Early ADP Tiers: First Base
A quick look at the 1B position using early ADP data and projections
Other positions covered so far:
We’re ripping through the early ADP and tiering off each position as we go down the draft board. I add short comments when I think they’re useful, but this is a high-level post series. For the nitty-gritty details, check out the team previews series, which is in the early stages.
Tier One
Nick Kurtz
Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
This could be the shortest time period we’ve ever seen between a position player getting drafted and becoming the #1 guy at a position in ADP. I’m not even sure it will stay that way. My money would be on Vlad going #1 at first base more often than Kurtz when things are settled. But yeah, it’s a meteoric rise from Nick Kurtz.
Kurtz was one of six hitters with a PA/HR rate under 14. He hit 36 homers in less than 500 PAs.
That’s some ridiculous stuff. He even hit .290! So he enters the 2026 season as a power (HR + RBI) stud with a shot at a very good batting average to boot. The Athletics will play at least two more years in that friendly ballpark. Kurtz is going to sail past 30 homers any year he stays healthy, it would seem.
The hesitation is that this is a guy with less than one year under his belt. The league hasn’t really kicked back yet. Although maybe they did start kicking back at the end of last year, when they struck Kurtz out 35% of the time in September. He still hit nine homers that month with a .570 SLG, but he was going down on strikes at a scary rate.
And that’s the hesitation for me with taking Kurtz in the second round. You could end up with a .250 hitter and not an overwhelming number of RBI if the Athletics lineup struggles again. His xBA last year was just .253, and his K% finished at 31%. I’m hesitant to take a guy with that high of a K% over a proven asset like Vlad.
For all of Vlad’s proven-ness, though, he’s usually fallen well short of top 20 production. Even in this wildly successful 2025 season he’s coming off of, he hit only 23 homers and stole six bases. That’s something you can replace extremely easily. The reason you draft Vlad is for the batting average, on-base percentage, and the counting stats that he accrues. He scored 96 times and drove in 84. But he’s maxed out at 32 homers since that 2021 season, which now looks very strange.
These are the top two options at the position; it’s not changing. I suppose the “ceiling” option would be Kurtz. With some K% improvement, he could be a .280 hitter with 50-homer upside, and he’ll probably steal a couple more bags than Vlad.
Tier Two
Pete Alonso
First base is the most “the same” position in the fantasy game over the last handful of years. Alonso, Devers, Harper, Olson, Freeman, Vlad. Those guys have consistently been near the top of the position. But that group of hitters is aging down the ADP board.
Alonso is the second-youngest of the group (Devers). He’ll be 31 for next season and is coming off another big power season. He hit 38 more homers and drove in 126. His K% got under 23% for the second time in his career, and he played his second-straight 162-game season. You could argue that he’s a touch over-priced because of the spike in batting average last year. It’s been a wild ride on that front for Alonso.
You’re just as likely to get a .230 batting average as a .270 mark from him. A lot of this will depend on who he signs with, of course, but the younger age and the rock-solid production over the years put Alonso in his own tier as the #3 option at the position.
Tier Three
Rafael Devers (29)
Bryce Harper (33)
Matt Olson (32)
Freddie Freeman (36)