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 Everyone knows he was quiet and withdrawn.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.