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Fantasy baseball is a game where participants manage an imaginary roster of real Major League baseball players. The participants compete against one another using those players' real life statistics to score points. It is one of the most commonly played fantasy sports games, and is arguably^{[according to whom?]} one of the most difficult and time-intensive due to the 162-game season of the MLB and the inconsistency of players.

History[link]

An early form of fantasy baseball was coded for an IBM 1620 computer in 1960 by John Burgeson, IBM Akron, and distributed for several years by the IBM Corporation. It allowed two teams to play one another using random number generation and player statistics to determine a game's outcome, including a play by play description.^[1][2] In the fall of 1961 Rege Cordic, a KDKA (Pittsburgh) radio personality, produced a radio show based on the program. The game was coded for a computer with only 20,000 memory positions and was entirely self-contained.

Early forms of fantasy baseball were sometimes called chickens. One of the best-known was Strat-o-Matic, which in 1963 began publishing a game containing customized baseball cards of Major League Baseball players with their stats from past seasons. Participants could then re-create previous seasons using the game rules and the statistics, or compose fantasy teams from the cards and play against each other. The landmark tabletop game Pursue the Pennant (now DYNASTY League Baseball) debuted in 1985 and took baseball board games to much more realistic levels of play; it incorporated ball park effects, clutch hitting and pitching, and many other nuances of the game. Fantasy baseball was the theme of Robert Coover's 1968 darkly comic novel The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., which dealt with themes of creationism and playing god.

The first public open fantasy baseball game, Dugout Derby, was developed in 1989 by Lee Marc, Robert Barbiere and Brad Wendkos of Phoneworks who teamed with a West Coast Ad Agency (Wakeman & deForest) to launch the game in twelve of the largest local newspapers across the country. Papers that offered Dugout Derby included the LA Time, Chicago Sun Times, and NY Post. Archives of Dugout Derby are available in most public libraries. Dugout Derby allowed readers to create a team of major league players, earn stats for those players based on actual performance, trade those players on a daily basis, and accrue points in an effort to compete against one another to win prizes.

Copious materials accessible since 2006 in the Jack Kerouac Archive at the New York Public Library show that American writer Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) played his own form of fantasy baseball starting quite young and continued developing and playing this perhaps private version of fantasy baseball during most of his life. His version of fantasy baseball, however, was completely fictitious, with made up players and statistics. At the Library from November 2007 – February 2008, an exhibition on Kerouac's life and works includes several display cases of Kerouac's highly detailed fantasy baseball records, including charts, sketches, and notes.^[3]

Rotisserie League Baseball[link]

The most common scoring system in Fantasy Baseball is known as "Rotisserie". The landmark development in fantasy baseball came with the development of Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980, named after the New York City restaurant, La Rotisserie Française, where its founders met for lunch and first played the game.^[4]

Magazine writer/editor Daniel Okrent is credited with inventing the pastime, coming up with the idea on a flight to Texas. After presenting his first vision of rotisserie baseball to friends there, none seemed interested.^[5] Upon returning to New York a month later he received an enthusiastic reception from a different group of friends, who then collaborated on the first rotisserie league.

The game's innovation was that "owners" in a Rotisserie league would draft teams from the list of active Major League Baseball players and would follow their statistics "during the ongoing season" to compile their scores. In other words, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known, the owners would have to make similar predictions about players' playing time, health, and expected performance that real baseball managers must make.

Because Okrent was a member of the media, other journalists, especially sports writers, were introduced to the game. Many early players were introduced to the game by these sports journalists, especially during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike; with little else to write about, many baseball writers wrote columns about Rotisserie league.

Rotisserie league baseball, nicknamed roto, proved to be hugely popular, even in the 1980s when full statistics and accurate reporting were often hard to come by. The traditional statistics used in early Rotisserie leagues were often chosen because they were easy to compile from newspaper box scores and then from weekly information published in USA Today. Okrent, based on discussions with colleagues at USA Today, credits Rotisserie league baseball with much of the early success of USA Today, since the paper provided much more detailed box scores than most competitors and eventually even created a special paper, Baseball Weekly, that almost exclusively contained statistics and box scores. Local papers soon caught up with USA Today's expanded coverage.

