The last couple days I’ve been answering baseball questions from my dad, who hasn’t closely followed baseball since the Dodgers and Giants headed for the West Coast. Not because he was a fan of either team -- he liked the Cubs -- but because that’s when the NBA and NFL got their hooks in him. He almost named my big brother Oscar, after Oscar Robertson, who led the NBA in assists basically every year in the ‘60s. By the way, did you know there’s a Basketball-Reference.com that’s just as cool as the baseball version?
Even more baseball questions from my dad
Anyway, now when Dad watches a game, it’s from the detached perspective of an intellectual. He asks me questions about baseball’s demographics (How many players are from the Dominican Republic?), about how players age (Do young pitchers throw harder than old pitchers?), and lots of questions about lefties vs. righties.
Today’s question isn’t quite as high-minded.
Man, that guy is fat! Is he the fattest guy in baseball? Who are the fattest guys in the league?
I won’t tell you who he was referring to. You can probably get it in two guesses.
Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to answer his query when I realized I already answered it a few months ago. I calculated the body mass index (BMI) of everyone who played in MLB last season.
Now, two caveats. One, I don’t want to call these guys fat. (You can if you want. It’s not like anyone’s going to sue you.) Some of them are just big balls of muscle. As I understand it, BMI isn’t a measure of how fat a person is, exactly, it’s basically just the ratio of a person’s weight to their height.
Two, the listed heights and (especially) weights for ballplayers -- all athletes, really -- are often wildly inaccurate. Heights are often overstated, and listed weights sometimes don’t change from a player’s rookie year.
With that said, I made an All-Star team of players with the highest BMI at each position.
C Corky Miller
1B Prince Fielder
2B Rickie Weeks
3B Pablo Sandoval
SS Hanley Ramirez
LF Dayan Viciedo
CF Chris Heisey
RF Marlon Byrd
SP C.C. Sabathia
SP Bartolo Colon
SP Tommy Hunter
SP Felipe Paulino
RP Jonathan Broxton
I also made an all-skinny team, the guys with the lowest BMI:
C Travis d'Arnaud
1B Tyler Moore
2B Michael Martinez
3B Pedro Ciriaco
SS Dee Gordon
LF Starling Marte
CF B.J. Upton
RF Ichiro Suzuki
SP Hisashi Iwakuma
SP Chris Sale
SP Felix Doubront
RP Jerry Blevins
I think the big guys would beat the little guys in a series, though the skinny guys might have better pitching.
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