History Class – All-Time Fantasy Baseball Team: Batters

This marks the first of a series of posts focused on the history of The Game (baseball, for you non-purists).  Thanks to our friends (actually in no way are they my friends, just good people that provide free access to every player’s stats from every season since 1871) over at baseball1.com, I have more stats than Excel 2003 could handle.  Luckily Microsoft foresaw this problem I was going to encounter and brought out Excel 2007.

Casual fans and talking heads alike, everyone  loves comparing seasons.  From everyone’s worst nemesis, Skip Bayless, to our good friends over at BaseballProspectus (again, not really friends, but they do amazing work) and their WARP1, WARP2, and WARP3, people must know who had the best season ever, how seasons compare, and whether Wade Boggs 1986 season was really better than Carlos Beltran’s 2003 season.  Most (calling you Skip Bayless) simply play the homer card and rant and rant, albeit founded on nothing substantial.  My completely imperfect, yet numerically-based solution: apply standard points league fantasy scoring to every season since 1871, and see where the dust settles. I only included seasons from 1912 on, mostly because I’m the boss and get to choose things like this, but also because I found some fella named Billy Hamilton that put up a 192 runs, 220 hits and 98 steals in 129 games, and that made my head hurt worse than an 8:00am 360 degree feedback review.  Without further-a-do, your all time squad:

Yes, A Rod has had the best season ever at 2 positions, yes Barry Bonds best fantasy season was 2004, and yes Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth were really good.  Let’s go position by position:

1B. Lou Gehrig, 1931 – 184 RBI, 163 Runs, yada, yada, yada Gehrig knew how to hit the ball really well and yada, yada, yada – the ’31 Yanks scored a lot of runs.  Runner up (best season at the position by a different player): Jimmy Foxx, 1932 – 777 points with a not too shabby 58 HR, 169 RBI – back when first basemen actually had hair on their chests.

2B. In a truly unmatched season, Rogers (love the extra ‘s’ added to the end of his first name, way ahead of his time – the Internets would have been very proud) Hornsby put up 781 points as a second baseman!!  250 hits! 152 RBI! 141 Runs!  Truly unprecedented.  82 points behind, (Fire) Joes Morgans had 60 steals, 113 Runs, and 111 RBI in 1976.  Thankfully, the more recent shortcomings that are Joes Morgans have been splendidly covered elsewhere on these wide webs. 

3B. ARod’s 2007 ranks as the best season ever by a third baseman, when he racked up 720 points during a 54 HR, 156 RBI campaign. His 120 strikeouts kept him out of the super-elite ranks, but clearly a strong season none-the-less. We all know how his playoff performance turned out, though: 1 RBI in 15 ABs, 4 games, 3 losses, and back to Madonna he went. The second best season by a third baseman: Frank Robinson’s 1962 when he racked up 51 doubles and 208 hits for the Reds, a mere ten points behind ARod’s ’07 season, and the only season from the 60′s, 70′s, or 80′s, to show up on the squad.

SS. In typical ARod fashion, being the best at one position just wasn’t enough – he had to be the guy that owns two positions. Enter ARod version 2001 (no space odyssey, just a roids odyssey). 52 homeruns, 135 RBIs, and a few nights with a sore rear-end, and voila best SS season ever. From the non-ARod group, Robin Yount’s 1982 season, where he racked up 620 points is next best season. ARod had 4 seasons at SS equal to or better than Yount’s strong-across-the-board ’82 season, in which he led the Brewers to the AL Pennant.

LF. Your starting left fielder on the all time best hitting seasons squad…Barry Lamar Bonds. That was likely pretty obvious – as I gave it away above, less obvious however is which season. 2001, the 73 HR season, not at all. 2002, when he hit .370, also not his best. That would be 2004, the 2^nd best season ever, by any player, in which he had 232 walks in addition to the 120 intentional walks and still hit 45 HRs in 135 at bats (30% of his hits left the yard). The best non-Bonds season goes to the Splintaaaaaah Teddy Ballgame Williams, in 1949, when he racked up 159 RBI and a .340 BA.

CF. Back in 1930, some fellow drove in a few runners, and didn’t stop until he had 190 RBI (the 191st was added decades later). The famed Hack Wilson season is the best ever by a CF. Runner up: Joe Dimaggio’s 1937 season, when he cranked 167 RBIs, amongst other great feats. At what point did CFs stop hitting like beasts? Did manager’s realize that they needed their CFs to not be built like 1Bs, and be able to cover copious amounts of field to prevent runs? Since 1940, only Griffey Jr. & Mays have even reached 140 RBI, let along the gaudy totals these fellas put up.

RF. The best season by any hitter, ever? The Babe, 1921 when he racked up 894 points. Let that settle in for a hot minute. 894 points. How does one do that? Let’s start with 204 hits, make sure 44 are doubles, 59 HRs, and add in 16 triples for good measure. Make sure your teammates are pretty good too, so you can drive in 171 runners and score 177 times, walk 145 times, add in a few steals, minimize your strikeouts, and boom goes the dynamite. Too easy. Chuck Klein, in 1930, had the best non-Ruthian season, when he racked up 250 hits and 170 RBI.

C. Mike Piazza’s 1997 season ranks as the best ever by a catcher, though it pales in comparison to the others on this list. Piazza’s 584 points for the Dodgers included 201 hits, 40 hr, and 124 RBI. The second best catcher season you wonder? Bill Dickey in 1937, who won 7 World Series titles during his splendid, yet over-shadowed career with the Yanks.

So there you have it. The all time team. Amazingly, Gehrig, Ruth, and Bonds account for the top 9 seasons ever, with Gehrig totaling 4, Bonds 3 and Ruth 2. Excluding Bonds, each of the top 20 seasons were before 1950, but more on that in the ‘interesting tidbits’ following the best pitching seasons of all time, later this week.

Class dismissed.

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