The use of statistics like pitchers' wins and RBI are often scoffed at today by members and followers of the Society for American Baseball Research who prefer to use objective evidence, especially detailed baseball statistics to measure players' performance. Sabermetric thinkers argue wins and RBIs often misrepresent the performance of players, since they are largely influenced by outside factors such as run support and bullpen support (for wins) and runners on base (for RBIs).

The advent of powerful computers and the Internet revolutionized fantasy baseball, allowing scoring to be done entirely by computer, and allowing leagues to develop their own scoring systems, often based on less popular statistics. In this way, fantasy baseball has become a sort of real-time simulation of baseball, and allowed many fans to develop a more sophisticated understanding of how the real-world game works. According to statistics from a 2009 article in Forbes, nearly 11 million people play fantasy baseball today.^[6]

Fantasy baseball has continued to grow [based on recent studies from the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA.org)], but has been overtaken by fantasy football as the most popular form of fantasy sports. This is primarily because some of those sports, such as football and auto racing, only participate once a week, making it easier for a person to make adjustments, since they do not have to check their team daily.

Player selection[link]

Rotisserie leagues and their descendants typically draft teams before the season begins (or very shortly thereafter). One approach is to hold an auction, whereby each owner has a fixed amount of money to bid for players, and he must fill his team's roster within their budget. Another approach is to perform a serpentine system draft of available players until all teams are filled.

In either case, the skills of the team managers come into play in the "preseason" by their knowledge of the talent and ability to forecast the performance of Major League Baseball players and prospects for the coming season. The team managers draw on a great variety of sources of information, including tout sheets by various forecasters, who predict the coming season's performance and the likely overall "value" (often in terms of auction dollars) of the Major League players.

Some leagues allow teams to keep some players from one year to the next, allowing savvy owners to build fantasy dynasties. These leagues are often referred to as "Keeper Leagues." Keeper leagues have the same people in them, and owners keep their players, unless any off-season moves are made.

Many leagues allow teams to trade with each other during the season, as well as to replace players who get hurt or stop performing well with players from the pool of those who are not presently owned. However, some leagues prohibit such in-season "free agent" replacements, feeling that the game is more interesting when teams must live and die by the quality of their draft.

Also, some leagues limit free-agent moves that a fantasy team can make per season, and a team may not just drop all of their players if they are not progressing well during a season. The free-agent limit is also sometimes used to limit the so-called "pitch-and-ditch" tactic, a method of play in which a manager picks up a free-agent pitcher with the intention of using him in only one game before replacing him with a pitcher who is scheduled to start the following day.

In most leagues, when a player who was injured returns to play, it is the choice of the team manager who to drop from his team. Usually, they are not forced to drop the replacement. Some companies actually offer real-world insurance on fantasy league players.

Stakes[link]

Many fantasy leagues are played for money. Owners pay an ante or entry fee at the beginning of the season and may also be charged for in-season activity such as trades and "free agent" acquisitions. The pool of money is collected and then distributed to the winner(s) at the end of the season. Most often, however, the main reward of fantasy games is bragging rights or pride in the participants' ability to assess baseball talent. Established leagues often have a plaque or trophy that is passed to the annual champion.

Game play[link]

There are different ways to play fantasy baseball. One way to play is a head-to-head format that makes each individual team play against a different team each week to acquire wins through total points scored for the week. Teams with the most wins at the end of the season often enter into a playoff similar to the MLB postseason. The winner is the team that doesn't lose in the playoffs, or has the most points at the end of season if the league does not hold playoffs.

Another style, the original style of playing fantasy, is rotisserie. The statistics compiled by the players from each team are then ranked by category, and the team with the highest cumulative rank at the end of the season is determined to be the winner.

The original Rotisserie League used the following statistics:

• team batting average (total hits divided by total at-bats)
• total home runs
• total runs batted in
• total stolen bases
• total wins
• total saves
• team earned run average (9 times total earned runs divided by total innings pitched, the lower the better)
• team WHIP (total number of hits and walks allowed by pitchers divided by total innings pitched, the lower the better)

This is often called a "4x4" league (4 hitting stats and 4 pitching stats). Many leagues adopt a "5x5" format, with runs scored and strikeouts added as hitting and pitching stats, respectively. Still other leagues are "6x6", most commonly adding OPS (OBP plus SLG), and holds. Occasionally, a league will adopt a format that keeps track of more statistics (such as a '7x7"), vary the stats tracked to favor hitting or pitching, or include fielding statistics such as fielding percentage. Other modifications to the rules include a minimum number of at-bats and innings pitched for categories that are averaged; teams that do not make the minimum were awarded last place in the respective categories.

