Atlanta Braves vs. NL East position by position 2020 preview: first base

This is our next installment in the 2020 edition of our annual series evaluating the Atlanta Braves’ position players against the rest of the National League East.

The Atlanta Braves have featured the best first baseman in the NL East for quite some time. in fact, he’s arguably the best first baseman in all of baseball. However, with the emergence of a Polar Bear in New York, he may have some competition this year.

One thing is for sure, Freddie Freeman‘s talent-level makes this list that much more fun for us to dig through. Let’s proceed. We begin at the bottom.

Miami Marlins

Fangraphs projected team 1B WAR:  0.8

Last season, the Marlins used a trio of first basemen, Garrett Cooper, Neil Walker, and Martin Prado. They were worth -1.4 wins below average (which is different than wins above replacement).

Wins above average calculates how many wins above replacement (WAR) a team earned at each position then shows how each team did relative to the average WAR. The Marlins were tied for 21st in the league in WAA last season.

So, how did they upgrade in 2020? The retained Garrett Cooper and claimed Jesus Aguilar to a one-year, $2.575 million contract. Aguilar is coming off of a huge letdown of a season. In 2018 he smashed 35 homers and drove in over 100 runs, and last season that guy was gone.

After hitting .225/.320/.374 with just eight homers through his first 94 games, the Brewers had seen enough. They shipped him to Tampa Bay at the trade deadline where he hit just four homers in 37 games. He did bring his slugging percentage up from .374 with Milwaukee to .424 with the Rays. However, he only had 107 plate appearances while with the Rays.

This offseason, the Rays designated him for assignment to make room on their 40-man roster. The Marlins quickly claimed him and signed him to a one-year contract. The Marlins are in the midst of attempting to re-build their team under the guidance of Derek Jeter. They are developing some young players and Aguilar’s one-year contract screams trade bait. If he recaptures some of the magic from 2017-2018 when he slugged .527 over the course of the two seasons, then the Marlins will surely put him on the block.

So even if Aguilar comes out of the gates firing on all cylinders, the Marlins still get my last spot because he will likely not end the season on the team.