Posted by tecwrg on 8/29/2013 7:38:00 AM (view original):
Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 11:16:00 PM (view original):
Posted by burnsy483 on 8/28/2013 3:10:00 PM (view original):
Hypothetical: You're starting a team. You have a player who can play CF slightly below average, or 1st base very well. He will put up the same offensive stats regardless of where he plays. Where would you play him?
Are we not answering this question?
It's a loaded question, based on a single player with a single skill set. The answer to that question should be fairly obvious.
The discussion at hand is about two different players, with two very different skill sets, who put up two very different sets of offensive stats.
re: skill sets - you can still compare 2 players and determine who was more valuable. Just like you can have a conversation between the .200 AVG/40 HR guy and the .300 AVG/5 HR guy.
Yes, the CFer is more valuable, and obviously I brought it up because I thought Mattingly and Henderson were comparable offensively. OPS were nearly identical. When you consider that Rickey got there with a better OBP, and OBP has more value compared to slugging percentage (partially because slugging percentage is a naturally higher number than on base percentage), one should argue that Henderson was a more valuable offensive player. Regardless of what weight you put on OBP, 2x, 1.7x, 1.1x, Henderson comes out on top here. Let's not pretend that Henderson couldn't slug, either. He was 7th in the league. You swap Mattingly and Henderson in the order, and there's a great chance Rickey's driving in 100+ runs, just based on people being on base in front of him that he doesn't see with Bob Meachem and Butch Wynegar batting in front of him.
So considering that Rickey very likely had more offensive value than Mattingly, he was more valuable with his glove, and, oh yea, he stole 80 bases and was a great baserunner, explain again how Mattingly was the better baseball player?