Typical set-ups for head-to-head leagues are:

• Head-to-Head Rotisserie: Wins, losses and ties are based on the team's performance in individual categories.
• Head-to-Head One Win: Just like H2H Rotisserie, but the winner receives just one win, rather than one win for each category the team wins.
• Head-to-Head Points: Stats accumulate points for each team (a Home Run/Stolen Base/etc. is worth a certain number of points), and the team with the most points at the end of the week is awarded a win. These leagues often take advantage of several other statistical categories, from outfield assists to quality starts.

Opponents are dictated by a round-robin system. At the end of the season, the team with the best win-loss record is the victor.

Many head-to-head leagues also feature playoffs over the last 3–4 weeks of the MLB regular season. A set number of teams make the "postseason" and play a single-elimination tournament to decide a victor.

Fantasy trade referees[link]

The growing popularity of fantasy baseball has created a niche for fantasy baseball trade referees. Owners of fantasy teams often trade players, and often those trades incite disputes within leagues. Third party websites provide fantasy players a place to have their trades reviewed by a panel "judges" in exchange for a fee. Decisions are rendered based on the specifications (number of teams, statistical categories, etc.) of the players' leagues. These third party sites are becoming a source of controversy due to their questionable value with all the free forums available to modern day fantasy players.

New formats[link]

New fantasy baseball formats have appeared that combine a traditional points-based competition with a liquid market that is used to facilitate real-time player trading. These games eliminate the need for fantasy trade judging by having team owners buy and sell players on a trading floor instead of negotiating trades directly with other owners. Another new format of fantasy sports is 'daily fantasy sports'. Rather than joining leagues and selecting rosters that compete for an entire season, competitors are able to draft a line-up for a single day and compete against others with cash being awarded to the winner just hours after the games on the field that day have ended. A typical contest would pit 2, 4 or 6 people against each other.

There are also fantasy baseball leagues that specialize in the Major League Baseball playoffs. Many fantasy baseball leagues stop their seasons at the end of the regular season.

Simulation games use computer programs, processing actual MLB player statistics, to generate results for contests matching teams composed of MLB players ‘drafted’ by ‘owners.’ This is thought to produce an experience which is more akin to that of being a real general manager. Notable simulation games include ones using historical stats such as Diamond Mind Baseball, DYNASTY League Baseball and Strat-O-Matic. Fantasy baseball simulation games that use a “predictive” model, meaning managers must guess how their players will perform, include Baseball Manager, Box Baseball and Scoresheet Baseball.

Keeper leagues[link]

Any fantasy baseball pool that "rolls over" into other years is called a "Keeper" or "Dynasty" league. The leagues can be run each year in any of the above formats with a winner declared at the end of each season. At the end of the year team managers decide which players they wish to protect (the number varies – from protecting and keeping all players, to keeping just one player). Before the MLB season opener, a fantasy draft is held to fill out the rest of the roster.

Many keeper leagues, as well as some single season leagues, have adopted salary cap rules similar to the NHL. In a "Salary Cap League", a salary is assigned to each player before the manager selects his team. Salaries are usually determined by the MLB player's real salary. Otherwise a number value is assigned – usually by an online baseball pool program – or it is determined through an auction process^[7]. Each manager must ensure that they do not go over the predefined salary cap when selecting players.

One emerging option for a keeper league is the Draft Round Values system. This is a Sabermetric approach for determining the values of players selected in a particular round. The round a player was selected in the previous season is conceded in the upcoming seasons draft when they are elected to be carried over. Tables are provided with these values and a conversion chart that calculates the rounds to be conceded when multiple players from the same round selected as keepers. These tables also work for balancing multiple player trades.

Keeper leagues are especially easy in auction formats, where last year's dollar values can be used to calculate keeper values. At least one league uses this system in combination with a minimum rookie keeper wage scale with great success.^[8]

Also some leagues have introduced a rookie draft into their fantasy league. By using the rankings from the last season to determine the draft order last place gets 1st pick and so on. Also in some leagues trading picks is also allowed.

