From: niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent)
Subject: Re: Best playes of All Time
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 01:54:41 GMT

In <1h7cuaINNdm6@transfer.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com writes:
>In article <1992Dec22.151340.4511@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> maynard@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (Roger Maynard) writes:
>> In <1992Dec22.065151.11682@Princeton.EDU> (David Marc Nieporent) writes:
>> >In article <BzLG6v.Gxy@unix.amherst.edu> ddsokol@unix.amherst.edu (D. DANIEL SOKOL) writes:

>> >> 2B Carew- he won how many batting titles? Much better than Morgan.I think
>> >>	that he was the best hitter of his day although I can't say the same
>> >>	for his defense.  His bat and speed more than make up for this
>> >>	shortcoming though.

>> >Of course, the object of the game of baseball is not to get hits in a
>> >high percentage of at bats.  It's to score a lot of runs.  And Morgan
>> >helped his team do that more than Carew did.  Superficially, they had
>> >similar stats, but Morgan compiled a large number of his in the Astrodome.

>> Nonsense.  The object is to collect rings.  And you do that, not by scoring
>> "a lot of runs", but by scoring more than the other guys.  Morgan helped 
>> the Reds do that.  He was by far the better player.

You're correct, in one sense.  I was being sloppy.  The object of your
OFFENSE is to score as many runs as possible.  Unlike in, say, football,
your offense has no control over how many runs the opposing team scores.

So your offense can't score "more than the other guy," unless it happens
to be the bottom of the 9th and you're the home team.  It can only score
as many as possible and hope that the defense doesn't allow many runs.

>The way to score more than the other player is to score lots
>of runs, at least when you are talking about offense (no second
>baseman has control over how well the pitcher pitches, and with
>the excpetion of amazing folks like Bill Mazeroski, few play
>defense that is SO far above league average to make up for large
>differences in offense).  But, as you said, Morgan was by far
>the better player.

I've actually wondered about this for quite a while, but haven't had
time (mean old professors and all) to do the research I need to, and
only have a few years of DA to look at anyway.  The question is, is the
distribution of defensive ability as wide as it is for offensive ability?  

That is, is it "with the exception of amazing folks like Bill M," or is
the best defensive 2bman in the league every year as far ahead of
average as the best offensive 2bman is?  And the same for the worst at each?

But more importantly, if you're Jose Lind, does your glove *really* make up
for your bat?  Or does it only move you from putrid up to pathetic?

Given that fielding is such a small part of team defense, I'd be inclined 
to think that it does the latter.  I mean, offense is 50% of the game;
fielding is probably less than 10%.  So I'd guess your defense would
have to be much farther ahead of average than your offense was below it
to move you up to average.

>> >long time.  He's a certain Hall of Famer.  But he has rarely, if ever,
>> >been the best pitcher in the league.  Certainly not for more than 1 year
>> >in a row.  

>> Where the hell is Steve Carlton?  Why isn't he on any of these lists?

>But he doesn't match the criteria you yourself stated earlier
>in this post of collecting a lot of rings.  Of course this
>also means we might not want to put folks like Ted Williams
>on the list, at least based on that criteria.  

>In any case, several people DID suggest Carlton for the lists,
>though, good as he was, I don't think he was one of the 3 or
>4 best pitchers ever. (Though he was better than Ryan who,
>though very good, may be the most overrated pitcher of all time.)

Ironically, until Ryan's stint with the Rangers, he may have been one of
the most *underrated* players of all time.  Certainly one of the most
underrated current players.

To the mediots, he was a guy who couldn't win.  Sure, he got lots of
strikeouts, but that's because he was being selfish and going for
strikeouts at the expense of his team.  And sure, he got lots of
strikeouts, but look at all the walks he gave up.  (After all, the fact
that he gave up less *hits* than anybody around didn't matter.  Look at
all those walks.)

>A final note: the pitcher Bill James raises as very underrated and
>due a lot more acclaim than he got was Juan Marichal. For some
>reason, Marichal got a reputation for winning against weak teams.
>James checked the box scores and found that this just wasn't true.
>Marichal did very well against very good teams, and was right up 
>there with Koufax as the best pitcher of the 1960s.  James
>claims he was better than Drysdale and Gibson.

Yes.  Off the top of my head, no stats, I'd argue that Dave Stieb might
have been the most underrated pitcher of the 1980s.  Any other
nominations?  Dennis Martinez, if you're talking the last 5-6 years, maybe.
Jose Rijo?  Sid Fernandez?  David Cone?  Jim Acker?

-- 
David M. Nieporent   | Is it too early to start making predictions for 1993?
niepornt@phoenix.    | Probably, but that never stopped me before.
   princeton.edu     | ALE: Baltimore ALW: Chicago NLE: Montreal NLW: Atlanta
Baltimore Orioles 93 | AL MVP: Cal Ripken  AL Cy Young: Mike Mussina
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