3 Most Underrated Players At Each Position — First Base
Freddie Freeman is hands down the best first baseman currently in baseball and has been for the better part of 10 years. He’s the guy you want in the middle of your lineup with a career line of .296/.384/.509 with 274 homeruns and a 138 OPS+ over 6,728 plate appearances and 1,580 games. He’s got the durability needed to be a true superstar as he’s played 150+ games in 6 separate seasons, 2 of those seasons playing 162. He’s got a superior glove at first with only 63 errors over 13,431 innings. Freddie Freeman is far from underrated.
The 3 guys on today’s list, can’t say the same. Be it from playing on a small market team for the majority of their career, having way too high of expectations set from their meteoric start to their career, or just keeping their head down and playing the game the old school way, these 3 guys definitely deserve more attention than given to them thus far. We start today’s list with…
3. Matt Olson
After spending the first 6 years of his career in Oakland, Atlanta native Matt Olson is now playing for his hometown Braves. With Freeman leaving for LA in free agency, Olson immediately stepped in to the everyday starter role after being acquired via trade from the A’s. What Olson lacks in batting average compared to Freeman, he makes up for in power as Olson is a legitimate 40+ homerun a year guy. Olson also comes to Atlanta as a 2 time Gold Glove award winner and is arguably the best defensive first baseman in all of baseball.
Olson was overshadowed for years by the man that played opposite him in Oakland, Matt Chapman. Chapman being the best defender in the sport at the much more challenging position of third base had many overlook Olson and what he accomplished. In 6 years with Oakland, Olson had a line of .252/.348/.511 with 144 homeruns and a 134 OPS+ over 2,369 plate appearances and 575 games. With Chapman making the Sportscenter Top 10 daily, and playing for Oakland, Olson was usually an afterthought. That does seem to be changing this season though as Olson has been tasked with being the guy for the Braves to begin the year with Ronald Acuna recovering from injury. He’s stepped up to the challenge though with a .355/.461/.581 line through 17 games. If he can even just do what he did in Oakland, the big stage of playing in Atlanta will have him off of this list come next season.
2. Rhys Hoskins
Rhys Hoskins exploded onto the scene when he debuted in 2017. In 50 games, he hit .259/.396/.618 with 18 homeruns and an OPS+ of 162 and finished 4th in NL RotY voting. Unfortunately, he set expectations way higher than he or anyone else could ever achieve. Including this year, in the 5 seasons since his rookie year, Rhys has hit .238/.356/.487 with 101 homeruns and a 122 OPS+. Still extremely solid numbers, but an evident drop off in production from his phenomenal rookie campaign.
Rhys has one of the better eyes for the zone in baseball. He led the NL in walks in 2019, a league that included Juan Soto and Bryce Harper, with 116 and has a 162 game average of 101 walks. Combine that with his 30+ homerun power and you have the makings of a top 10 first baseman in the game. Despite his above average numbers, everyone looks to what he did in 2017 and how he hasn’t been able to reproduce the rate at which he was destroying the ball. Rhys makes this list today because he is a top 10 first baseman, but is looked at as a below average producer.
1. Paul Goldschmidt
12 year veteran Paul Goldschmidt rarely makes the Sportscenter Top 10. Goldy rarely makes the Web Gems seen on Baseball Tonight. He also rarely makes the Not Top 10 or any other blooper/botch highlights. After spending the first 8 years of his career in Arizona, and in his 4th season with the Cardinals, Goldy has a career line of .292/.389/.519 with 280 homeruns and a 141 OPS+ over 6,363 plate appearances and 1,483 games.
Another top tier defender at the first sack, Goldy has only committed 46 errors over 12,630.1 innings of work and has won 4 gold gloves. His contemporaries love him, but because he doesn’t make the highlight shows on regular basis, he is nationally underrated. Ask any casual baseball fan you know who the top 3 first basemen in the game are and their answers will almost always be Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Freddie Freeman, and Pete Alonso. 2 of those 3 are correct, replace Pete Alonso with Paul Goldschmidt and you’ve got the 3 best first basemen in the game.
There you have it. 3 top 10 first basemen that are criminally overlooked nationally. Be sure to check out the first two pieces in this series where we took a look at 3 underrated starting pitchers and 3 underrated catchers. Let me know who you think is underrated on Twitter @TroyBrock1993. Next up will be second basemen!