References[link]

External links[link]

• ESPN Fantasy Baseball Website

Ike Davis
New York Mets – No. 29
First baseman
Born: (1987-03-22) March 22, 1987 (age 25) Edina, Minnesota
Bats: Left	Throws: Left
MLB debut
April 19, 2010 for the New York Mets
Career statistics (through May 30, 2012)
Batting average	.251
Home runs	31
RBIs	116
Teams
New York Mets (2010–present)

Medal record
Men’s baseball
Competitor for  United States
Baseball World Cup
Gold	2009 Nettuno	National team

Isaac Benjamin "Ike" Davis (born March 22, 1987, in Edina, Minnesota) is an American baseball first baseman for the New York Mets in Major League Baseball (MLB). He and his father Ron Davis, who pitched in the majors for 11 years, are the 197th father-son combination to have both played in the major leagues.

He led his high school team to three straight Arizona state championships as a pitcher/first baseman. As a hitter he batted .447, while as a pitcher he recorded a 23–0 win–loss record, a 1.85 earned run average (ERA), and 14 saves. He also pitched for the gold medal-winning U.S.A. Youth National Team in the 2003 World Youth Championships, and was the most valuable player of the 2004 AFLAC All-American High School Baseball Classic.

Ranked second in the nation as a freshman for Arizona State University by both Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball, he was named Pac-10 Conference Freshman of the Year, as he became the first freshman ever to lead the conference in runs batted in (RBIs). He hit .353 with a .605 slugging percentage in college, threw a fastball that reached 94 miles per hour, and was a two-time All-American and a three-time All-Pac-10 selection.

Davis was drafted 18th overall in the 1st round of the 2008 Major League Baseball Draft. In the minor leagues, he batted .288 with a .371 on-base percentage (OBP), and a .467 slugging percentage, and was the Mets 2009 Organizational Player of the Year. The Mets called him up to the majors in April 2010. His 11 home runs prior to the All-Star break that season tied him for the second-most ever by a Mets rookie. He set the Mets rookie record for total bases (230), and tied the Mets rookie records for bases on balls (72) and extra-base hits (53). He was named the first baseman on Baseball America's 2010 All-Rookie Team.

Early years[link]

Davis, who is Jewish,^{[1][2][3][4][5]} was born to Millie (née Gollinger) Davis and former major league pitcher Ron Davis, who pitched in 481 games in the majors in his 11-year career.^[6][7][8][9] His father was a power relief pitcher, and an American League All-Star in 1981. He pitched from 1978 to 1988, starting with the New York Yankees (1978–81, going 27–10 with 22 saves, primarily as the setup man for Rich Gossage), and then pitching for the Minnesota Twins, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Francisco Giants.^[10][11] His father retired when he was 2, however, so he mostly remembers old-timers' games, such as the one in which he met Derek Jeter when he was 12.^[12][13] He and his father are the 197th father-son combination to have both played in the major leagues.^[12]

His father is Baptist and his mother, the youngest daughter of Bernard and Harriet Gollinger, is Jewish.^[9] Davis embraces both sides of his family’s history. His mother's family was from Lithuania, and a significant percentage of it was murdered in The Holocaust.^[14][15] His great aunt on his mother’s side was a Holocaust survivor, and Davis said: "She was the one who knew everything that happened. She was able to come to the United States, and she brought the story with her."^[14][15] Davis' grandfather on his father’s side was a paratrooper in the United States Army who landed in France on D-Day in 1944 and later helped liberate one of the concentration camps.^[15] Davis' first name is actually Isaac (he was named after his mother's grandfather), and his middle name is Benjamin.^[14][16] Although Davis does not practice Judaism and is non-religious,^[17][18] he states: "I am really proud of my Jewish heritage"^[19] and describes himself as "culturally Jewish."^[20] Davis states: "I'm glad Jewish kids get to see they can grow up to be professional baseball players."^[19] Davis follows on other ballplayers of Jewish heritage on the Mets: Art Shamsky, Shawn Green, and Scott Schoeneweis.^[14][21]

As a youth, he attended a five-day baseball fundamentals camp that his father runs for children ages 5–14.^[22] His father was also his little league coach until he was 14.^[12] His father said:

