Colorado Rockies: Grading the 2016 Corner Infielders

BEN PAULSEN: 2016 GRADE F, fWAR -1.1

Do you know what Ben Paulsen has in common with Mark Reynolds and Stephen Cardullo? Well, other than the fact they play first base? None of them are wearing purple anymore. But, out of the three of them, Paulsen is the only one with a new home as of this writing. Paulsen signed a minor league deal with the Minnesota Twins.

In 2016, Paulsen was the worst of the worst. To put it into perspective, Paulsen had one less home run than Cardullo did, but Paulsen had twice as many at-bats. It is very hard to keep your job as a first baseman with a slugging percentage of .304. For this reason, the Rockies had little problem cutting ties with Paulsen.

More from Rox Pile

• A Colorado Rockies Thanksgiving
• Colorado Rockies: What if Todd Helton had played football instead?
• Colorado Rockies: Charlie Blackmon out for the season
• Colorado Rockies: Injuries shift look of roster ahead of Dodgers series
• Colorado Rockies: Has Sean Bouchard earned a second look in 2023?

Although 2016 wasn’t so kind to him, he was the starting first baseman at Coors just one season earlier if you can believe it. Not only was he the starter, but Paulsen posted an fWAR of 0.8. Based on fWAR alone, Paulsen was better than the starter in 2016. Not by a mile, but by a little at least.