The New Adventures of Old First Basemen

Last week, I wrote about Paul Goldschmidt’s prospects in free agency, but didn’t speculate on a landing spot for the 2022 NL MVP. Not to worry — when the FanGraphs Bluesky account recirculated the piece on Monday, the public weighed in. One respondent thought the Yankees made sense, and while I don’t think the fit is ideal for either player or club, the underlying logic is reasonable enough. And here I’ll add my own spin on a potential Goldschmidt-Yankees partnership: It sure feels like the Yankees love old first basemen.

In 2024, 34-year-old Anthony Rizzo and 35-year-old DJ LeMahieu combined for 548 plate appearances and 1017 2/3 defensive innings at first base for the Yankees. (All ages in this piece are relative to the standard June 30 cutoff date unless otherwise specified.) That’s 81.5% of the Yankees’ playing time by plate appearances and 70.0% by defensive innings. Over the past five years, Yankees first basemen have the highest average age in the league. Since Don Mattingly turned 30 in 1991, the Yankees’ most-used first baseman has been in his age-30 season or older in 28 of 34 seasons. In 12 of those seasons, the Yankees’ most-used first baseman has been 33 or older, including in 2023 and 2024.

This got me thinking about the idea of the old first baseman.

First base is to baseball what crabs are to the animal kingdom. On a long enough timeline, every living organism will turn into one. (Also a first baseman’s mitt kind of looks like a crab claw.) It’s where outfielders go when their legs give out, where catchers go when their knees give out, and where third basemen go when their arms give out. Given the limited physical demands of first base, it makes sense that this position would skew older.

But is it bad to go with an older first baseman?

Not necessarily. Since 2020, five teams, including the Yankees, have given at least three quarters of their first base plate appearances to players in their age-30 seasons or older. Those five teams include two of the top four in wRC+ at the position and three of the top 10 in WAR. And having an old guy at first base seems to be good for the team in general. Three of the five winningest teams of the past decade are in this group, and the only team that’s under .500 in that span is the Diamondbacks, who won the pennant in 2023.

There is, however, a more parsimonious way to say all this.

So do you want an old first baseman in general, or do you want Freddie Freeman? Because Freeman is not only the Dodgers’ most-used over-30 first baseman since 2020, he also holds that distinction for the Braves, who replaced him with another highly productive veteran, Matt Olson. Speaking of latecomers, the Phillies have devoted only 35.4% of their first base reps to over-30 players since 2020, but their current first baseman, Bryce Harper, only became 1) a first baseman and 2) a 30-something relatively recently. In a few years, I’m probably going to forget I did this article and do the whole thing again from scratch; expect to see Harper on the list then.

There are two ways to get an old first baseman, and the Yankees have done both over the years. The first is to go out in free agency and sign a genuine All-Star-level bat. These guys tend to hit the market late in their prime, so a team that goes out and signs — to use this year’s example — Pete Alonso is going to have him in the lineup for most of his 30s.

Those 28 seasons where the Yankees had a 30-and-over first baseman included four from Jason Giambi and six from Mark Teixeira, both marquee free agent signings. Plus four more from Tino Martinez, whom the Yankees acquired in a trade, and five from Donnie Baseball. This is stating the obvious, but if you’ve got a good first baseman, just hang on to him.

That’s true regardless of age. The nine teams with the best wRC+ by first basemen since 2020 includes five teams that have given more than half their playing time to old guys, but also the three youngest teams on the list by this metric: the Blue Jays, Rangers, and Mets. (The one team in the middle is Harper’s Phillies.) So if you have a good first baseman of any age, you should hold on to him.

Of course, not everyone is so lucky. And that road leads to Door no. 2, which is: Sign the slowest possible guy who’s ever hit 30 home runs in a season at any point in the past, and give him the big mitt.

In addition to tracking the percentage of plate appearances given to 30-and-over first basemen, I also looked up the individual leaders for each team. In four of those cases — Seattle, Kansas City, Minnesota, and Cleveland — the most-used old first baseman is Carlos Santana. Which is funny enough as it is, but he’s also second in 30-plus playing time among both Pirates and Brewers first basemen as well, and is only 23 PA behind Connor Joe for first place on Pittsburgh’s leaderboard.

Santana’s a fine player, but you don’t want him anchoring your lineup at this point in his career.

Here we have the six teams in the Santana Zone: Teams that have devoted at least 25% of their total first base playing time to players 30 and older, but with no individual first baseman receiving more than half of the 30-and-over playing time.

I noticed after I made this chart that Santana is not actually the most-used 30-and-over first baseman for any of these teams. I’ve decided I don’t care, and I’m naming it the Santana Zone anyway.

Anyway, having a rotating cast of bounce-back candidates is no way to build a team. Of the six clubs in the Santana Zone, only one — the Giants — is in the top 10 in the league in either wRC+ or WAR. And four of these teams rank 23rd or lower in team wins over the past five years. And these six franchises have combined to win only one playoff series in the 2020s: Miami’s three-game upset of the Cubs in 2020. These are, broadly speaking, not good teams.

In other words, older first basemen help your team win when they’re good. But they hurt your team when they’re not good. Everyone following so far? Outstanding.

I’m having a harder time figuring out what the Yankees thought Rizzo was supposed to be. Over three and a half seasons in New York, Rizzo hit .234/.326/.409, which is a wRC+ of 109 and a total WAR of 3.6. That’s not awesome. But in his last walk year, Rizzo was a 2.5 WAR player with a 131 wRC+. Entering his age-33 season, the Yankees gave him a two-year contract worth $20 million per season. It’s only after he signed that contract that he started to get hurt and his bat went seriously downhill.

So the Yankees lived with what they got from Rizzo the past two seasons — the last spark from an old guy nearing retirement. That would seem to invite a run at Goldschmidt. But the salary they handed out would indicate that they hoped for something more. And in a down free agent year for first basemen, Rizzo was close to the top of the market at the position. They might go for an older first baseman again, but rather than live in the Santana Zone, the Yankees would be better-served chasing Walker or even Alonso, who turns 30 in two weeks.

The Yankees do love an older first baseman, but they have better options this time. Age is just a number, but so is wRC+, and we know which one is more important.