The Best First Base Coach
Tabulating every first base coach's WAR from their playing days.
I have no idea why I’m doing this. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not like you're going to look at your favorite team’s first base coach and be like “Wow, he was a good player back in the day. That bodes well for my team this year!”
It doesn’t bode anything.
This is meaningless.
But still fun!
There are 30 first base coaches in Major League Baseball. One for every team, because, well, there’s just one first base on any given field. Imagine if you had three coaches standing near first base all whispering into the runner’s ear. That would be chaos.
Currently, 21 of the 30 first base coaches have MLB playing experience. Most of them had very short playing careers and seemed destined for coaching before they even stepped on the field. But a select few, mainly Grady Sizemore, had respectable careers.
A few thoughts:
Corey Ray, the fifth overall selection by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2016, appeared in one game. He went 0-for-2 with a walk and a strikeout. He also scored a run.
Grady Sizemore was so damn fun to watch as a player.
Travis Jankowski’s name is spelled wrong on the table but jumping through the necessary hoops to fix it seems completely unnecessary. Sorry, Trav.
Jankowski appeared in a game as recently as last year.
Sandy Alomar Jr. leads the group in games played. He began his career in 1988 and retired in 2007 at age 41.
Dave McKay has the worst WAR by far, but he did hit 21 home runs in his career, two of which were off Hall of Famers Jack Morris and Dennis Eckersley.
If you were wondering if first base coach WAR correlates with being World Series champions, well, you’re in luck.
Among the last 10 World Series champions, seven had first base coaches with playing experience, averaging 6.4 career WAR. Based on that trend, the only teams with a legitimate chance to win the 2026 World Series are the:
Minnesota Twins
Los Angeles Angels
Cleveland Guardians
Tampa Bay Rays
This is just further proof that this entire article is meaningless because none of those teams have a legitimate shot at winning it all.
But, hey. You could win a lot of money betting on them.
Just saying.