WELCOME TO 2016 FANTASY GEO BALL. THIS YEAR YOU WILL BE CREATING YOUR OWN FANTASY BASEBALL TEAM ADDING PLAYERS, POSITION BY POSITION, EVERY WEEK. EACH SATURDAY MORNING, AT 7AM SHARP, A NEW CACHE WILL BE RELEASED. FTF GETS FIRST CHOICE AT THAT WEEKS PARTICULAR POSITION, 2ND TO FIND GETS 2ND PICK AND SO ON. THE CACHE OWNER PICKS 5TH. THIS IS WEEK TWO AND WE ARE SELECTING CATCHERS.
SELECT ANY FIRST BASEMAN AND INCLUDE HIS NAME IN YOUR LOG. THIS WILL BE YOUR MAN AT THE HOT CORNER FOR 2016. THE NUMBER OF TOTAL BASES HE HITS DURING THE SEASON WILL BE ADDED TO YOUR TOTAL SCORE FOR THE YEAR (DON'T WORRY; WE WILL HANDLE ALL THE SCORING). AT THE END OF THE SEASON THE GEOCACHER WITH THE HIGHEST SCORE WILL BE CROWNED FANTASY GEO BALL CHAMPION! PARTICIPATION IN THE FANTASY ASPECT IS STRICTLY OPTIONAL SO FEEL FREE TO FIND THE CACHE AND WATCH ALL THE ACTION FROM THE GRANDSTAND. PLAY BALL!
A quick Google search will tell you that the greatest first baseman of all time was Lou Gehrig who played for the Yankees from 1923 to 1939. Yet he was known to be terrible at the position. He is recognized as “the best” because of his offense, quite possibly the greatest hitter of all time. If you suck at the position, can you really be called “the best”? OK, so if not, who did play the position the best in MLB history? What would be the metric to determine that?
Often times a first baseman is a first baseman because he can’t field a ball to save his life but the team needs his bat in the lineup. This would certainly apply to Lou Gehrig. So a little research showed that defense is now thought of as the “new offense” and statisticians have come up with several metrics to apply to defense. The simplest is counting how many gold gloves a player received (Kieth Hernandez has the most, 11 consecutive from 1978 to 1988 as a Cardinal and a Met), but the Rawlings Gold Glove Award only dates back to 1957 leaving out 56 years of Major League Baseball.
Likewise, many of the new metrics don’t go back far enough to sort and rank 115 years of baseball, so how useful are they? Since none of us were even alive in Lou Gehrig’s time, maybe we should just look to more recent times anyway. The main ingredients in the Defensive Runs for first and third baseman are Plus/Minus Runs Saved and runs saved on bunts. The Plus/Minus numbers for the infielders at the corners are adjusted to create an Enhanced Plus/Minus, which reflects the value of bases saved on balls hit down the line. (Some of those balls would have turned into doubles.) From 2003 through 2008, Albert Pujols and Mark Teixeira had the best Enhanced Plus/ Minus at first.
NOTE: ONLY FIRST BASEMEN ARE ELIGEABLE THIS WEEK, AND PAUL GOLDSCHMIDT WAS TAKEN AS A DH IN WEEK ONE, SO PICK SOMEONE ELSE. After picking your player in your log, also kindly list your favorite sentimental first baseman and why.