People would say Ike was good because his dad was a player. But it’s not that easy.... I can tell Ike how to swing, I can teach him to pitch, [teach] the game of baseball, but he’s the only one to make it to the big leagues. You can’t teach heart and soul. That’s what it takes to play in the game.^[23]

High school[link]

Davis attended Chaparral High School in Scottsdale, Arizona,^[24] where he won three state titles (2003–05).^[25] His father would throw him batting practice.^[10][26] He hit .559 as a sophomore, the school record, ahead of Paul Konerko's .558 in 1994. He also hit a school-record 23 doubles, breaking Konerko's record of 18. He followed that up by batting .425 as a junior (when he was also Arizona 4A Pitcher of the Year), and .450 as a senior.^{[8][27][28][29]} As a senior, he had a 92–93 mph fastball, to complement his changeup and slider.^[8][30] He was ranked 12th in the country by Baseball America, and was a high school All-American.^[8][31]

In 2003, he also pitched for the U.S.A. Youth National Team (16-under) in international play. They won the gold medal in the International Baseball Federation XI "AA" World Youth Championships in Taiwan. In 2004, he played on the U.S.A. Junior National Team (18-under).^[32][33][34] In his two seasons playing for Team U.S.A., he batted .404.^[35]

In 2004, he was one of 40 players from across the country chosen to play in the AFLAC All-American High School Baseball Classic.^[32][34] He won the MVP Award for the game, hitting the go-ahead home run for his team.^[36] The following year, he was MVP in the all star 2005 High School American Game.^[35]

By November 2004, the 17-year-old Davis was already 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) and 194 pounds.^[8] In 2005, despite his having indicated he was going to go to college, he was drafted in the 19th round by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. He elected not to sign.^[35][37]

Davis graduated from high school with a .447 batting average in 320 at bats, with 48 doubles (a school record, ahead of Konerko's 44), 12 home runs, and 106 runs batted in (RBIs) (third in school history).^[27] As a pitcher he was a perfect 23–0, with a 1.85 ERA, 14 saves, and 213 strikeouts (a school record) in 174 innings.^[27] His teams were 95–8 over his sophomore, junior, and senior years.^[38]

College baseball career[link]

Freshman year (2006)[link]

Davis chose to attend Arizona State University (ASU).^[8] In October 2005, he was ranked the # 2 freshman in the nation by both Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball.^[39] He pitched (as the team's Friday night starter; the role given the "ace" of a college rotation), was the designated hitter, and played first base and corner outfield.^[40][41] In March 2006, he was named a Louisville Slugger National Player of the Week, Pac-10 Conference Player of the Week, and College Baseball Foundation National Honor Roll Player of the Week for a week in which he batted .588 and drove in 13 runs, in four games.^[42][43]

In 2006, with 65 RBIs in 227 at bats he became the first freshman ever to lead the Pac-10 in runs batted in during the regular season, and set the ASU freshman RBI record.^[44] Batting clean-up, he hit .329 with 79 hits (third all-time, for an ASU freshman), 23 doubles (tied for the Pac-10 lead, and tying the ASU record for doubles by a freshman), and a .542 slugging percentage in 58 games.^{[10][32][44][45][46][47]} His 9 home runs tied him with Bob Horner (1976) for third all-time by a Sun Devil freshman, 2 behind Barry Bonds (11, in 1983).^[45] He was also the team's opening day starter, and pitched a team-high 12 starts.^[10] He was named a Collegiate Baseball Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American, Rivals.com First-Team Freshman All-American, Baseball America Second-Team Freshman All-American, Jewish Sports Review First-Team All-American, American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) First-Team All-West Region, Pac-10 Freshman of the Year, and a member of the First-Team All-Pac-10.^{[44][45][48][49][50][51]}

Davis spent the first part of the summer of 2006 with Team USA. He then played in 22 games for the Anchorage Bucs of the Alaska Baseball League, and was named the # 10 prospect in the league by Baseball America.^[52]

Sophomore year (2007)[link]

Davis demonstrated his versatility in an April 2007 game. He came to the mound with his team trailing 5–4, ended the inning by striking out a batter, and in the next half-inning stole home as the lead runner in a triple steal.^[53][54] For his sophomore season, he primarily played right field (batting .349 with 23 doubles—tied for the conference lead—and 61 RBIs, in 62 games) and pitched as a middle reliever (sporting a 1.35 ERA).^[55] He again received First-Team All-Pac-10 honors, and was named a Collegiate Baseball Louisville Slugger Third Team All-American, a National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) Third-Team All-American, and again a Jewish Sports Review First-Team All-American.^{[35][56][57][58][59][60][61][62]}

