Quote: Originally posted by iain on 1/30/2010The important line: "How can you claim to know that a certain player is better than another, except by performance?"
One more time, I'm not talking about a savant-like ability to read HBD ratings.
I'm talking about 2 HBD players, one is on a "hot" streak
Let's pretend it's Johnny Cortes
Johnnie CortesThe other is Yamid Encarnacion (i know he's injured, but this is a hypothetical), let's pretend he is "slumping"
Yamid EncarnacionCortes does not have a single rating that is higher than Encarnacion's.
For a second let's pretend that Cortes is not a switch hitter (which may give him an advantage against ies) and call him handed.
Let's say that Cortes posted a .350/.450/.600 line during 600 regular season at bats and Encarnacion posted a .275/.350/.500 line during 600 regular season at bats. We'll also assume that they both played half their time at 1st base and half at DH and both maintained 100% fatigue the whole time.
I would bat Encarnacion ahead of Cortes in a playoff series, without hesitation.
It's a nice little thought experiment, how would everyone else handle this?