In his 2003 bestseller “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” Michael Lewis recounts how the 2002 Oakland Athletics replaced former American League MVP Jason Giambi with a little-known player named Scott Hatteberg. Hatteberg was a talented hitter — he represented Team USA at the 1990 Goodwill Games and was drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the first round of the 1991 MLB Draft — and from 1995 to 2001 he sported a .357 OBP with the Red Sox. At the same time, however, he was a catcher by trade, who signed with the A’s after rupturing a nerve in his throwing elbow. Moving to first base, then, was more than a little risky, but A’s general manager Billy Beane was already notorious for his refusal to spend “any money on fielding ability.” As Lewis puts it, “There were times that (infield coach Ron Washington) thought the players Billy sent him shouldn’t even bother to bring their gloves; they should just take their bats with them into the field, and hit the ball back to the pitcher.”
Beane’s disregard of fielding was especially true of first base — a hit-first position that requires neither the athleticism of shortstop nor the toughness of catcher. Giambi himself had been a poor first baseman, so, as Beane saw it, it didn’t really matter who played the position as long as he hit. Consequently, while Hatteberg was nervous about switching positions, he also knew that the bar was extremely low: he just needed to be better “than most guys management hid at first base.”
In “Moneyball,” Beane’s decision to replace an All-Star first baseman with a good, if not great, journeyman catcher is portrayed as a feat of derring-do: It’s by no means an orthodox move, and, for just that reason, it’s cast as a sign of Beane’s creative genius. And yet, what Lewis could not have anticipated at the time of writing “Moneyball” was how the book would help change the perception of first base. Indeed, for the last two decades, the experiment with Hatteberg has increasingly become the norm. In a March 2025 article, Tim Kurkjian notes that it has been well over a century since first base has been this weak as a position:
“In 2024, major league first basemen batted .246, their lowest total since 1900. They also posted an OPS of .736, their lowest since 1968, the Year of the Pitcher (the highest OPS by first basemen in any season was .882 in 2000, during the steroid era, and a little more recently, .853 in 2006). A first baseman has won a Most Valuable Player Award 32 times, most of any position (right field is second), but last season marked the second time in 10 years that no first baseman finished in the top five of the MVP balloting.”
While former Gold Glove first baseman Keith Hernandez argues that first base is “one of the most important positions on the field,” coaches, executives, and scouts now seem to feel otherwise. As one coach put it: “Scouts tell me that the least drafted position in baseball is first base. There just aren’t any. The players who end up there were moved from other positions, unless they are projected as a 40- or 50-home run guy. It has become a stopgap position, a last-ditch effort.” There may be other reasons for this shift too. One school of thought is that the physical stature that used to be featured at the position is no longer ideal. While former first baseman Pat Tabler believes baseball is increasingly losing out to football and basketball for bigger-bodied athletes, longtime manager Bobby Valentine contends that those kinds of athletes — strong but lumbering — are less valuable in an era of dominant pitching: “We are looking for smaller guys, shorter guys to play first base these days,” he added.
Whatever the case, it’s clear that the “days of the classic first baseman such as John Olerud, Don Mattingly, Mark Grace — long, rangy, great hitter, left-handed — seem to be over for now.” Or are they? Indeed, while it may be too soon to declare a full-fledged renaissance at the position, signs clearly point to a turning of the tide. On a broad statistical level, the decline highlighted by Kurkjian has already been reversed. In 2025, first basemen posted a .750 OPS, trailing only designated hitters (.784). This number already marks a substantial increase from 2024, but the news has been even better in 2026. As of this writing, first basemen currently lead MLB in OPS (.783), home runs, RBIs, and walks.
But it’s not just that the position is seeing a marked statistical uptick. There is star power as well. Going into the 2026 season, Buster Olney ranked the top 10 first basemen in MLB, and his list includes several of the game’s premier hitters, including Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Matt Olson, Freddie Freeman, Bryce Harper, and Pete Alonso. More notable, however, is the rise of young talent at the position. Olney’s article ranks the Athletics‘ young slugger Nick Kurtz as the game’s third-best first baseman, but a number of other talented young players don’t crack his top 10, at least not yet. Jonathan Aranda, Alec Burleson, Bryce Eldridge, Munetaka Murakami, Ben Rice, TJ Rumfield, and Sal Stewart — these players are already among the best hitters on their respective teams, and they all have the potential to emerge as perennial All-Stars.
There is something to like about each one of them — Murakami is an international superstar, Rice a Dartmouth grad turned Yankees leader, and Rumfield an unheralded prospect now excelling due to a low K% (13.9) and a high Pull Air% (22.8) — but Kurtz and Eldridge are poised to become the game’s next great first sackers. If the position is to reclaim its past glory, they will likely lead the charge. As noted above, Kurtz has already received more than a little attention. After a stellar tenure at Wake Forest, he was the fourth overall selection of the 2024 MLB Draft. His progress through the A’s system was meteoric, and he was promoted to the big club in April 2025. As he had at every other level of baseball, Kurtz hit immediately. In 2025, he slashed .290/.383/.619 en route to winning AL Rookie of the Year. He has remained elite in 2026, hitting .266/.405/.497 at the All-Star Break.
Eldridge has not yet reached Kurtz’s status, but he is well on his way. Drafted 16th overall by the San Francisco Giants in the 2023 MLB Draft, Eldridge moved quickly through San Francisco’s system, debuting in September at the tender age of 20. He struggled, however, and began the 2026 season with Triple-A Sacramento. He was recalled in May and was slashing .271/.364/.468 going into the All-Star Break. Along with the Reds’ Stewart, Eldridge is one of two National League first basemen who has a legitimate chance to win Rookie of the Year.
What unites Kurtz and Eldridge is not just what they are doing; it’s how they are doing it. Both sluggers are displaying remarkable plate discipline for such young players. Kurtz leads the American League in walks and is second in OBP. It’s no surprise, then, that he’s tied for 12th in Chase% (88th percentile). Because Eldridge started the season in the minor leagues, his aggregate statistics are less eye-catching, but his rates nevertheless indicate a sound process. Eldridge is in the 88th percentile in BB%, and he’s sporting a better (i.e., lower) Chase% than Olson, Freeman, and even perennial MVP candidate Yordan Alvarez.
Yet, as impressive as these numbers are, they are not as impressive as Kurtz’s and Eldridge’s batted-ball data. In HardHit%, Kurtz is tied for second in MLB (99th percentile), and Eldridge is tied for fourth (97th percentile). In average exit velocity, Kurtz is tied for eighth in MLB (93.6 mph), and Eldridge is 16th (92.3). In max distance, Kurtz is second in MLB (471 ft), and Eldridge is ninth (458 ft). This combination of excellent patience and power promises not just elite peaks but sustainable success.
For nearly 20 years, MLB treated first base as somewhere to hide a bat. Hatteberg became the prototype: a capable hitter who could survive at a position whose defensive demands were thought to be minimal. Yet, as has been seen, this new generation is built differently. Kurtz, Eldridge, and others in their class are not makeshift first basemen. They are elite offensive talents, whose size, power, and strike-zone judgment recall an earlier era — one in which first base was expected to anchor, and not just augment, a team’s lineup. If they continue on their present trajectories, the position may once again become what it long was: the home of baseball’s best hitters and biggest stars.
