Archive for fantasy first basemen

Using a format similar to the one Paul Sporer recently posted for 2020 Roto player rankings, below is the 2020 ranking of the Top 20 First Basemen for Ottoneu fantasy baseball.  Ottoneu leagues are auction style, but with no salaries listed (league dependent), think of these lists as simplified “snake draft” rankings (“which player would I take before the next”), or a value ranking of players above replacement level for 2020. Players with multi-position eligibility may receive a slight bump in value (2020 positions listed).  You can reference average Ottoneu player salaries here, but keep in mind these salaries fluctuate throughout the winter as rosters shape up towards the January 31st keeper deadline for all leagues.

Since a majority of Ottoneu leagues are points leagues (offense based on linear weights), you’ll notice speed is less of a factor here than Paul’s rotisserie ranking lists.  Even if you don’t play Ottoneu, this list might be a good proxy for OBP, OPS, or sabermetric leagues, so keep that context in mind as you review.  If I’ve missed an important player, or you believe I’ve wildly over or under-valued someone, please let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure to update.

In 2019, the 29 qualified first basemen averaged the following production:

• 5.88 Points Per Game (P/G)
• 30 HR
• 10% BB%
• 22% K%
• .227 ISO
• .268 AVG
• .353 OBP
• .495 SLG
• .354 wOBA
• 120 wRC+

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With about a week of 2017 baseball data in the books, there are already thousands of innings, plate appearances, and batted balls to parse through. We’ve seen a perfect game bid, a cycle, multi-home run performances, and a huge lead blown in the ninth. Unfortunately, something else we’ve seen are injuries to key players. Like the crack of the bat and pop of the glove, injuries are a part of the spot. They’re bad for the player, the team, the fans — and fantasy owners.

When a key player on your fantasy roster gets injured, it often leaves you scrambling to fill the unexpected hole. The following exercise is designed to help you survive such situations. We’re going to look at viable players who are readily available in most fantasy leagues. To qualify for this list, a player must be owned in less than 50% of all Ottoneu fantasy leagues, based on the Ottoneu Average Salaries page. He also must be able to help your team right now (i.e., no prospects).

Getting right to the list, here are of five players worth a shot in an emergency who are owned in less than 50% of Ottoneu leagues, along with their positional eligibility, average salary, and owned percentage: Read the rest of this entry »

The 2017 World Baseball Classic has been riveting thus far. Many of the teams are loaded, and the players and fans have been wildly into it. Saturday’s game between the Dominican Republic and the United States was perhaps the greatest heavyweight match-up the game has ever seen. The lineups on both sides were absurd, and the game lived up to the hype. The Dominicans overcame a 5-0 deficit to win in dramatic style, 7-5.

The Dominican lineup could be the best ever, but the United States gives them a run for their money. Since the majority of FanGraphs readers are, presumably, American, and pulling for Team U.S.A., it struck me that it would be fun to analyze the roster from a fantasy perspective. Although many on the roster are undisputed stars, there are overrated players, players to avoid for other reasons, and potential bargains mixed in. Let’s get right into it, analyzing the starting position players on Team U.S.A.: Read the rest of this entry »

Previous Rankings

Preseason 

May

June

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

Paul Goldschmidt

Anthony Rizzo

Miguel Cabrera

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

Edwin Encarnacion

Wil Myers

Chris Davis

Brandon Belt

Eric Hosmer

Joey Votto

Carlos Santana

Mark Trumbo

Freddie Freeman

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

Chris Carter

Albert Pujols

Mike Napoli

Adrian Gonzalez

Jose Abreu

Hanley Ramirez

Travis Shaw

C.J. Cron

Mark Reynolds

David Freese

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

Matt Adams

James Loney

Dae-Ho Lee

Logan Forsythe

Joe Mauer

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

A.J. Reed

Ryan Zimmerman

Logan Morrison

John Jaso

Tommy Joseph

Byung-Ho Park

Mitch Moreland

Rob Refsnyder

Billy Butler

Yonder Alonso

Chris Johnson

Marwin Gonzalez

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)

This week I wanted to take a look at the three top 1B prospects in AAA. I am not suggesting that these players will definitely get called up this season, but these are players I wanted to look at further either because of performance or because of opportunity. The player may not have a direct path right now, but could be moved creating that necessary path. The player may not be called up this season, but may provide value in those deep keeper leagues where minor leaguers hold value and could be an asset next season. Note that this article was written Thursday morning, so some of the stats may be off by a day.
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We have two months of data in the books, so I have decided to deviate a littler further from my previous first base tier rankings. In case you were curious about where the first basemen ranked previously, here you go:

Preseason 1B Rankings

May 1B Rankings (although I mistakenly put April)

I’ve decided to add some tiers this go around because there are players who fall into two categories who I am having difficulty tiering with the rest of the first basemen. The first additional tier will be guys out for any significant time be it injury, suspension, or are simply in the minors. It’s great to stash some of these guys if you have the room, but you should be looking elsewhere for playing time so I simply ranked them in value in their own tier.

