Position scarcity is a real thing — for years, catcher was the hardest position to fill, and it’s still that way. In two-catcher leagues you are stuck with the likes of Austin Barnes and Austin Hedges, just hoping for a miracle.
But that’s OK, as everyone who doesn’t have one of the top five catchers is likely in the same position. (Yasmani Grandal is presently the sixth catcher off the board. Let that one simmer a bit. Grandal hasn’t hit over .247 since his rookie year. He’s never scored more than 65 runs and he’s averaged less than 60 RBI per season. Yes, this is your sixth-best catcher, with some leagues drafting 30.)
Still, when we look past the typically devoid catcher landscape and into deeper positions, there’s another place where one might not expect such issues: first base. Middle infield used to be the spot to fill early with a superstar, hoping for deals at other positions later. Oh, not anymore.
Using the NFBC’s ADP, there are 13 shortstops going in the top 100 picks. There are nine second basemen going in those 100 picks. How about first base? The answer is just eight. Yes, it’s easier to find a second basemen and infinitely easier to find a shortstop this season than it is to find a first basemen. Let’s look a bit deeper.
Six shortstops and three second basemen are among the top 30 picks. There are but two first basemen going in the first 30. In times past, if a player was eligible at first base and anywhere else (except catcher), savvy managers would play that player at his alternate position. Find a guy with first base and shortstop eligibility (see Jurickson Profar), and a without a doubt that player had more value at shortstop.
Times have changed. Here’s a brief look at the top 20 by ADP:
1. Paul Goldschmidt (ADP 20). The trade to St. Louis may help, but much of Goldy’s value has been in his inordinately high stolen base totals. Goldschmidt averaged 24 stolen bases from 2015 to 2017. Last year he had seven.
2. Freddie Freeman (ADP 21). Freeman has hit more than 30 home runs once in his career. He’s driven in more than 100 runs once in his career, and those two accomplishments were in different seasons.
3. Anthony Rizzo (ADP 36). Rizzo averaged 32 home runs and 96 runs from 2015 to 2017. Last season, the 29-year-old hit 25 and scored 74 times.
4. Cody Bellinger (ADP 46). Bellinger had 77 more at bats last year than he had in his rookie season in 2017. With those added 77 at bats, Bellinger hit 14 fewer home runs and drove in 21 fewer. How’s that for progress?
5. Matt Carpenter (ADP 71). Also eligible at third base, Carpenter had a significant power spike in his age 32 season. Willing to bet he’ll keep it up? It’ll cost you a top five round pick if you do.
6. Joey Votto (ADP 74). Those walks help OBP leagues, but each time Votto walks is a time that he doesn’t drive in a run. Votto is 35 and has driven in 100 runs only one time since 2012. He hit 12 home runs (no, not a typo) last year, tying him for 181st in the majors, behind such powerful hitters as Chad Pinder, Daniel Descalso and the aforementioned Austin Hedges.
7. Jesus Aguilar (ADP 80). Aguilar hit 35 home runs last year. Yes, that was a surprise to me, Jesus, Jesus’ wife, and every fantasy owner who picked him up off the waiver wire last year.
8. Jose Abreu (ADP 87). Abreu is vanilla. He’s good, but no one really wants vanilla, unless you are 5 years old. It’s what you order when they are out of your favorite ice cream, and your second favorite ice cream, and your third favorite.
9. Joey Gallo (ADP 107). If you draft Gallo, you need to draft someone like Matt Duffy later to help stop the bleeding from Gallo’s pathetic average. Now, divide Gallo’s home runs by two, and that’s what you are getting from the two of them, with a combined average of about .250. It ain’t pretty.
10. Max Muncy (ADP 109). The A’s didn’t want him. No one drafted him in your fantasy league, and if you picked him up (like I did in all my leagues), you were waiting for reality to hit him, hard. It didn’t happen much, and Dave Roberts did a lot of platooning helping Muncy keep a respectable average, but that platooning came at a cost to his counting stats. His 35 home runs last year are virtually guaranteed to be his career best. It’s downhill from there. The only question is, “how fast?”
Most of the players going 11-20 have issues: recent injuries, inconsistency, lack of track record, etc.
11. Matt Olson (ADP 111)
12. Jurickson Profar (ADP 120)
13. Edwin Encarnacion (ADP 123)
14. Ian Desmond (ADP 146)
15. Miguel Cabrera (ADP 165)
16. Eric Hosmer (ADP 170)
17. Yuli Gurriel (ADP 189)
18. Luke Volt (ADP 190)
19. Jose Martinez (ADP 200)
20. Carlos Santana (ADP 205)
It gets worse after Santana. Certainly, some of these players will outperform their projections and provide owners with some helpful statistics. However, it is more important this year than any other to keep a close eye on first basemen as they come off the board. A team starting Josh Bell with Brandon Butler as its corner infielder might consider starting scouting running backs and wide receivers.
Best of luck. Don’t blink.
Buster
