2026 Positional Dynasty Baseball Rankings: Top 80+ First Baseman (Patreon)

First off, I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving break and spending time with their family! Because there is never any stress or anxiety when families come together 😉 My family definitely had zero family drama this weekend 😉 None at all hah … wild times … But now we are back to business, and that business is the business of ranking baseball players! So Welcome to First Baseman Rankings Week where I’m ranking some the biggest boppers in the game. A position so “easy” to play, that it will bring grown men to near tears when they have to play it … Rafael Devers. I’m going over 80 deep with full analysis, 2026 projections, and Prime Projections for every player, as usual. Top 6 free here on the Brick Wall. Here is the 2026 Positional Dynasty Baseball Rankings: Top 80+ First Baseman:

CLICK HERE TO JOIN MY PATREON FOR THE REST OF THESE RANKS & TONS OF EXCLUSIVE CONTENT ALL OFF-SEASON, INCLUDING:
-A TOP 70 SNEAK PEEK OF THE 2026 TOP 1,000 DYNASTY BASEBALL RANKINGS
–2026 DEEP POSITIONAL RANKS: Top 80 Catchers–Top 80+ 1B
–END OF SEASON 2025 TOP 450 DYNASTY RANKS
–END OF SEASON 2025 TOP 325 PROSPECTS RANKS
-TOP 60 2026 FYPD RANKS w/ Analysis & Prime Projections for every player (Full Top 130 FYPD Ranks coming soon)
-HALP’S DYNASTY BASEBALL PODCAST: END OF SEASON MAILBAG!
–SPREADSHEETS
–OFF-SEASON CONTENT: Dynasty Team Reports (Top 10 Prospects/Interesting MLB guys/Strategy of the Day), Deep Positional Rankings, Predicting Future Prospect Lists, Position by Position Targets, 2026 & Prime/Peak Projections, Top 1,000+ Dynasty Rankings, Top 500+ Prospects Rankings, Top 100+ FYPD Ranks + much more

Previous Dynasty Team Reports on Patreon

Arizona Diamondbacks—Atlanta Braves—Baltimore Orioles—Chicago Cubs (free)—Cincinnati Reds (free)—Colorado Rockies—Detroit Tigers—Houston Astros—Kansas City Royals—Miami Marlins—Milwaukee Brewers—Minnesota Twins—New York Yankees (free)—Pittsburgh Pirates (free)—Sacramento Athletics—Seattle Mariners—Tampa Bay Rays—Texas Rangers—Toronto Blue Jays—Washington Nationals

1) Nick Kurtz – OAK, 1B, 23.1 – Kurtz stepped right into the majors and immediately performed like one of the best power hitters of all time with 36 homers and a 1.002 OPS in 117 games. He was actually even better in his brief minor league career with a 1.152 OPS in 33 games, and he was even better than that in his college career with a 1.234 OPS in 164 games, so it’s not like what he did in the majors came out of nowhere. It follows the narrative of him simply being one of the best hitters of his generation. The 77.2 MPH swing, 18.4% Barrel%, and 97.7 MPH FB/LD EV are all in the elite of the elite. There is no question that he’s going to be a beastly power hitter for a long time, but there is a question if he’s really going to be an all time great. For one, he played in a minor league stadium that was massively juicing up homer totals (he hit 22 at home vs. 12 on the road). He’ll be playing there again in 2026 and 2027, so I’m not even sure we can use that as a negative, but it’s something to keep in mind for 2028 and beyond. The two biggest red flags are that he struggled vs. lefties (.197 BA with a .685 OPS), and that he showed danger zone level of swing and miss with a 35.5% whiff% and 30.9% K%. He had a 31.2% K% in his final 48 games, and a .221 BA with a 35.1% K% in his final 23 games, so you certainly can’t say it was improving by the end of the year either. If he has a sophomore slump where the BA tanks, it won’t be coming out of nowhere. The signs were there. But in dynasty especially, it would be far too risk averse to get scared off by that. This was just his first full year of pro ball, so I’m expecting contact improvement, and he’s the type of hitter who can hit for high BA’s even with an elevated K%, like he’s been doing his whole career. My bet is that he is one of the best power hitters of his generation, and the floor is high too as he’s going to hit a ton of dingers no matter what. – 2026 Projection: 97/38/111/.267/.361/.528/3

2) Vladimir Guerrero Jr. – TOR, 1B, 27.0 – Vlad sparks a really interesting floor vs. upside debate when it comes to very early round picks. I understand the strategy of taking high floor guys with your early picks, and then going for the upside shots later on. It makes sense. And Guerrero has as high of a floor as anybody with elite contact rates (13.8% K%) and elite Hard Hit (50.7%). It resulted in a very strong season with a .292 BA and 23 homers in 156 games, which was good for 53rd overall. That is also clearly on the low end of his ability as he smashed 8 homers in 18 games in the postseason. He’s a true talent 30 homer bat with a very high BA, which is awesome, but unless he starts lifting and pulling more, that just isn’t the level of production that other elite dynasty assets can give you. I really want all category contributors with my very top picks, and because Vlad isn’t going to help much in steals, he’s already capped there. So if you aren’t going to contribute in all categories, you need to be an absolute beast in others, and taking out his 2019 season where played in 2 miniature ballparks, he’s never hit more than 32 homers. He’s averaged about 27-28 homers over the last 4 years. His xwOBA says he’s been unlucky, but as I laid out in the Tatis blurb, xwOBA most certainly underrates lifting and pulling, and Vlad doesn’t lift and pull with a 7.8 degree launch and 14% Air Pull%. He’s underperformed his xwOBA in his career. If he starts lifting and pulling more, he can definitely have that explosion, and if you are in leagues that devalue steals (points/6+ category leagues), then for sure he would be ranked higher in those leagues, but in 5×5, I think this is a pretty fair ranking. He’s just more BA dependent than optimal. – 2026 Projection: 96/31/105/.303/.390/.507/5

