Sean Casey is the first baseman for the Reds. When he’s in his groove, Casey is a startlingly good hitter, making adjustments even between pitches at the same at bat. Casey lacks grace in his running and is not the quickest guy you’re ever going to see, but he is quite flexible for a guy his size and is adept at getting his mitt on balls that are thrown pretty poorly his direction. He has saved his fellow infielders countless errors by coming up with great catches, and he makes it look so easy that he doesn’t really get the credit for it that he should.

For a while, it seemed like Casey was getting an unfair shake because first base is often where you put your old, fat guy who can’t be bothered to put down his jumbo pretzel long enough to do much fielding, but still hits a ton of homeruns, and Casey was hitting only a half ton. Last season, however, Casey was far-and-away the Reds’ most consistent hitter, mostly doubles, but more than his fair share of everything else as well, and I haven’t heard a peep of that kind of criticism since.