Assuming he starts at first base on Opening Day, Anthony Rizzo will become the first person since Mark Teixeira in 2015 and 2016 to be the Yankees’ Opening Day first baseman in back-to-back years.
In the intervening years, Greg Bird, Tyler Austin, Luke Voit and Jay Bruce have handled the role. Bird actually did so twice, but they were not in consecutive seasons. Since Teixeira retired following the 2016 campaign, the Yankees have employed 11 men that played at least half of their games in pinstripes as a first baseman. This means that people like DJ LeMahieu and Chase Headley, who moonlighted as first basemen but primarily played elsewhere, do not count for the purpose of this exercise.
According to Baseball-Reference, the most valuable of those 11 true first baseman was Voit. Rizzo, who only joined the team 17 months ago, is already second to Voit in Wins Above Replacement. The most shocking part is who comes next, though. Despite playing in a grand total of six games for the Yankees, Ji-Man Choi ranks as the Yankees’ third-best first baseman since the start of 2017, per Baseball-Reference’s version of WAR.
