Last season, Chris Carter did some big, old-school damage while serving as the first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers: 41 homers, 27 doubles, 94 RBIs. He also generated a fair number of walks with 76 and played in 160 games.
After all of that, Carter was cut — outright released before free agency, presumably after the Brewers assessed his value in the market. He’s currently unemployed with his case demonstrating that the industry’s expectations of what a first baseman needs to be have changed markedly over time. Mere power isn’t good enough anymore.
In Part III of our top 10 positional rankings, we present the first basemen, with lots of input from baseball evaluators — and there is a much broader range of opinion on who should be No. 1 than with the starting pitchers (Clayton Kershaw) and relievers (Zach Britton). Five first basemen were nominated at No. 1 by various scouts and executives. Five.