In the summer of 2007, he played for the Wareham Gatemen in the Cape Cod League.^[63] A bone spur in his left wrist required surgery over the summer.^[10]

Junior year (2008)[link]

He was named a pre-season 2008 All-Pac-10 outfielder by Rivals.com, and a pre-season Third-Team All-American by both the NCBWA and Collegiate Baseball.^[64][65] In consecutive weeks in March 2008 he was named both the Louisville Slugger National Player of the Week and the Pac-10 Conference Player of the Week. In the first week he hit .450 and struck out all four batters he faced. In the second week he batted .529 with a 1.412 slugging percentage, and recorded five outs from the mound, four by strikeout, without giving up a hit.^{[66][67][68][69]} He was the first Sun Devil to win the Pac-10-award in consecutive weeks since Travis Buck in 2004.^[70] The College Baseball Foundation named him to its National All-Star Lineup.^[71]

For his junior season, Davis hit .385, with a .457 on base percentage and a .742 slugging percentage. He hit 23 doubles (tied for the Pac-10 lead), 16 home runs, and 76 RBIs in 213 at bats over 52 games, while missing 10 games with a rib oblique muscle strain.^{[11][38][72][73][74]} He was 4–1 as a pitcher, with a 2.25 ERA, 4 saves, 20 strikeouts in 24 innings against 4 walks, and hit 94 miles per hour on the radar gun.^[11][35][44] He also threw out four runners from right field.^[44] He was named ASU On Deck Circle Most Valuable Player; prior winners included Dustin Pedroia, Willie Bloomquist, Paul Lo Duca, and Barry Bonds.^[73][75] He received First-Team All-Pac-10 honors for the third straight year.^[76][77][78] He was also named a First Team All-American by Baseball America, Collegiate Baseball, the NCBWA, Rivals.com, and the ABCA.^[77][79][80] He played alongside two future major leaguers for the Sun Devils, teaming with now Houston Astros first baseman Brett Wallace, and now Cleveland Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis.^[73]

He hit .353 in his college career, with a .605 slugging percentage (10th-best in ACU history). He totaled 159 runs (8th-best), 244 hits, 33 homers (5th), 69 doubles (2nd, behind Dustin Pedroia), and 202 RBIs (3rd).^[81][82] On the mound, he ended his college career as the Sun Devils closer, and totaled a 7–5 mark with 4 saves and 78 strikeouts in his career.^[82] Davis was also a part of two Pac-10 Championship teams, and went to the College World Series in 2007. He was named to the ASU All-Decade team.^[56][57][83]

Scouts felt he was at his best as a batter when he used the whole field. They noted that his bat speed allowed him to wait on pitches and drive them the other way, and that he was quick enough to catch up to good fastballs.^[10] Columnist Mark Schlereth of ESPN observed: "The bigger the game, the better he plays."^[84]

Professional baseball career[link]

Minor leagues (2008–2010)[link]

Davis was the 18th player taken in the first round of the 2008 Major League Baseball Draft, chosen by the New York Mets in his junior year as compensation for the Mets' loss of Tom Glavine to the Atlanta Braves in free agency. He was drafted for his power bat.^[85] Baseball America ranked him the third-best college power hitter in the draft, and The New York Times indicated that he projects to hit 25–30 home runs.^[35][86] He signed for $1.575 million.^[87]

Davis said, "It was a huge thrill. I was excited to be picked by New York."^[35] He received fatherly advice from his dad, and recalled:

He just said they've got the best fans, and it's a blast because every game is live or die for them. It's a great environment to grow up playing baseball, and learning how to play under pressure in front of all those people. He loved it, and I'm looking forward to it, too.^[11][88][89]

Davis was assigned to the Single-A Brooklyn Cyclones. On defense he excelled, as he committed only one error in 492 total chances at first base, for a league-leading .998 fielding percentage.^[90] Uncharacteristically, he struggled on offense, batting only .256, without a home run in 58 games.^[82] Asked the following year to name his most embarrassing professional moment, he replied: "Not hitting one home run in my first professional season."^[91] He noted:

