The Best of New York Baseball Bracket Challenge: First Base

We're moving right along here on the New York Baseball Bracket Challenge at NYaT. Mariano Rivera was picked as the best closer, Tom Seaver as the best righthanded starter and Whitey Ford as the best lefthanded starter (results below). The catchers are still being voted upon on the righthand side, but Yogi Berra looks like he's going to take that one (though still time left to vote and look at how impressive Bill Dickey's resume was as well). Now it's time to look at the first basemen (stats from Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs).

Yankees

Lou Gehrig: I'm not sure there's this great a player who really seems to be so underrated. Playing with Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio can do that to you, though. Amazingly, only 7 guys have played in 800 games for the Yankees with at least 60% of those games at 1st base (according to Baseball-Reference) and no one even seems to come close to "The Iron Horse". Gehrig won the 1927 and 1936 MVP, but amazingly came in 5th in the 1934 voting despite leading the Majors in HR (49), RBI (165), BA (.363), OBP (.465), SLG (.706), and OPS+ (208). Yes, the man won both The Triple Crown and the slashes Triple Crown and was behind 4 people in the MVP voting. That's incredible. Gehrig had a career wOBA of .474 in the regular season which is third all time right behind Babe Ruth and Ted Williams. On the all-time career list, Gehrig is 17th in average (.340),  5th in OBP (.447), 3rd in SLG (.632), 3rd in OPS (1.080), 10th in runs scored (1,888), 26th in HR (493), 5th in RBI (1,995), 4th in OPS+ (179), 8th in runs created (2,223), 5th in adjusted batting runs (984), 7th in adjusted batting wins (90.3), and 7th in extra base hits (1,190). And this was all before the disease named after him cut his life short. Oh, and he had a nice consecutive games played streak without the aid of a DH or modern medicine. The guy also mashed in the playoffs hitting a ridiculous .361/.477/.731 (yes, that's a 1.208 OPS) with a .512 wOBA, 10 HR and 35 RBI in winning 6 out of 7 World Series--his best performance may have been in the 1928 World Series when he hit .545/.706/1.727 (2.433 OPS!) with 4 HR against the Cardinals. Simply an amazing player. (picture from Art.com)

Don Mattingly: Well, someone else had to be nominated with Gehrig. Tough spot for Donny Baseball. But he's definitely deserving of it. His career slashes of .307/.358/.471, wOBA of .361, and OPS+ of 127 made him one of the more feared hitters in the Majors. His end-of-career downfall due to back troubles seems to have clouded some memories of Mattingly, but he could really handle the bat. He won a batting title in 1984, won an MVP in 1985 and his 1986 season--where he came in 2nd to Roger Clemens in the MVP voting--may have been his best (his 1987 was nothing to sneeze at either).  He won 9 Gold Gloves at 1st and even though defense isn't excluding any candidates, it's certainly worth mentioning. He also won 3 Silver Sluggers and made 6 All Star games. the problem for Mattingly is that his power was basically gone from his resume after the 1989 season. He would only hit double digit home runs twice and never showed the offense he did in his peak. He finally made the postseason in his last season in Pinstripes and did not disappoint with a .417/.440/.708 performance including one memorable home run that shook the Old House to its core (I was there so I can testify that when Gary Thorne yelled "hold on to the roof", he was correct). As Sweeny Murti wrote in 2008: Of the top 25 players on the Yankees career games played list, only one never got to play a World Series game at Yankee Stadium. But it's safe to say that none of the other 24 ever received the ovations that Don Mattingly did in the 1995 Division Series." True that, Sweeny (though Mattingly may have been cursed). And it was well deserved for perhaps my favorite baseball player of my youth. (picture from About.com)

Just missed: Tino Martinez (if the Yankees had signed Tino instead of Jason Giambi, he may have replaced Mattingly on this list...and a lot of Yankee headaches may have been avoided)

Mets

Keith Hernandez: I brought the games played down to 480 on B-R's Play Index and still only two Mets showed up so they are the two Mets candidates. Hernandez, though, is a really good candidate. A career .297/.387/.429 hitter (.365 wOBA) with the Mets, Hernandez was not just a glove man. Traded to the Mets from the Cards in the middle of the 1983 season for Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey, Hernandez became a mainstay at 1st for the Mets through the rest of the 80s. Hernandez came in 2nd in the MVP voting in 1984 to Ryne Sandberg, finished 8th in 1985, and finished 4th in 1986. In that 1986 season he helped the Mets win their last World Series. Hernandez is most famous today, though, for being the Mets broadcaster and his amazing job on Seinfeld, but back in his playing days, Hernandez was a heck of a player and definitely the best first baseman the Mets ever had (even if he may have also cursed some recent teams). And his mustache was voted as the "Top Sports Mustache of All Time" by the American Mustache Institute. Can't beat those accolades. (picture from Best Week Ever)

Ed Kranepool: He played in 18 seasons for the Mets and made one All Star game. But that was about all I can say for the candidacy of the little-hit Kranepool. He did have a nice string of season from 1971-1977 where he had only one bad season in there but a career OPS of .693 and a career wOBA of .308. Hey, he did hit a home run in the 1973 World Series. And he inspired a blog. And this great passage from Cardboard Gods sums it up: "For many, many years, Shea Stadium did not exist without Ed Kranepool, a member of the original Mets in 1962. He is shown here in 1976, fourteen years later and still with a ways yet to go in his Mets career as a part-time first baseman. He has just completed his best year, batting .323 in 325 at-bats, but one gets the sense from his expression that he is not putting much stock in the sizzling batting average." (picture from Cardboard Gods)

Just Missed: John Olerud (better than either of the mentioned Mets 1B but only played in 476 games) and Carlos Delgado (104 HR and 339 RBI to go along with a .506 SLG but only 468 games)

Vote to the right and let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Here are the results from the left-handed starter battle:

Who is New York's Best Lefthanded Starter?

Whitey Ford	72%
Lefty Gomez	0%
Andy Pettitte	27%
Jerry Koosman	0%
Sid Fernandez	0%