Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:24:00 PM (view original):
Sure. I think it's fair to say that the 35th best offensive player of all time is safely within the great zone.

Your beloved JAWS puts Bernie as 25th on the all-time CF list. 

Was Bernie a great CF?

I wouldn't consider Williams a great CF.

So your great doesn't go 25 deep?

Williams was ranked 25th relative CF, not all players. Different scales.

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:24:00 PM (view original):
Sure. I think it's fair to say that the 35th best offensive player of all time is safely within the great zone.

Your beloved JAWS puts Bernie as 25th on the all-time CF list. 

Was Bernie a great CF?

I wouldn't consider Williams a great CF.

So your great doesn't go 25 deep?

Williams was ranked 25th relative CF, not all players. Different scales.

So we can put EM as one of the greatest designated hitters?  A guy that didn't have to wear himself down by playing the field or work on anything but hitting.   Sure, I'll buy that.   

That said, are we, and by "we" I mean you, creating different standards for great at each position?  Meaning there might be 4 great catchers, 77 great LF and 35 great hitters?

Here, I've got something else I need to do.

I don't think "great' can be 35 deep.   I don't think it can be 25 deep.   Maybe 10 or 15.  Otherwise, it waters down the meaning.   Of course, I don't expect you to see it that way because of the loose standards you put on the HOF but that's how I see it.   

Would you call the 20th best Yankee of all-time, great?
Would you call the 20th best Marlin of all-time, great?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:35:00 PM (view original):
Here, I've got something else I need to do.

I don't think "great' can be 35 deep.   I don't think it can be 25 deep.   Maybe 10 or 15.  Otherwise, it waters down the meaning.   Of course, I don't expect you to see it that way because of the loose standards you put on the HOF but that's how I see it.   

LOL.  So, Joe DiMaggio wasn't one of the greatest hitters of all-time?

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:24:00 PM (view original):
Sure. I think it's fair to say that the 35th best offensive player of all time is safely within the great zone.

Your beloved JAWS puts Bernie as 25th on the all-time CF list. 

Was Bernie a great CF?

I wouldn't consider Williams a great CF.

So your great doesn't go 25 deep?

Williams was ranked 25th relative CF, not all players. Different scales.

So we can put EM as one of the greatest designated hitters?  A guy that didn't have to wear himself down by playing the field or work on anything but hitting.   Sure, I'll buy that.   

That said, are we, and by "we" I mean you, creating different standards for great at each position?  Meaning there might be 4 great catchers, 77 great LF and 35 great hitters?

Edgar Martinez is, by your calculation, the 35th best offensive player of all time.

Bernie Williams falls somewhere around 185 by the same calculation.

They aren't close offensively. The question then becomes, did Williams add enough value with his glove to close that huge gap. I don't think he did. WAR, a stat specifically designed to address this question, shows Williams as about 20 wins behind Martinez.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:35:00 PM (view original):
Here, I've got something else I need to do.

I don't think "great' can be 35 deep.   I don't think it can be 25 deep.   Maybe 10 or 15.  Otherwise, it waters down the meaning.   Of course, I don't expect you to see it that way because of the loose standards you put on the HOF but that's how I see it.   

That's hilarious.

Posted by burnsy483 on 12/5/2013 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:35:00 PM (view original):
Here, I've got something else I need to do.

I don't think "great' can be 35 deep.   I don't think it can be 25 deep.   Maybe 10 or 15.  Otherwise, it waters down the meaning.   Of course, I don't expect you to see it that way because of the loose standards you put on the HOF but that's how I see it.   

LOL.  So, Joe DiMaggio wasn't one of the greatest hitters of all-time?

Or Willie Mays. Or Hank Aaron.

Posted by burnsy483 on 12/5/2013 2:36:00 PM (view original):
Would you call the 20th best Yankee of all-time, great?
Would you call the 20th best Marlin of all-time, great?

Ironically, I just looked up a poll of "best yankees of all-time" and #20 was Bernie Williams.  I'd certainly be more comfortable calling him great than someone like Mark Kotsay.