It was first time I ever swung wood full time. I was learning how to play pro ball. I had never played every day in my life. That's totally different.... You have to learn to conserve your energy. In college, you just left it all out on the field every game. In pro ball, you do that and you'll wear out, because you play every single day.^[82]

In 2009, Davis started the year with the St. Lucie Mets. He began to turn it around, hitting .289 with 7 home runs in 59 games.^[82] He was then promoted to the Double-A Binghamton Mets, where he came into his own, hitting .309 with 13 home runs, 41 RBIs, and a .565 slugging percentage in half a season.^[82][92] Mako Oliveras, the B-Mets manager, described him by saying: "Very live bat; the ball jumps off his bat when he makes contact. And as for defense, he's like a vacuum cleaner."^[93] For 2009, Davis was named the Mets Organizational Player of the Year.^[94]

After the season the Mets assigned him to the Surprise Rafters of the Arizona Fall League, where he hit .391.^[38][95][96] He was named to the Arizona Fall League's all star Rising Stars Game.^[38] In September 2009, he played for the gold-medal-winning U.S.A. World Cup team.^[38] In the off-season, Baseball America rated him the Mets’ No. 4 prospect.^[97]

Sent down to the Buffalo Bisons, the Mets' AAA affiliate, to start the 2010 season, he hit .364 with a .500 on base percentage in 10 games.^[82][98] In his minor league career, he batted .288, with a .371 OBP and a .467 slugging percentage in 677 at bats.

Major leagues (2010–present)[link]

2010[link]

Davis played in spring training with the Mets in 2010, and led the team with a .480 average as he hit 3 home runs.^[99] He also sparkled on defense, prompting José Reyes to observe: "People talk about his hitting, but he is one of the best defensive first basemen you will ever see for a player his age."^[82] Many Mets players were rooting for Davis to break camp with the team, but he was sent down to the minors at the end of spring training.^{[100][101][102]} On April 19, however, the Mets purchased Davis's minor league contract.^[103][104] At that point Davis had played only 65 games in his life above the Single-A level.^[97]

Davis made his debut at Citi Field on April 19 against the Chicago Cubs. He singled in his first at bat, and had two singles in four at bats in a Mets win.^[13][105] "This is awesome," he gushed.^[13] In a sign of acceptance and welcome, after the victory Mets veteran Jeff Francoeur slapped a shaving-cream pie in his face.^[100] Davis had two multi-hit games in his first four games. In his fifth game, on April 23, he hit his first home run. It traveled 450 feet (140 m), onto Shea Bridge at Citi Field, and was the longest home run of any Met at Citi Field.^[106] He had his first multi-home-run game on May 7.^[19][82]

A gifted, slick-fielding defensive first baseman, in 3 of his first 21 games he made spectacular catches of foul pop-ups, bracing himself against the railing in front of the first base dugout, and then flipping over the railing as he caught the ball.^{[107][108][109]} The 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) Davis said: "I'm going to try to catch any ball I can. I've got long arms, I guess. I'd rather end the game, than worry about getting a bruise."^{[110][111][112]}

"I Like Ike" banners during Eisenhower's 1952 presidential campaign; the banners were reprised in Davis's rookie season

The Met fans began to treat him like a folk hero.^{[19][82][113]} Within a month of his debut, he had become a fan favorite. "I Like Ike" banners began appearing at Citi Field, a phrase once used in the decades-prior presidential campaigns of Dwight D. Eisenhower.^[14][19] Weeks later, he recalled:

I had such nerves the first few days. I didn't even have an approach. It was just see the ball, hit the ball. Only now am I settling in, getting the chance to think about how a pitcher is going to approach me.^[19]

While the Mets had appeared uncertain whether Davis could handle the pressure of the major leagues as spring training ended, by mid-May—just a month after calling him up to the majors—they moved him to the cleanup spot in the batting order.^[114] Manager Jerry Manuel said: "I think we’re going to try to leave him there for a while. I think he’s ready to handle that."^[114]

On June 8, Davis hit his first career walk off home run, against the Padres' Edward Mujica.^[115] His 11 home runs prior to the All Star break tied with Benny Agbayani (1999) for the second-most by a Mets rookie, behind Ron Swoboda (15, in 1965).^[116]

