2019 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep: First Base Tiers, Version 3.0

Today's first base is weaker than in years past, as Scott White's tiers show.

By Scott White

Mar 22, 2019 at 11:24 pm ET • 1 min read

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Tiers 3.0: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP

Tiers, for the uninformed, are an alternate form of rankings that groups players by expected level of production. While it's true every player is expected to produce less than the player ranked ahead of him, there are points in the rankings where the drop-off in expected production is more significant. And at those points, a new tier begins.

The goal is to give you a clear depiction of the distribution of talent at each position so that, in the heat of a draft, you can determine at a glance which position is the ideal one to target. Naturally, the one closest to dropping into the next tier is the one you'll regret having passed up a round later.

Below are the first base tiers for 2019. They depict a historically deep position that has become surprisingly thin at the top.

The Elite: Paul Goldschmidt, Freddie Freeman, Anthony Rizzo†
The Near-Elite: Joey Votto, Matt Carpenter, Jose Abreu, Cody Bellinger
The Next-Best Things: Jesus Aguilar, Joey Gallo^, Max Muncy, Edwin Encarnacion, Carlos Santana†, Jurickson Profar†
The Fallback Options: Pete Alonso, Luke Voit, Miguel Cabrera, Ryan McMahon
The Last Resorts: Matt Olson, Eric Hosmer, Ian Desmond, Tyler White, Jose Martinez, Justin Smoak, Yuli Gurriel, C.J. Cron^
The Deep-Leaguers: Josh Bell, Brandon Belt, Jake Bauers, Greg Bird, Marwin Gonzalez, Ryan Zimmerman, Wilmer Flores, Ryan O'Hearn, Yonder Alonso, Trey Mancini
The Leftovers: Justin Bour, Jay Bruce, Ryon Healy, Albert Pujols, Chris Davis, Mitch Moreland, Peter O'Brien, Neil Walker, (Kendrys Morales), (Ji-Man Choi)