As you prepare for your fantasy baseball drafts, figuring out who you want to target in drafts and who you want to avoid is important. Culling your draft list is crucial to make it go seamlessly.
First base is a difficult position to cull. There are a lot of viable options, no matter the depth of your league. You have numerous tiers that range from elite options with safe floors to high-upside risky hitters. Here are my picks for first basemen to avoid at the first base position in 2023.
- ADP Target & Avoid: Catchers
- Fitz’s Positional Primers
- Hitters to Avoid | Target
- Pitchers to Avoid | Target
- Latest Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft
First Basemen to Avoid at ADP
Avoids
Matt Olson (1B – ATL) | 45.71 ADP
There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with Matt Olson. He gives you a ton of power and great runs and RBIs. However, he delivers virtually no stolen bases, and the average isn’t likely to be a benefit. When you can get four-category production later in the draft, it just doesn’t make sense to take Olson in the top 50 of a draft.
Ryan Mountcastle (1B, DH – BAL) |154.44 ADP
Ryan Mountcastle was one of those players that people faded early on in his career for the wrong reasons, but it ended up biting him later on in an unexpected way. He has hit almost every level through the Minors and the Majors, but there were concerns that his poor StatCast numbers meant the power wouldn’t continue to deliver.
He proved people wrong in his first full season in the Majors with 33 home runs, but then he crashed back down to earth last season in large part because the Orioles moved the fences back. He, unfortunately, is a player with “wall scraping power,” which means that the new dimensions are going to prevent him from getting back to that 30-homer mark.
Jake Cronenworth (1B, 2B, SS – SD) | 191.62 ADP
At this point, it is clear that Jake Cronenworth isn’t much more than a compiler. There is nothing wrong with that, as there are some great compilers in fantasy like Marcus Semien. However, to have value as a compiler, typically, you want players able to compile in every category, and you want them to hit high up in the lineup to rack up as many plate appearances as possible.
Cronenworth doesn’t run or offer a good batting average, and now in the improved Padres lineup, it is likely that he will hit in the bottom half of the lineup once Fernando Tatis Jr. is back from suspension. He is boring at a position with too much to choose from.
Jared Walsh (1B – LAA) | 330.94
Seeing Jared Walsh on the field after recovering from Thoracic Outlet Surgery is great. However, the problem is we have little to no data on how hitters return from that surgery. We have some data that it devastates most pitchers’ careers, but Walsh is the guinea pig for hitters. On top of that uncertainty, he also has playing time risk because of his awful platoon splits. At best, he is a strong side platoon bat, and at worst, he is pretty much washed.
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