Posted by MikeT23 on 11/30/2012 8:29:00 PM (view original):
I haven't tried to convince you. If you think a DH with 22 OPS+ is worth more than a CF, I'm not sure you understand baseball. So why would I bother attempting to convince you of anything?
It's not just 22 OPS+, maybe you don't have a strong enough understanding of the history of baseball to realize that. 147 OPS+ is elite. It's tied for 41st all-time. The guys tied with him there are Jim Thome, Ryan Braun (who knows what will happen with that number at this point), Sam Thompson, Willie McCovey, Mike Schmidt, and Willie Stargell. The 4 eligible players from that group are all already in the hall. And again, it puts him in the top 50 all time.
125 OPS+ is MUCH more marginal. It's tied for 233rd all time. A couple of the guys at that number are impressive - Yogi Berra, Ron Santo, George Sisler. Some of the others are Rick Monday, J. D. Drew, and Josh Willingham. Any of those guys sound like Hall of Famers to you?
You can call it a difference of 22 points of OPS+ and call that small. I would argue that 20% of a league average batting line is actually quite substantial, it's not 22 points of OPS but 22 points of OPS+, which is actually pretty huge. But regardless of your opinion on that, I'd say the difference between 41st all-time and 233rd all-time speaks for itself. I'd think the difference between the worst guys with an equivalent OPS+ being Sam Thompson and Ryan Braun instead of Josh Willingham and Leon Durham speaks volumes as well.
Of course, you probably won't read this anyway, it's too many words for you...