least in terms of fantasy value).
John Coltrane died on July 17, 1967. In honor of his music, I have decided to set up the tiers by my favorite Coltrane albums. This list can change frequently, and I left off the live performances because that is a whole other world that I may not have been able to escape. However, if you’re new to jazz and want to explore Coltrane, these albums are excellent starting points. I love his later stuff, but that can get a little too crazy for somebody not very familiar with jazz.
Tier 1: A Love Supreme
Rizzo had not been placed in the first tier previously because of his low batting average, but the counting stats were certainly there. Now that his batting average is finally where it should be (.281), I can’t see any reason not to include him in this tier. There wasn’t too much of a doubt he could get to this point, especially with his previously low BABIP, so it’s good to see he was able to get that BA up in such a short amount of time.
Some of the other players outside of the first tier may have better counting stats than Goldschmidt and Cabrera, but you are not going to find many players more consistent than these guys. Goldschmidt gets the top ranking because he adds value with the stolen base as he has 11 right now.
Tier 2: Giant Steps
I should’ve had Wil Myers higher earlier, but his low BB% really concerned me. He has improved that as he is very close to 10% (9.6), and outside of batting average, outdoes Goldy in every fantasy category. Based on performance so far, he has been the number one fantasy first baseman. Again, though, this list accounts for what will happen and I still think Myers will do very well, but the HR/FB is a bit high to sustain (20.4%) so there will probably be some regression. Not enough to sell him, but enough to say by the end of the season he is not in the top tier.
Overall, this is an excellent tier, especially with Freeman and Votto performing at the levels we generally expect from them. All these guys can help you in 3-4 categories, and are weak in at least one. Some because of environment (Belt’s low HRs), some because of situation (Freeman’s low RBIs), or others because that is who they are (Santana’s low BA).
Tier 3: Lush Life
Adrian Gonzalez
Jose Abreu
Now we’re entering the tier where you only getting about 2-3 categories of strength which each player. This is also a pretty old group so age and health are definitely concerns for these guys. Adrian Gonzalez has not done much in fantasy with only 6 HRs, so he could be a good buy-low candidate. Then again, according to Jeff Sullivan, maybe the lack of power is real. The BA is strong as are the RBIs, and nothing really jumps out with his numbers that indicate that this lack of power was expected.
David Freese has played very well for the Pirates this season, and is seemingly outperforming his platoon partner (John Jaso) at first. Freese has value because of the super utility role he has, so he gets a nice amount of playing time. If Jaso continues to struggle, Pirates may consider calling up Josh Bell, which would take some 1B time away from Freese, though not totally stunting his playing time.
Tier 4: Ballads
Mark Teixeira
Matt Adams will probably see a lot more playing time now that Brandon Moss and Matt Carpenter are on the DL. Always a nice power source and could get some nice RBI opportunities, so he may be worth riding the wave especially if he gets hot.
I wasn’t a huge Loney fan when the Mets initially picked him up, and I wrote about his highs and lows here. Then the power has seemed to come back (.165 ISO), which now makes him a very intriguing player. Could be chalked to small sample size, but may also be because of Kevin Long, as noted on Mets Merized Online. Similarly to Daniel Murphy, Kevin Long has worked on Loney’s stance and approach to hit for more power. Seemingly, it has worked so far and has certainly worked for Murphy since the end of last season.
Mark Teixeira has had a tough season and based on what he has done this year, he should be in a lower tier. I can’t give up on his past years just yet and don’t want to miss out on that potential power surge, hence putting him in the fourth tier. I have nothing more substantial than that.
Tier 5: Blue Train
John Jaso
Byung-Ho Park
I’ve been surprised Reed has struggled the way he has so far. Didn’t think he’d set the world on fire like Tyler White did when he first came up, but thought he would hit better than .138. Out of this group, he has the most upside and would be the most likely guy I would invest in if these were my only options. Zimmerman has been a surprise in that he has been healthy and pretty brutal. Probably unfair I stuck him in the 5th tier and didn’t do the same to Teixeira, but I just don’t see much upside to Zimmerman anymore.
