Alright, let’s get back to why it was started in the first place. I will present the most basic sense of reasoning of why 1b is unfairly devalued off the rip.
Most baseball plays that aren’t a hit are “routine” outs. Or at least, there aren’t a ton of hits where you’re left wondering if Player B could’ve made the play, when Player A doesn’t make it. There’s really a handful of balls like that any given game, that can go to any position. These plays can obviously impact a game greatly.
Positioning is going to determine a lot in terms of if a play gets made. But even balls that aren’t “routine” are again, still going to be made by most players at a position. So if a LF has to cover 30ft of a fly ball and stays in a jog, yeah he’s moving around and so you value it more, but it’s still a play most of his peers make.
Over time it will become more apparent who’s making extra outs and all that, so of course advance statistics will tell a story, or at least try to lol. There’s some pretty wild fluctuation in many cases year-to-year that point out to a better formula being needed…
But anyways, one position that gets as many of those challenging plays is 1b in terms of picks, stretches, coming off the bag to make a play, a throw across the diamond etc…. All of these actions you can kind of directly relate to a player at another position needing to make a dive in the field (actually 1b do that too), or make a spectacular catch on the run. A made-or- missed pick can be just a critical as any on-the-field event. So this notion that it’s a position that’s far less important because you can just stick the old fat guy there bc all he has to do is stand there and catch the ball is wrong.
Also, an athletic 1b can help your IF positioning by allowing him to cover some ground.
I’ll keep it to that basic point for now.