Today we present the top ten first basemen!

#1 – #10

This is the top of the first baseman tier for a reason. You have two of the high-flying stars in baseball here, as well as the most recent World Series hero. We are looking at lots of home runs, a few up and coming value players, and even a star prospect. Out of all of the positions for fantasy baseball, this might be my favorite one, and for good reason, home runs and just monster style hitters at the top of the baseball world.

Let us start this list off with the top of the mountain and a player I continue to be awestruck by, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. While he is currently working on hopefully signing a lifetime contract with the Toronto Blue Jays, we shall quickly dive into the beast of a season he just had for fantasy baseball. He hit .323/.396/.544, to go with an OPS of .940, a 165 wRC+, 30 home runs, and 44 doubles. This came with his second-highest walk rate (10.3%) and his lowest career strikeout rate (13.8%). Beastmode was truly activated!

The shocking thing was that Guerrero Jr. did most of his damage and destruction of baseballs after the first month. In April, he hit .219 with a .305 OBP and a lowly .605 OPS. The rocket ship was blasting off after that though, with him blowing the cover off the ball to the tune of .345/.412/.590. He smashed 27 of his home runs and 39 of his doubles in those 128 games. Hold onto your seats though, over the second half of the season, he would hit .376/.450/.678, with an eye-popping OPS of 1.127 and a wRC+ of 212. This was over 63 total games. He was clearly the second-best hitter behind Aaron Judge over the second half of the season, all while being just 25 years old. I could go on and on about Vladimir Guerrero Jr., but I will just sum it up with this: you have a 25-year-old who when everything is clicking, is one part Tony Gwynn and one part Barry Bonds; that is the first baseman I want on my team.

Our second top-of-the-line star in this tier comes in at number two, Bryce Harper. He remains every bit of the stat stuffer he has always been. In 2024 he hit .285/.373/.525, for an OPS of .898. He also launched 30 home runs and 42 doubles. Despite some injuries in the last few years, he was able to stay on the field this past season to the tune of 145 games played. It made a big difference in terms of his overall production compared to 2022 and 2023. As long as he stays healthy, he remains one of the highest floor/ceiling combinations for a major league star in baseball.

The next section of the tier has the stable of rock solid production you always love to see. Matt Olson, Pete Alonso, and Freddie Freeman. Olson is a home run machine and one who is on the field more often than most players. In the last four years, he has played 642 out of 648 games, including 3 straight full seasons up to 2024. The level of consistency he has shown has surely helped him in counting stats above players who have not been able to stay on the field. His main draw is the ability to hit 30 home runs consistently and combining it with more than 100 RBI. If you miss out on the top two studs, Olson is the next best thing. Alonso had a bit of a down year in 2024, but after re-signing with the Mets and them adding a new cornerstone to that lineup in Juan Soto, things could improve. He still managed to crush 34 home runs in 2024 and his OBP came in at .329. The rest of the counting stats were down last year, but that new lineup in New York should make things much better this coming season. The last of these three is Freeman, who has been the model of consistency for years at first base. Age may be catching up to him as he will enter 2025 as a 35-year-old. Father time isn’t making a huge dent in those stats just yet, as he hit .282/.378/.476 in 2024. His OPS dropped under .900 for just the first time since 2018. He only hit 22 home runs and that might be the biggest negative in his profile. He may have slowly declining power numbers, but he will still fill up the stat sheet across the board and even add 7-10 stolen bases.

Triston Casas and Josh Naylor are some polarizing names in the first base world, that is for sure. Casas takes walks with the best of them, has light tower power, barrels the ball, and hits most things hard, but the strikeout and whiff rates are among some of the worst in the major leagues. He is on a dividing path: improve the swing and miss and become a power-hitting masher like Pete Alonso, or see his value drop as his numbers get stuck on a sinking ship of mediocrity. He is still young, so taking a chance on a left-handed Pete Alonso is looking like a smart play. Naylor has the looks of a consistent 30-home-run first baseman. His 2024 season may become the norm, where he loses some on the batting average and on-base rate, but smashes home runs at a great clip. His contact ability is among the best in baseball, so if he can blend his hitting ability and power he could move up this list in the future.

Samuel Basallo, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Spencer Steer round out the top 10. Basallo is the up-and-coming star of the prospect world. At just 19 years old, he put up a 134 wRC+ at Double-A, with 16 home runs in 106 games. The hitting ability and power are the real deal and he should see the big leagues sooner rather than later. Pasquantino doesn’t strike out or whiff like many first basemen further down this list, as he was in the 96th percentile for both. That contact ability is a real plus and should see him become an on-base monster again, even if he doesn’t hit a ton of home runs. Steer finishes off the top 10 here, and he is one of the more unique first basemen, in that he is a dual power/speed threat. He racked up 20 home runs and 25 stolen bases in 2024. The batting average and on-base rates took a dip, but that unique blend of counting stats really props him up in a position that lacks speed from top to bottom.

(Daniel Labude)