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Old 08-20-2018, 11:42 AM   #9
Loompa17
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Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Michigan
Posts: 89
SECOND BASEMEN

1) Bob Griffith 2055 - 2075
Bob Griffith vs Lane Commons is a tough call. Commons’ best five seasons (see table below) rank a tiny bit higher than Griffith – due to keeping the strikeouts down. However, Griffith ranks ahead of Commons due to the fact that he has had a longer and better career (which is still going) and the fact that Griffith outshines his contemporaries at second base, while Commons had many other great second basemen in his day. Although winning the Bacon Award is not a consideration in the rankings, the fact that Griffith has won the award three times (compared to none for Commons) makes the ranking more palatable as well.


2) Lane Commons * 2003 - 2017
The table above (under #1 Bob Griffith) shows that 4 out of Lane Commons’ 5 best seasons occurred between 2014 and 2017. In those seasons, Lane Commons was 35 to 38 years old. In 2017, at the age of 38, Commons was the best second baseman in the NPBL. And then he retired. I guess he wanted to go out on top?
Best final season by a positional player:


3) Seamus O'Dule * 2000 - 2021
Seamus O’Dule would be interesting to observe in real life. O’Dule hit .320 in his sleep with a lot power. I wonder where he got the power from with his 5’6” 185 pound frame? Although his nickname was “waterbug”, he wasn’t much for stealing bases. With a name like Seamus O’Dule, you’d be correct if you guessed that he was Irish. I picture him with bright red hair, a bushy beard and mustache and a green cap – but then maybe I’m influenced by the logo of the team he played for (Wisconsin).

4) Brian Marshall * 2000 - 2018
What was the greatest infield in the history of the NPBL (Part 1)?
The 2016 Mississippi Ravens infield has an argument to this claim. The infield has the highest total tvSTAT of any:

However, as mentioned before, tvSTAT is an effective stat to help consider a player’s career, but if one is considering a year in isolation, it may not be the most effective. In this example, Brian Marshall in 2016 was nearing the end of his career. His 2016 campaign was the 16th best of his career (though he was still the 3rd best second baseman that year). If we instead consider the top total WAR infields, then the top three becomes:

There are a couple of other factors that I would also consider when answering the question of the greatest infield: namely, how did each player perform compared to his peers and what kind of star power did the infield boast? I’ll cover these in SS #9.

Brian Marshall holds a distinction that will likely never be beaten or equaled. He is the youngest major award winner when he won the Tyson Bacon Award in 2000 (then called the Babe Ruth Award) at the age of 18. Remember that the league began with the creation of super-players? Each owner was afforded an 18 year-old stud. It seems those stud players were not built ready to play in the majors as most of them did not become full-time players until around 2002. However, Brian Marshall was pressed into duty right away and responded with the MVP in the league’s inaugural year. It turned out to be the only Bacon Award that Marshall would win.

5) Jack Hesse * 2026 - 2044
One of thirty players from the NPBL to have 3000 career hits. The members of the 3000 hit club by position:
C – 3
1B – 3
2B – 6
3B – 5
SS – 6
LF – 2
CF – 1
RF – 4
It’s interesting that there are so many middle infielders on the list. But then again, maybe that’s not unexpected given the super-players given at the inception of the league. I would expect a large percentage of people to pick SS as the position of choice for a created stud. Members of the 3000 hit club that were not super-players:
C – 3
1B – 3
2B – 4
3B - 4
SS – 2
LF – 0
CF – 1
RF - 4

6) Joel Huertas * 2014 - 2032
Huertas was the #1 overall pick in the 2012 draft. It was the second year in a row that a player with the nickname “The Spade” was drafted #1. Second basemen who have been drafted #1 overall:


7) Blinky Crouch * 2018 - 2036
My All-Favorite Name Team:
C – Aaron Slaughter
1B – Thornton Swackhammer
2B – Looney Garmendia
3B – Nightmare Massengill
SS – Tate Hurricane
LF – Oscar Oakley
CF – Simon “Duran” Duran
RF – Specs Galloway
SP – Soggy Hogan
RP – Terminator Huseby
Blinky Crouch didn’t make the list as a 2B, though he is pretty close. Second baseman have a higher proportion of great names compared to the other positions. In addition to Garmendia and Crouch, I also considered Seamus O’Dule, Magpie Foster, and Ludwig “Lobster” Claus.

