From: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Sierra and Clemente
Date: 6 Apr 92 15:49:12 GMT
Organization: University of Pittsburgh

Last night's edition of Baseball Tonight on ESPN featured a brief look at
Ruben Sierra's career, prospects, and money.  As with every other story on
Sierra, they referred to him as someone who "could be the next Clemente".

I thought this was rather odd.  In what sense could Sierra be the next
Clemente?  Clearly, not defensively; Clemente had no peers, and only Jesse
Barfield has come anywhere near him since then as a right fielder.  Also
clear is that they didn't just mean "as good as Clemente overall", since
there have been many players better than Clemente since 1972: Mike Schmidt,
Joe Morgan, Wade Boggs, Will Clark, George Brett, etc.

So they must have meant "the next player to have skills comparable to those
of Clemente, at a comparable level".  I'll again assume they mean offensive
skills.  This being the case, is it true that Sierra "could be the next
Clemente"?  I say no, for the following reasons.

What were Clemente's skills?  Hitting for high average, playing defense, and
hitting more triples than any other player since WW2.  Clemente, in his prime,
routinely hit .330-.350, in a time when pitchers were dominant.  His 160-some
triples are an astonishing feat for his era.

Will Sierra ever hit for that kind of average?  Almost certainly not on a
regular basis.  Will he hit anything like that many triples?  No.  What he
does do, however, is hit for more power than Clemente, and has recently
started to walk more.  Sierra and Clemente are thus not similar enough as
players for Sierra to be "the next Clemente".

The other thing that one might mean by that phrase, though, is "the next 
Puerto Rican player to be as good as Clemente."  Again, we'll ignore defense,
since Sierra can't compete there.  I claim that it's silly to say that Sierra
"could be the next Clemente", in this sense, because Sierra is ALREADY AS GOOD
AS CLEMENTE EVER WAS, almost, at an age when Clemente had never yet shown star
ability.

What do I mean by that?  Simply this: Sierra has already had three offensive
seasons better than Clemente's second-best year.  Sierra is 26 this year; 
Clemente had his 'breakthrough' year at age 26, and all his best seasons came
later.  There is no reason to believe that Sierra, this year, will have an
offensive season better than any Clemente ever had.  Sierra's Brock2 projection
shows him beating Clemente's career totals in everything except triples and
batting average.  Sierra's established level of ability at 26 is as good as
Clemente's established level of ability at 28.  Sierra is just plain a better
offensive player.

(BTW, this is tantamount to heresy here in Pittsburgh.  I'd be tarred and
 feathered and "rode outta town onna rail" if I were to say things like this
 aloud at Three Rivers...)

Comments?  Objections?


-- 
           David M. Tate           |"The man who hath no music in himself
      dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu      | Nor is not moved by concord of sweet sound
   Poetry is the synthesis of      | Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils
hyacinths  and biscuits. -Sandburg | 	Shakespeare, "Merchant of Venice", A.V