Posted by tigerrott on 6/24/2020 11:08:00 PM (view original):
I am one of three owners in my 120M theme that chose Gehrig as their Hitting Stud. Gehrig is 1-2 in NL MVP race, and 1st in AL MVP race. That's the pro-Gehrig case. But I'm wondering if I should have picked Cobb as my stud because he fills a more valuable position which is harder to fill than 1B. I thought being able to choose a lesser Cobb was an advantage in not choosing the stud Cobb, since clones were not allowed. What do the Cobb owners have to say?
I'm not a Cobb owner, but after some reflection I'm not so sure there's one right answer - I think a convincing argument could be made for 1923 Babe Ruth, 1911 Ty Cobb, or 1927 Lou Gehrig (1921 Babe Ruth is more expensive than 1923 Babe Ruth for pretty much no reason, and who would pick Barry Bonds instead of Ty Cobb when he costs more and can't defend as well?)
The argument for 1923 Babe Ruth would be that he is the best player of the 3, he can play CF quite well and despite being the best player of the 3, he's actually more "efficient" (efficient means the player produces a lot of offensive production adjusted for the player's defense relative to the player's salary) than 1911 Ty Cobb and roughly on par with 1927 Lou Gehrig. He hits for plenty of power, so he's also perfectly capable of driving himself in. The primary drawback is he's still really expensive, and chances are the additional $ spent on Ruth could have been spent on surrounding talent - even if 1923 Babe Ruth is quite a bit better than the other 2 players, which he is.
1927 Lou Gehrig is a far more "efficient" player than 1911 Ty Cobb (roughly on par with 1923 Babe Ruth) but he isn't nearly as expensive. That makes him good value for the stud position compared to the others. The problem is that 1B is generally where you expect the highest efficiency, so had you drafted 1911 Ty Cobb or 1923 Babe Ruth instead, you could have drafted an extremely efficient 1B player as part of your supporting cast.
1911 Ty Cobb is actually one of the most inefficient players in the database. However, he is the cheapest of the stud hitters, and he can play CF. If you make use of 1911 Ty Cobb being cheaper to load up on extremely efficient supporting cast players, he could wind up being the best option in spite of the fact that he himself is not a very efficient player (costs a lot compared to what he brings to the table).