Disabled List (Tiers based upon return)
Matt Carpenter (Tier 2)
Brandon Moss (Tier 3)
Justin Bour (Tier 3)
Lucas Duda (Tier 3)
Steve Pearce (Tier 4)
Yay – both leagues merged together instead of A.L. and N.L. ranks! Mixed leaguers rejoice…
Too bad the ‘Positional Rankings’ still link to outdated preseason ranks. May as well link to last year’s stats at this point.
Where would you put Kendrys Morales and David Ortiz?
Morales I can understand asking about, but do you really need someone to tell you that Ortiz is really, really, really good and bats 4th on a stacked team in a hitters’ park?
My apologies – that comment was snarkier than was absolutely necessary
Ortiz definitely in the second tier. With the way Morales has been playing lately, lower second tier if he is able to continue this trend somewhat.
Where would you rank V. Mart?
low part of Tier 2
If you throw out AJ Reed’s first 4 games, he’s hit .286/.375/.714. Here’s hoping we continue to see more of that and less of the other.
If you throw out all his games he hasn’t batted at all. And if you give him Babe Ruth’s stats he is incredible!
Soooo. . . . .he’s played a total of 10 games which is already a meaningless sample size, and you want to throw out almost half of them and just focus on the last 6 games and call that alone a good reason to move him up higher? Reed is a good prospect but let’s maybe let him play more than . . . .10 games. . . .before we start complaining about his placement on a list such as this.
BTW: The top 30 in wOBA over the last 7 days includes Wilmer Flores, Ryan Schimpf, CJ Cron, and Peter Bourjos. The bottom 30 includes Longoria, Machado, Jay Bruce, CarGo and Altuve.
Baerga simply commented on Reed’s production, he didn’t complain about Reed’s ranking on this list whatsoever. While I agree that 10 games is a meaningless sample size, many talented players struggle in their first call up as they adjust to better pitching. Mallex Smith is a good example of that this season as he was horrible the first couple weeks as he struggled to adjust but then settled in before getting hurt. Baerga simply stated he hoped Reed would continue adjusting and be more productive in the future. Likewise, hopefully you can curb the snark so that your future comments will be more productive as well. You’re simply twisting people’s words to pick bones.
Edit: Commented on wrong entry. Carry on.
“Alex Chamberlain brought up an interesting question in his rankings, regarding what people are looking for. Should these be rest of the season rankings? End of season? Where players currently stand?”
I’ll offer up the same answer that I gave Alex starting in the paragraph below. I didn’t realize there could even possibly be other trains of thought on this issue?
“I think ROS rankings are the only things that really matter, right? I mean, who cares if thus-and-so was the 15th ranked OF in April, 8th in May, and 28th in June. Will he help me *from this moment forward*, and if so, how much? Or will he help from this point forward more than players B and C?
Similarly, projected end-of-season rankings are going to incorporate 80 games that have already happened that I don’t really care about right at this moment, so they’re not particularly useful either.
And sure, ROS rankings are going to be heavily informed by what has come before, obviously. But the rankings are only helpful insofar as they help me decide between players A and B today, right now.”
——
Your last option – “where players currently stand” – is a biiiiig NO. Any player rater can provide that, there’s no value in giving an ordinal season-to-date ranking.
Just my two cents!
Thanks for the feedback! This helps a lot.
Can the Disabled List = Coltrane’s OM?
An album I love BTW, though understandably many fans can’t listen to it.
Good call…that or Ascension. Depending on my mood, I like those areas of Coltrane’s career, but didn’t want to get to deep in the wormhole for those who are not as familiar just yet. In time.
I would have put Blue Train higher, probably third.
Cool, but Lush Life doesn’t belong on any top 5 Coltrane album list? Sorry. It’s okay, but to simply ignore Ascension, Meditations, and Interstellar Spaceand substitute Lush Life is a gross miscalculation.
Oh…and Jose Abreu can eat a pile of turds. Good thing I didn’t attempt a buy low in April…and good thing my trade partner didn’t take my bet…and too bad I haven’t regretted it since. I mean, what kind of idiot would trade for that flaming pile of hot garbage?!?
Oh…right…this guy. I’m going to put Interstellar Space on the record player and let myself just figure out a way out of this mess I’ve created for myself.
I agree. I didn’t want to go there just yet, since there are probably a decent amount of readers who are not familiar with his more “inviting” stuff. Before I made the list, A Love Supreme was going to be the “craziest” album I would include. I mainly created this as a jumping off point for new listeners.