Posted by toddcommish on 12/5/2013 2:22:00 PM (view original):
This goes back to my question from, oh, about 15 pages back.

Would you rather have one of the best DH's in history (40 years, but still history), or someone who was a pretty good CF (top 5-10 during his peak)?

And keep in mind, Edgar could've been a bad 3B for most of those years (see Cabrera, Miguel).  He owned a glove.  They just wanted him to focus on hitting.

Top 5-10 during his peak?  Are you kidding me?  Top 2.

Griffey > Bernie > Edmonds > Jones, there's your top 4.  After that it gets real messy.  I think a lot of people are missing the context on how few elite CFers there were in the late '90s - early 2000s, and how many great hitters.  Historically, there have been a lot of great CFers.  But at the time Bernie was playing, there weren't.  There were a ton of guys who would have made great DH's.  Off the top of my head I can think of at least 9 guys I'd rather have DHing for me than Edgar Martinez during his prime (Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Thomas, Thome, Manny, Bagwell, Helton, Walker).

Seriously, how are there people on here who want to put Edgar Martinez in the HOF and not Bagwell?  Bagwell was a better hitter by virtually any level of metric you want to analyze.  And he was a GG-winning first baseman.  Edgar was a bigger liability in the field than Miggy is now.  Is it the steroid suspicion on Bagwell?  Bagwell's last full season was his age 36 season.  Edgar didn't really emerge as a consistently elite hitter until he was 32.  How is the former the one under a damning level of suspicion?  Seriously, I can't understand this thought process on any level.

I vote Bagwell in ahead of Edgar without thinking.

Personally, I'd prefer Griffey easily, and then probably Edmonds, and Lofton ahead of Bernie.  Maybe Andruw (probably not).  If you count Beltran in that time period, him too.

Great is greatly overused.  Of course, I'm not fond of not keeping score or awarding participation trophies.  

Oddly enough, while catching up, I thought "Could I name 20 GREAT Yankees?"   My initial thought was "no".   Then someone said Bernie was 20th.  My initial thought confirmed.

There are limits to everything in life.   "Great' is ridiculously overused.   Listen to Donald Trump for 2 minutes.   Everything is great.   Sometimes, something is very good.   No shame in that.  It just failed to make the cut of "great". 

If you take Andruw Jones over Bernie Williams you're a lunatic.  He was a better fielder, but not even in the same realm with the stick.  Lofton also seems laughable to me.  50-60 steals are pretty nice, but I'll take Bernie's 50-60 points of OBP over that any day of the week.  The extra 80-100 points of SLG was just gravy (again, speaking terms of peak here rather than career average).  Edmonds I can see, to me that's very close.  Maybe Edmonds was better and Bernie is 3rd.  Probably so, in fact.  Still better than 10th.

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:39:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:29:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:27:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/5/2013 2:25:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bad_luck on 12/5/2013 2:24:00 PM (view original):
Sure. I think it's fair to say that the 35th best offensive player of all time is safely within the great zone.

Your beloved JAWS puts Bernie as 25th on the all-time CF list. 

Was Bernie a great CF?

I wouldn't consider Williams a great CF.

So your great doesn't go 25 deep?

Williams was ranked 25th relative CF, not all players. Different scales.

So we can put EM as one of the greatest designated hitters?  A guy that didn't have to wear himself down by playing the field or work on anything but hitting.   Sure, I'll buy that.   

That said, are we, and by "we" I mean you, creating different standards for great at each position?  Meaning there might be 4 great catchers, 77 great LF and 35 great hitters?

Edgar Martinez is, by your calculation, the 35th best offensive player of all time.

Bernie Williams falls somewhere around 185 by the same calculation.

They aren't close offensively. The question then becomes, did Williams add enough value with his glove to close that huge gap. I don't think he did. WAR, a stat specifically designed to address this question, shows Williams as about 20 wins behind Martinez.

The difference in oWAR is 3.7.

Is that MASSIVE?

And as a side question . . . how does Martinez get credited with a -1.1 dWAR in a season (2003) in which he NEVER PLAYED AN INNING OF DEFENSE?

Positional adjustments are applied to oWAR and dWAR.