3) Pete Alonso – UFA, 1B, 31.5 – Alonso is one of the true rocks of our game. He’s never played in less than 152 games (he’s played in all 162 the last 2 years) and he’s never hit less than 34 homers (38 homers in 2025). Underlying numbers wise, he actually had a career year in 2025 with a career high .399 xwOBA and career high by far 93.5 MPH EV. His only weakness was that he was a BA risk, and even that is now gone with a .272 BA and .288 xBA. The 75.3 MPH swing is near elite. No matter where he lands, he will once again be one of the best power hitters in the game. Simple as that. – 2026 Projection: 92/40/120/.263/.348/.519/3

4) Rafael Devers – SFG, 3B/1B, 29.5 – Devers is going to be a beast no matter the ballpark. When you hit the ball as hard as he does (93.5 MPH EV, 16% Barrel%, 56.1% Hard Hit%), you can play on Jupiter (Jupiter has the strongest gravity in our soler system at 2.5 times Earth), and you will still hit plenty of dingers. He cracked 11 homers in 48 games at Oracle Park in San Francisco. He hit 20 homers in 90 games after getting traded. His power isn’t going anywhere. But even for a beast, it’s still a ballpark downgrade. He had a .977 OPS at Fenway vs. a .825 OPS at Oracle. His strikeout rate spiked after the trade with a 22.8% K% and .272 BA with Boston vs. a 29.4% K% and .236 BA with SF. He said he wasn’t going to change his approach after the trade, but he started to lift and pull a lot more, which came at the cost of more swing and miss. I don’t know if he was feeling pressure after the trade, or if it was a conscious choice based on his new ballpark, or if it was the result of him relenting and finally giving 1B a try, or a combination of all of them, but there was a clear approach change after the trade. A full off-season to get mentally prepared for his new team, new ballpark and new position should only help him, and he has the type of special bat that I’m simply not betting against. If this change prompts him to lift and pull more, and if he can actually combine that with usually strong K rates, it could result in a monster season, especially since he also put up career bests in BB% (15.4%) and Chase% (25.5%). I would advise against discounting him too much, or at all. If he gets lukewarm love this off-season, I would jump on that value dip. – 2026 Projection: 92/33/104/.267/.355/.501/3

5) Bryce Harper – PHI, 1B, 33.6 – There are reasons to start fading Harper in dynasty, or at least consider selling if you want to cash him in before we really see the next level value dip. The most obvious one is that he’s 33 years old. He’s also been pretty banged up in his career and of late, averaging only 129 games over his last 5 seasons (132 in 2025). And he really doesn’t have one truly standout, elite category we can bank on in 5×5 BA. He hit .261 with 27 homers, 12 steals, 72 Runs, and 75 RBI. Those numbers are really not all that out of line with what he’s been doing of late, maybe with some bad luck on the BA. If he has another good but not truly standout season, the dynasty value drop will be extreme going into 2027. Right now the value is still pretty stable. I’m still 100% betting on him being a beast deep into his 30’s as his .379 xwOBA was still in the Top 9% of baseball, but if there is some decline, and if he keeps on missing 30 games a year, he might start to look like just a really good fantasy player rather than a great one. I’m just saying he wouldn’t be untouchable for me if the right deal came along and I wanted to kick start a rebuild, but of course I would still need a haul to move him. – 2026 Projection: 85/30/85/.277/.370/.510/12

6) Josh Naylor – SEA, 1B, 28.9 – We’re all gonna underrate Naylor again, aren’t we. I warned you last year that we were underrating him, writing in his Top 1,000 blurb, “He finished 30th overall on the Razzball Player Rater and is currently going 92nd overall in NFBC drafts, so that tells me that everyone is expecting regression, but I think there is a real chance he could put up a few really big seasons in these prime man muscle late 20’s years.” … and then in 2025 he went and finished 31st overall on the Razzball Player Rater. Why are we making this so hard on ourselves? Just take him 30th overall. We need to stop overthinking this. Granted, he took a different path to that outcome in 2025 than he did in 2024. Like many expected, he wasn’t able to come close to the 31 homers again (he hit 20), but he made up for it by hitting for a much higher average (.295 BA), and most notably, becoming Ricky Henderson on the bases with 30 steals in 32 attempts. He also ripped up the playoffs with 3 homers, 2 steals, and a .340 BA in 12 games. The double ballpark downgrade (first Arizona and then Seattle) didn’t faze him at all, and him re-signing with Seattle should not scare us at all considering the damage he did there already, including his dominant post-season. He’s a complete hitter with elite contact (13.7% K%), above average Hard Hit (41.9%), the ability to lift in the air (19.6% Air Pull%), and now base stealing ability too, despite being slow as dirt with a bottom 3% sprint speed. Even if we can’t count on close to 30 steals again, I don’t see why he would just stop running. He had another season where he stole 10 in 121 games, so this wasn’t quite completely out of nowhere. No matter how he gets to Top 30 overall (power, BA, steals), I’m not going to keep doubting that he is going to get there again. I am valuing this man correctly. – 2026 Projection: 80/23/92/.280/.340/.460/18

Previous Dynasty Team Reports on Patreon

By Michael Halpern (@MichaelCHalpern)
Email: michaelhalpern@imaginarybrickwall.com
Twitter: Imaginary Brick Wall (@DynastyHalp)
Blue Sky: Dynasty Halp (@ImaginaryBrickWall)

Share this:

Related