By September 26, as advanced defense metrics reflected a "UZR/150" (ultimate zone rating) of 12.5, putting him second in baseball behind Oakland's Daric Barton, sportswriter Mike Silva mused as to whether he could win a Gold Glove.^[117] Using the advanced metric "Defensive Runs Saved", sportswriter John Dewan indicated that Davis was best in the NL and second-best in baseball, having saved 14 runs, again behind only Barton in the majors.^[117][118] He showed good range, and saved a number of throws with his soft hands on scoops.^[119]

For the season, he was second among all NL rookies in runs (73), doubles (33), walks (72), extra-base hits (53), on base percentage (.351), and OPS (.791). He was also third in RBIs (71) and slugging percentage (.440), and tied for third in home runs (19).^[120]

He set the Mets rookie record for total bases (230). He also tied Lee Mazzilli's 1977 Mets rookie record in walks (72) and Ty Wigginton's 2003 Mets rookie record in extra-base hits (53).^[121][122] He was second among rookies in Mets history with 33 doubles (behind Wigginton),^[123] his 19 home runs tied for second-most with Ron Swoboda (1965), behind Darryl Strawberry (1983),^[124] his 71 RBIs tied for second with Wigginton, behind Strawberry,^[124] and his 138 hits were 4th on the Mets all-time list (behind Jay Payton—2000, Ron Hunt—1963, and Wigginton).^[38][124]

Davis was named the first baseman on Baseball America's 2010 All-Rookie Team.^[125] He came in 7th in the voting for 2010 NL Rookie of the Year, receiving two third-place votes.^[126]

2011[link]

Davis started the 2011 season by establishing a Mets record, with at least one RBI in 9 of his first 10 games. On May 10, Ike sustained an ankle injury in a collision with third baseman David Wright. The injury occurred on a routine popup near the pitcher's mound, with Davis rolling his ankle in an injury that didn't appear very serious at the time. On June 22, he was told that the injury might require season-ending surgery.^[127] On September 6, 2011, ESPN reported that Ike was busy rehabbing his ankle with the Mets and would not need surgery.^[128] During the injury-shortened 2011 season, Ike Davis had 139 AB at 36 games, and his Average was .304 and his OPS was .925. Ike hit 7 home runs and had 25 RBI.^[129]

2012[link]

Starting slowly, he then hit one homer in each of 3 games of a 4 game span in mid-April. On May 24, he had the second-lowest batting average (.159) of all qualified major leaguers.

Awards[link]

See also[link]

	Biography portal
	Baseball portal

• List of second-generation Major League Baseball players
• List of select Jewish Major League Baseball players

References[link]

External links[link]

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)
• Minor League Baseball bio
• ASU Sun Devils bio
• Brooklyn Cyclones bio

Brandon Snyder
Texas Rangers – No. 21
First baseman
Born: (1986-11-23) November 23, 1986 (age 25) Las Vegas Valley, Nevada
Bats: Right	Throws: Right
MLB debut
September 10, 2010 for the Baltimore Orioles
Career statistics (through 2011 season)
Batting average	.327
Home runs	2
Runs batted in	11
Teams
Baltimore Orioles (2010–2011) Texas Rangers (2012–present)

Snyder during his tenure with the Baltimore Orioles in 2011.

Brandon R. Snyder (born November 11, 1986 in Las Vegas Valley, Nevada) is a first baseman and third baseman who currently plays for the Texas Rangers.

Snyder was a 1st round draft pick by the Baltimore Orioles in the 2005 MLB Draft.^[1]

Snyder made his MLB debut on September 10, 2010 against the Detroit Tigers. He came in as a defensive replacement in the 9th inning.^[2] His first Major League hit, an RBI single, came against the Toronto Blue Jays on September 13, 2010 off of Blue Jays pitcher Marc Rzepczynski in the 2nd inning.

Snyder played six games in two separate stints with the Orioles in 2011.

On January 3, 2012, Snyder was traded to the Texas Rangers for cash considerations.^[1] He made the Rangers' major-league roster as a backup first baseman and outfielder.

On May 2, 2012, Snyder hit his first Major League home run off of Toronto Blue Jays starter Ricky Romero at the Rogers Centre.^[3]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors)
• Brandon Snyder on Twitter