Top 25 First Basemen Rest of Season – Glass Two-Thirds Full

Two months down, four to go. I’m trying to take an optimistic “glass two-thirds full” look at the rest of the season despite where my team sits in the standings. In some instances, that requires a leap of faith or a couple of pops to give me some false confidence. Four months is plenty of time to turn things around. Over these last two weeks, we’ve gotten Cody Bellinger back and Josh Bell has busted out of his slump some, bringing some rays of sunshine in a dark world. Let’s take a look at the list and we’ll talk about some of the biggest movers.

First up is the newest addition to the list, Kris Bryant, who earned first base eligibility. Bryant has been mashing all year and it’s clear that when Bryant is fully healthy, he’s a beast. The 2020 season, in which he tried playing through a myriad of injuries was a nightmare. However, when we look at his year-to-year numbers, that’s clearly the outlier season. I’m slotting Bryant quite high on this list and the only thing keeping him back is his health.

One of the “casualties” of Bryant’s arrival was Pete Alonso sliding down some. I’m not completely worried about Alonso, the pop is still legit. I’m just not positive that we’re ever going to see the .260+ batting average that we saw in his rookie season. DJ LeMahieu is another “casualty”. He’s also been one of the guys that I’m just not sure what to do with. He’s not your traditional “pop” first baseman and one of the things we were counting on was a steady batting average. Unfortunately, that steady batting that we were counting on has been absent. While it hasn’t been terrible, the strikeout rate is up and the power that he flashed last year has disappeared.

As I mentioned earlier, Cody Bellinger finally made his return to the Dodgers, albeit in a chilly fashion. He’s O-fer in his three games back and took a seat on the bench Tuesday night. A player of Bellinger’s quality should get things going soon enough, but I’m waiting to bump him into the top 10 until I see that bat connect with the ball some.

While Bryant has thrived, Anthony Rizzo has been decent, but overall a little disappointing. Honestly, it may be a little more of him being a better real-life player than a fantasy player. Rizzo is walking more often than he’s striking out and getting on base at a .366 clip but has just five homers and the counting stats just haven’t been there. He’s currently on pace for 80 runs and 80 RBIs, which is decent but not spectacular.

If I’m being 100% honest, after Rhys Hoskins, I kind of just throw my hands up and start throwing darts at the wall. Nate Lowe has cooled off from his hot start, as has Yuli Gurriel. That opens the door up some for the streaking Josh Bell to start making a jump up the list. Bell has mash three homers over his last 10 games and is batting over .300 during that stretch. Maybe the most important detail is that he’s managed to cut his strikeout rate to 21% during that time. Hopefully, that’s an indicator that he’s turning a corner.

Finally, there’s the ever-injured Mike Moustakas. At times it feels like I’m picking on Moustakas, as I write the third base rest of season article in addition to this one. But when you’re perpetually dinged up, he leaves me with no other options. His current injury, a bruised heel, has kept him out of the lineup since May 18th. He was running earlier this week, so we’ll see if his return is imminent or if he’ll just continue to string me along.

Now it’s your turn. Leave your questions and comments below and we’ll keep this conversation going!