The other tier is for those multi-positional players. I had been very adamant that you should not be using catchers as your first basemen. That was until I had Kevin Plawecki, Yasmani Grandal, and Miguel Montero in a two catcher NL-only league, and needed to trade my starting first baseman for speed. So I am more sympathetic to wanting to put different people at 1B, but still struggle where to rank them amongst the more regular first basemen. This tier is just ranking those players with ten or less games at 1B who will not get the majority time at first. A few guys may have slipped in who are also ranked with the rest of the 1B.

The theme for this month’s tier rankings are my favorite summer jams. I work in education and yesterday was the last day for the students at the middle school I work at, so summer has officially started for us. Some songs have summer themes, whereas others are just fun songs that I like to hear during the summer months. If you disagree with my song selections, please make sure to list your favorites and why I am wrong, and I will do my best to ignore them. Just kidding…sort of. Anyway, hope you enjoy!
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The Phillies called up Tommy Joseph exactly a week ago, which means I am technically a week late in getting this to fantasy owners looking for some depth at first base. I blame the timing of the Phillies who need to be more cognizant of this writer’s publishing and writing schedule. I intend to touch on Joseph’s past, as well as looking forward to what lies ahead in his future as well, which is a bit difficult with his lack of past experience.
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A few weeks ago, I joined a league after an owner dropped out last minute. The only reason I joined was because I thought the previous owner did a nice job compiling this squad, or else I wouldn’t have touched it. It’s a 14-team head-to-head points league where you play three different owners at once. There are some funky rules in the league (which I’m always game for), but there is one that caught me by surprise regarding position eligibility.

To start the season, players have traditional positional eligibility (20 games at a position). So when I took over this team, I had Anthony Rendon at 2B and Edwin Encarnacion at 1B. No problem. Then on Sunday, the day after waivers run mind you, somebody informed me that both these players would not be eligible for those positions next week, which confused the hell out of me. After much research and a bunch of clarifying questions, I discovered this crazy rule I have never encountered. By May 1^st, positional players must play ten games at a position in order to continue to receive eligibility at that position. Since Rendon hasn’t played any second base, he lost second base eligibility. Encarnacion also lost 1B eligibility because he has played less than 10 games at first, but he still has a chance to regain that (he now has ten games at 1B).

In honor of this new format I encountered, and the craziness that is Friday the 13^th, I am going to look at other first baseman who may have lost 1B eligibility in leagues similar to this one, as well as looking at players who did not have 1B eligibility, but are on their way to gaining that eligibility. I intentionally left off catchers because you probably shouldn’t be starting more than the required amount, and if you are, go to your waive wire and find an actual first baseman.
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So a month has gone by since I tiered the first basemen for the preseason, which you can check out here:

2016 First Base Tier Rankings: Preseason Rankings

I tried not to be too reactionary by making massive changes unless somebody has garnered more playing time than expected, or suffered an injury or lost their role. In other words, my list is similar to my initial one since one month is not enough of a sample to make significant changes.

In honor of the NHL playoffs and my love for the New York Islanders, I have ordered my tiers by the players with the highest points per game in Islanders history. I welcome and encourage all feedback, but do note that these are subjective and still predictive in nature, as opposed to being reflective of one month. Enjoy!
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Rather than start changing and editing my initial tiers after less than a week of games, I am going to take a page out of Justin Mason’s book and go over some of those undrafted first basemen. The guys you had no room for or simply didn’t think about as those last couple rounds just flew by you.

Unless you are in very deep leagues, you should still have better options available to you at first base. These are guys you should reserve for deeper leagues or if you completed punted on first base or suffered an injury. In no way are these guys you should build your squad around. I tried to key on guys who are garnering relatively regular playing time and can help you in those counting stats, with the last two guys giving a potential boost in BA and OBP.
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