Ranking the National League Central's first basemen

4. Rhys Hoskins, Brewers

Give Jed Hoyer credit where credit is due- it looks like he dodged a major bullet by avoiding Hoskins in last year's free agency despite a contingent of Cubs fans clamoring to sign him. The hulking first baseman struck out in just under 29% of his at-bats and had an xBA of just .202 (!) coming off missing the entirety of 2023 due to injury. Hoskins really struggled against righties, posting just a .703 OPS against them. He also continued to rate out horribly defensively and continues to be one of the slowest and worst base runners in the Majors as well.

That being said, Hoskins has always slugged and he maintained that ability in 2024 with 26 homers. The Brewers' lineup lost a ton of power after losing Willy Adames and Gary Sanchez, and Christian Yelich is reportedly still not doing baseball activities. Hoskins could be an attractive bounceback candidate if he can bring his walk rate back up to his career average and cut down on the strikeouts.

5. Jeimer Candelario, Reds

It's tough to know exactly how the Reds' glut of position players will play out. Spencer Steer and Christian Encarnacion-Strand will most likely get significant at-bats playing first as well. Fangraphs projects Candelario to get the majority of the playing time, though, so we will include him as the Reds' choice here. Candelario was one of the worst everyday players in the league last year- his OPS plummeted 100 points from 2023, powered by a precipitous increase in strikeout rate and other pretty atrocious Statcast metrics. The Reds invested $45 million into Candelario but really don't need to be playing him every day if the rest of the team is healthy. Despite some decent power numbers, his walk rate fell significantly alongside the strikeout rate increasing to power a -.7 WAR season. There's a pretty good chance that Candelario will become a permanent bench guy if his struggles continue into 2025. The Reds have so many options with Matt McClain back in the mix- between Noelvi Marte and Santiago Espinal at third, Encarnacion-Strand and McClain at first, and Will Benson in the left (a massive bounce-back candidate), it's easy to chart Candelario's path to the bench.