Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 1:28:00 PM (view original):
Hehe.   You'll love this.   About 3/4 of the way thru I thought "Who cares?  Baseball is a simple game about moving a piece thru 4 stations before 3 mistakes force you start over." 

Statnerds overcomplicate it.    Although, to be fair, I do agree that a HR does have pretty much the same value as three singles.    Seems like it's harder to string together three singles by three different players before 3 mistakes are made but three singles in the given frame of three out will likely net the same result:   One piece moved thru 4 stations.   And that's the ultimate goal.

The game itself is simple.

Differentiating, at the major league level, between the very good players (Williams) and the great players (Martinez) isn't.

Great players bring a glove to the game.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 1:52:00 PM (view original):
Great players bring a glove to the game.

Or they hit the **** out of the ball.

Let's try it this way.   Where would you rank Martinez all-time in hitting only?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 1:56:00 PM (view original):
Let's try it this way.   Where would you rank Martinez all-time in hitting only?

Somewhere in the top 50. Maybe top 40.

He's 41 in OPS+ and 70something(I think) in WAR.    How does he work himself into top 40?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:00:00 PM (view original):
He's 41 in OPS+ and 70something(I think) in WAR.    How does he work himself into top 40?

You said hitting only. WAR (even just oWAR) includes a positional adjustment.

He's still 41 in OPS+.   Feel free to enlighten me as to where he stands in oWAR in whatever regard you want to use it.

Posted by mfahie on 12/5/2013 9:59:00 AM (view original):
And regarding dahsdebater's point that the "better" player is not always the most "valuable" player, on its surface, that assertion is true. Certainly Albert Belle or Barry Bonds or Jeff Kent could make things worse in the clubhouse and perhaps upset the chemistry on a team.

But in general, if you decide that one player is better than the other, then he is more valuable to an arbitrary team. Period.

So if you state that Edgar Martinez is better than Bernie Williams, then he's more valuable. It's not like Bernie was some great clubhouse guy. Everyone knows he was quiet and withdrawn. And since he played on the West Coast, I don't know much about Edgar's personality, but if it was disruptive I imagine we would have heard about it.

I won't disagree with you if you think Bernie was better. From my perspective they are neck-and-neck in terms of overall value. But if you're going to pick one as "better" and the other one as more "valuable", I think that's ridiculous.

I don't think this holds true at all, and it has to do with replacement availability.  To an extent the replaceability of a DH is very poorly captured by WAR.  The reality is, if you're building a team from the bottom up, would you rather have the 2nd or 3rd best DH in baseball or the 2nd or 3rd best CF?  Any hitter in the league CAN play DH.  They may not be as good at it - so many guys struggle to keep themselves in the game - but in the end most guys converted to primary DH's ultimately grow into a comfort level with the position.  Edgar is the better bat.  He's probably the better overall player.  But there are more better hitters than Martinez than there are better CF's than Bernie, by a wide margin.  That makes Bernie a rarer, and thus more valuable, commodity.  Silver is the most conductive pure metal on the periodic table.  Practically, it offers a lot more utility than gold.  But gold is more rare, and it offers things that silver never will - namely, people have thought for thousands of years that it's pretty.  Because it's rare and has value outside it's electrical applications, we value gold more than silver.  Even though, in their most practical application, silver offers greater utility.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:03:00 PM (view original):
He's still 41 in OPS+.   Feel free to enlighten me as to where he stands in oWAR in whatever regard you want to use it.

Let me get this straight.

You ask me to give you an off the top of my head offensive ranking of Martinez. I say top 50, maybe top 40 and now you're ******** at me because he's ranked 41st by OPS+?

What the **** is your point?

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:07:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:03:00 PM (view original):
He's still 41 in OPS+.   Feel free to enlighten me as to where he stands in oWAR in whatever regard you want to use it.

Let me get this straight.

You ask me to give you an off the top of my head offensive ranking of Martinez. I say top 50, maybe top 40 and now you're ******** at me because he's ranked 41st by OPS+?

What the **** is your point?

Just trying to figure out how he gets into your  top 40 when you've posted no formula/stat that indicates he is top 40. 

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:07:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:03:00 PM (view original):
He's still 41 in OPS+.   Feel free to enlighten me as to where he stands in oWAR in whatever regard you want to use it.

Let me get this straight.

You ask me to give you an off the top of my head offensive ranking of Martinez. I say top 50, maybe top 40 and now you're ******** at me because he's ranked 41st by OPS+?

What the **** is your point?

Mike's been acting like more of a moron than usual in the last 24 hours.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:09:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:07:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:03:00 PM (view original):
He's still 41 in OPS+.   Feel free to enlighten me as to where he stands in oWAR in whatever regard you want to use it.

Let me get this straight.

You ask me to give you an off the top of my head offensive ranking of Martinez. I say top 50, maybe top 40 and now you're ******** at me because he's ranked 41st by OPS+?

What the **** is your point?

Just trying to figure out how he gets into your  top 40 when you've posted no formula/stat that indicates he is top 40. 

He's 26th all time by wRC+
He's 39th all time by wOBA.

Both of those leaderboards are post 1910 and 5000 PA minimum.

I'm still waiting for your point.

Posted by dahsdebater on 12/5/2013 2:04:00 PM (view original):

Posted by mfahie on 12/5/2013 9:59:00 AM (view original):
And regarding dahsdebater's point that the "better" player is not always the most "valuable" player, on its surface, that assertion is true. Certainly Albert Belle or Barry Bonds or Jeff Kent could make things worse in the clubhouse and perhaps upset the chemistry on a team.

But in general, if you decide that one player is better than the other, then he is more valuable to an arbitrary team. Period.

So if you state that Edgar Martinez is better than Bernie Williams, then he's more valuable. It's not like Bernie was some great clubhouse guy. Everyone knows he was quiet and withdrawn. And since he played on the West Coast, I don't know much about Edgar's personality, but if it was disruptive I imagine we would have heard about it.

I won't disagree with you if you think Bernie was better. From my perspective they are neck-and-neck in terms of overall value. But if you're going to pick one as "better" and the other one as more "valuable", I think that's ridiculous.

I don't think this holds true at all, and it has to do with replacement availability.  To an extent the replaceability of a DH is very poorly captured by WAR.  The reality is, if you're building a team from the bottom up, would you rather have the 2nd or 3rd best DH in baseball or the 2nd or 3rd best CF?  Any hitter in the league CAN play DH.  They may not be as good at it - so many guys struggle to keep themselves in the game - but in the end most guys converted to primary DH's ultimately grow into a comfort level with the position.  Edgar is the better bat.  He's probably the better overall player.  But there are more better hitters than Martinez than there are better CF's than Bernie, by a wide margin.  That makes Bernie a rarer, and thus more valuable, commodity.  Silver is the most conductive pure metal on the periodic table.  Practically, it offers a lot more utility than gold.  But gold is more rare, and it offers things that silver never will - namely, people have thought for thousands of years that it's pretty.  Because it's rare and has value outside it's electrical applications, we value gold more than silver.  Even though, in their most practical application, silver offers greater utility.

To be fair, we could probably find a lot of middle infielders, even LFers who could play center field but don't.  But the "but he played DH" is a fair argument when it comes to Edgar.  I get it.

It's quite hard to find many hitters who hit like Edgar did during his prime.  To be one of the greatest hitters in your era?  It would get my vote, in this poll and for the HOF, even though he didn't play a position.