8 ) Clarence Smith * 2030 - 2042
Question: Which organization has the most strength at second base? Here's the method I used to arrive at that answer. I used the 75 for 75 lists and inverted the ranking (76 - Rank). So Clarence Smith, who is ranked #8, gets 68 "rank points". Smith played 13 seasons for the New York Barons. Therefore, his contribution to the Baron's organization total is 68*13 = 884.
The Barons also possessed Joseph Flores (#34), Dude Gallagher (#69), John Honeycutt (#71), and Bill Hancock (#75). Their grand total of rank points with those 5 second baseman totals 1699, which places them somewhere in the middle of organization rankings. The top 3 organizations in 2B strength:


9) Marvin Collins 2035 - 2050
According to my ratings, Marvin Collins is the highest ranking position player that I can see was denied the HoF. On the reverse side, the lowest ranking position player that was admitted in the HoF is also a second baseman: #66 Zachary Matthews. Now my rankings do not consider defensive wizardry and that is clearly where Matthews made his mark. The fact that the MLB equivalent of the Gold Glove Award for the NPBL is named after Zachary Matthews is also a testament to Matthews’ qualifications.
The exclusion of Marvin Collins is worth another look. Below is a table of the best five years of Collins and the best five years of Adam Anderson (#11) and Frank Gillbard (#20), both of whom are included in the Hall of Fame.

Gillbard’s power numbers (especially in his top 3 years) really appear to pop out, and Adam Anderson has an advantage when it comes to stolen bases. But Marvin Collins has an underrated skill: the ability to avoid strikeouts. Collins ranks ahead of Anderson and Gillbard for a couple of reasons. First, Collins’ best years are huddled together. The theory is that the reputation of Collins would continue to grow as he strung together consecutive outstanding seasons. The second reason is that Collins was compares considerably better than his contemporaries at second base. Collins was the best second baseman in the NPBL for six consecutive years (2042-2047) and the 2nd best twice (2041 & 2048). Adam Anderson, having played in the era where he competed against other super-players like Brian Marshall and Seamus O’Dule, was never better than the third. Frank Gillbard was only the tops in the league during his best two years – while competing with fellow HoFers Blinky Crouch, Mark Stone and Jack Hesse.

10) Jake Young 2063 - 2075
Jake Young will be 35 years old by the time the season starts this year, but unless he is quite a bit better than he has been the past two years, it’s unlikely that he will rise any more on this ranking.
Despite winning two Bacon Awards, Young has never been ranked as the top Second Baseman in any given year. Here are the top 5 Second Baseman from 2067 through 2075:
2067
Bob Griffith
Jake Young
Spencer Richardson
Magpie Foster*
Daniel Cooper
2068
Bob Griffith
Jake Young*
Tim Martin*
Spencer Richardson
Magpie Foster
2069
Bob Griffith*
Jake Young
Tim Martin
Daniel Cooper
Jonathan Robinson
2070
Bob Griffith*
Jake Young
Tim Martin
Jonathan Robinson
Roberto Gonzalez
2071
Bob Griffith
Jake Young*
Roberto Gonzalez
Jonathan Robinson
Tim Martin
2072
Bob Griffith
Roberto Gonzalez
Jake Young
Tim Martin
Pablo Delgado
2073
Tim Martin*
Roberto Gonzalez
Bob Griffith
Jake Young
Pablo Delgado
2074
Roberto Gonzalez
Adrian Amezaga
Bob Griffith
Tim Martin
Pablo Delgado
2075
Adrian Amezaga
Pablo Delgado
Roberto Gonzalez
Bob Griffith
Tim Martin
* denotes Bacon Award winner
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