(d) WAR on first basemen

[Chad ochoseis]

I think this topic comes up occasionally when talking about Keith Hernandez. BBRef dWAR really, really, really discounts the defensive contributions of first basemen.

Table of 1B dWAR below. With the exception of Alonso and Goldschmidt, these players have had long and complete careers. Goldschmidt is near retirement, and I added Pete out of curiosity, but over a career that -6.3 probably projects to about a -11, assuming he starts DHing in a few years. No system to these choices except "Chad named a bunch of first basemen", though I went out of my way to pick several reputed great gloves. So this group likely skews better than average.

 

[TH]Player[/TH]	[TH]dWAR[/TH]
[TD]Chief Keef[/TD]	[TD]1.3[/TD]
[TD]JT Snow[/TD]	[TD]0.0[/TD]
[TD]Chris Chambliss[/TD]	[TD]0.0[/TD]
[TD]Doug Mientkiewicz[/TD]	[TD]-0.7[/TD]
[TD]Wes Parker[/TD]	[TD]-3.0[/TD]
[TD]Gil Hodges[/TD]	[TD]-5.4[/TD]
[TD]Nick Johnson[/TD]	[TD]-5.7[/TD]
[TD]Paul Goldschmidt[/TD]	[TD]-6.0[/TD]
[TD]Don Mattingly[/TD]	[TD]-6.2[/TD]
[TD]Pete Alonso[/TD]	[TD]-6.3[/TD]
[TD]Adam LaRoche[/TD]	[TD]-10.1[/TD]
[TD]Rafael Palmeiro[/TD]	[TD]-10.7[/TD]
[TD]Ed Kranepool[/TD]	[TD]-11.0[/TD]
[TD]Cecil Fielder[/TD]	[TD]-12.1[/TD]
[TD]Steve Garvey*[/TD]	[TD]-13.6[/TD]
[TD]Prince Fielder[/TD]	[TD]-20.7[/TD]

 

*Garvey was primarily a 3B for the first three years of his career, and I excluded those years.

Keith is the only first baseman I could find with a positive career dWAR, and 1.3 isn't all that good. Wayne Garrett's was better. Ken Boswell's was better. You get the point.

I was surprised that Chris Chambliss, who I always thought of as a good but not great first baseman, is as high as he is, and that Palmiero and Garvey are quite that low. And I don't remember Prince Fielder as being particularly bad at first.

Edgar Martinez, who was primarily a DH for 12 seasons, had a dWAR of -11.5 for those seasons. So a guy who never plays the field is considered comparable in value to several actual first basemen.

I never played baseball, not even Little League. I've maybe played ten softball games in my life. I'm not even an especially observant fan. So I'm looking to the group. Are first basemen really that valueless defensively? At the very least, they have to be able to field batted balls about as well as third basemen, given that a ball pulled by a left handed hitter to first behaves about the same as a ball pulled by a right handed hitter to third. A first baseman never has to make long throws, is almost always behind the play, seldom has to make tags, and almost never has to deal with runners sliding in to the base. They're involved in most plays, but their involvement is limited to being able to catch, which is important but something most professional athletes should be able to handle.

So I can see that 1B has significantly less value than other positions on the field. But this little, where Ken Boswell is considered more valuable defensively than Keith Hernandez? Any explanation besides "dWAR is bogus"?

[MFS62]

When I was a kid, the player touted as the "best right handed fielding first baseman" was Vic Power.

This made me look it up.

His DWAR was -0.8

Later

[Edgy MD]

bWAR is unreliable for defense. That does not mean it is useless, but most defensive metrics only give you part of the picture.

That said, it makes some sense that you have to be superlative to get credit for a net positive defensive contribution at a position that pretty much every one on the roster can play at some degree of effectiveness.

Whether that truly means the average first basemen should get a clearly negative score for (d)WAR is certainly arguable, but it is hard to debate openly when bWAR and fWAR are hidden, proprietary metrics.

I am not even sure if it changes from year to year to make it more sophisticated as new information becomes available. I suspect ... maybe?

[Cowtipper]

WAR is unreliable

 

I agree.

[Frayed Knot]

What is it good for, absolutely nothing!

[Frayed Knot]

I wasn't old enough to have seen much of the legendary (and not in a good way) Dick Stuart's ML career* ... and certainly not wise enough to notice the subtleties of defensive play at 1B. The worst defensive 1B I can remember was Adam Dunn -- yes, worse than Kingman. Dunn might have been one of the few who was less of a liability in a corner OF spot than at 1st. He just plain had bad hands. Never seen a guy drop so many throws that hit him right in the glove.

A quick glance at his defensive page at BB-Ref shows that he has big time negative numbers on the 'Defensive Runs Saved' column, so that at least jibes with my eyeball test.

* 'Don't handle the ball, Dick, you'll scratch it!' was a phrase about his hands.

And he had the misfortune to have his career overlap with a certain hit movie which earned him the 'Dr. Strangeglove' nickname.