Who is the best first baseman in the American League? Seth Stohs posed this question earlier today and left me scratching my head. What a tough question!

First off, let’s clarify exactly what the question is that we are answering. As Seth points out, there are many different ways we can go with this topic. “Who has had/will have the best career?” “Who is the best today?” “Who do you start a team with?” For the sake of this discussion, I’m going to focus on the “Who is the best today?” question. Courtesy of TheBaseballCube, here is a handy chart comparing five of the biggest contendors:

Offense is pehaps the most important aspect to consider when comparing first baseman. (Speed isn’t an issue, as none of the above have more than one. For the sake of spacing, I simply removed that category.)  Morneau and Youkilis are the best in this category. We are only a few months into the season, so small sample size could obviously be an issue, but we’ll overlook that for now. Pena is a home run machine, but doesn’t hit for average and can’t get on base. He doesn’t even have many more RBI than Cabrera, who has seven less long balls.  The best BB/SO ratio goes to Morneau, with Cabrera close behind. Pena is far behind in that category. From the above statistics, here is how I would rank the five:

Offensive Ranking

1. Justin Morneau
2. Kevin Youkilis
3. Miguel Cabrera
4. Mark Teixeira
5. Carlos Pena

Youkilis, because of an injury, has less time spent at first base than the rest of these five. Even playing the whole season, the other four have way too little playing time to make any assumptions. The best defensive player of these five is either Morneau or Teixeira. I’ll go with Teixeira first simply because he has one less error in twenty more innings, but it’s extremely close.

Defensive Ranking

1. Mark Teixeira
2. Justin Morneau
3. Kevin Youkilis
4. Miguel Cabrera
5. Carlos Pena

Pena finishes fifth on both lists, proving that home runs don’t make a great first baseman. Cabrera is also out of the running with a 3rd and 4th place finish. Youkilis may have had a great year both offensively and defensively last year, but he needs a larger sample size before I can compare him to the rest. That leaves Morneau and Teixeira.

As a Twins’ fan, I’m obviously biased towards Morneau. When I try to be objective, though, I tend to be bias against Morneau, as Dwade pointed out. Just for fun, let’s take a look at both player’s wOBA from the past few years (sorry for the awful formatting).

Interestingly, Morneau led only one year; 2006, his MVP year. Here are the 2009 numbers, through Monday’s games:

Who is the best first baseman in the league?

Posted in Justin Morneau, Statistics No Comments Tags: comparisons

Mauer Power

Joe Mauer is a great baseball player. I don’t think you’ll have very much difficulty convincing anyone of that. On the season, Mauer has hit ten home runs in just 23 games. He is hitting an insane 1 HR/8 AB so far in 2009. While his season started late because of his recovery from kidney surgery, Mauer is just 41.5 plate appearances away from qualifying for the batting title. (3.1 PA per team game is required in order to be eligible for the award.)

Mauer’s .438/.525/.875 line has pundits scratching their heads. The ten long balls just add to the mystery. With an OPS of 1.400 he easily leads any batter with more than three PA. What is the reason for this incredible stretch? Is it just a hot streak that will soon die, or has Mauer actually “gotten better”?

Tom Tango, co-author of “The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball,” suggests 220 plate appearances as the baseline for analyzing a player who is flucuating from his average production. Any amount less than that (Mauer has only 98 PA this year) and you can chaulk the success/regression up to luck and expect a return to the mean production of the player.

Has Mauer been extremely lucky in 2009? I am tempted to think so. Mauer is only 26 years old and is still maturing physically. I would strongly doubt that Mauer is actually doing anything consciously to increase his home run total and that he is simply finding it easier to launch a 400-footer. Will this return to normal? Probably, because pitchers will adjust to how they pitch to this “new” Mauer. Will Mauer’s sudden power return to normal? Probably, but maybe not.

Aaron Gleeman compared Mauer to the Wade Boggs of 1987, when he hit 24 home runs. On average, Boggs rarely had a home run total reaching double digits. Actually, he only reached two digits once again in his career: 1994 with the Yankees.

There is little doubt in my mind that Mauer will not continue to rake opposing pitching at the rate he is currently going. He is on pace for a nearly record-breaking season, but that number should regress towards the mean of Mauer’s career.

Weighted On Base Average, wOBA, is a great way to measure a hitter’s true ability. Very similar to OPS, wOBA is more messy but isn’t simply a combination two already-exsisting statistics. wOBA uses the run values of the most common events in baseball relative to an out, divided by the total number of plate appearances. A very good hitter could expect to have a wBOA approaching .400. Through 45 games in 2009 Mauer’s wOBA is .571.

Will he regress towards his mean? Sure, but that doesn’t mean he will return to the same kind of hitter he was last year. The Mauer of 2008 could very well be lost forever, replaced by a home run-hitting monster with an uncanny ability to get on base.

If Mauer survives the 220 plate appearance plateau without a major hiccup in this hot streak, though, he could very well be the next Mantle-caliber hitter.

Posted in Joe Mauer, Statistics 1 Comment

Just posted the Organizational Depth Chart. You can find the link on the main bar at the top of the screen. I will update as often as time allows.

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I have recently compiled an exhaustive depth chart of the first four teams in the Twins’ minor league organization: Rochester, New Britain, Fort Myers, and Beloit. If I moved it online and kept it up to date as often as I could, would you take advantage of it?

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For the second night in a row, @Dwade takes home the honors in the nightly Tweet of the Game. I kept the subject at starting pitcher’s final lines, this time going with the one making a major-league debut, Anthony Swarzak. Here was his final line:

7 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 3 K

Here was @Dwade’s winning prediction:

5.1 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 3 K

Nicely done!

To participate in this new nightly feature sign up for an account atTwitter.com and add me by clicking here.

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