Quickly, name the five best first basemen in baseball. Certain names probably come to mind: Miguel Cabrera, Paul Goldschmidt, Joey Votto, and others. Maybe you also thought of a few players like Justin Smoak and Eric Thames who are having big seasons.
Now name the top five catchers. It’s much harder, even if you get Buster Posey as a freebie. Catcher is undoubtedly a weak position right now.
Enter Gary Sanchez. Strange as it seems, he’s played less than 100 major league games, but he’s made everyone in baseball pay attention. He has slashed .288/.366/.602 in his young career with 30 HR through Sunday’s game. He’s also displayed a howitzer arm, gunning down baserunners with abandon. He was the Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2016 despite not being called up permanently until August. He has already hit 10 HR this year despite missing four weeks to injury.
How high can a player climb in the positional hierarchy (however fictitious and nonsensical it may be) in less than 100 games? The decision is yours to make! Vote at the link below and results will be posted in a few days.
Here’s a year-to-date positional depth chart and a sortable leaderboard for your perusal, courtesy of FanGraphs.
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