Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Sierra and Clemente
From: guilford@otago.ac.nz
Date: 16 Apr 92 11:25:21 +1300
 <1992Apr9.113554.2491@otago.ac.nz> <1992Apr13.145704.5398@sjuphil.uucp>
Organization: University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

In article <1992Apr13.145704.5398@sjuphil.uucp>, pbenjami@sjuphil.uucp (Paul Benjamin) writes:

> In article <1992Apr9.113554.2491@otago.ac.nz> guilford@otago.ac.nz writes:

>>Uh, no, Clemente was much more like Sierra than Boggs or Gwynn or Carew.
>>He hit home runs.  Sierra has hit .300 two of the last three years.  If
>>you like, Clemente was more like Puckett than Sierra.
> 
> Well, Clemente hit HRs, but was never a slugger in any sense.
> I believe he may have, if he had played in a HR park, but that is
> clearly a biased view on my part. Puckett is just someone whose
> stats are inflated by playing half his games in a small park.
> I still stand by my statement that, as the top percentage hitter
> of the 60's, Clemente can be compared with Carew, Boggs, etc., so
> we see Clemente as a super percentage hitter who had some power and
> great defense. I think this is a better comparison than with Sierra,
> because there is really no similarity at all between them, except,
> as Dave Tate has noted, they are both Puerto Rican.

This is just silly.  

                      HR/AB    BB/AB    K/AB    BA      SP      RBI/AB

Roberto Clemente      .025     .066     .130    .317    .475    .138
Ruben Sierra          .039     .071     .149    .280    .474    .165
RS `89-`91                                      .298
Wade Boggs            .014     .163     .112    .345    .471    .112
Rod Carew             .010     .109     .110    .328    .429    .109
?                     .025     .055     .128    .320    .466    .135

Remembering that Clemente's HR totals were deflated by his park, and
probably his era, it seems obvious that he was not that much less of a 
slugger, in any sense, than Sierra.  

Clemente is a VERY similar player to Sierra, both are/were high average
good power RF's with similar BB/K data.  Neither was a guy you'd like
to see hit leadoff.  Boggs and Carew were LH singles-hitting infielders
with much better strike zone judgement.  Note that Fenway Park makes
Boggs appear much more similar to Clemente than he would be otherwise.

A good way to think about this is that if you picked a season from 
Clemente's career and stuck it into Sierra's, it would not look out
of place.  While with Boggs and Carew it would, considerably.  The
jump in average for Sierra would not look nearly as weird as the 
changes in power and patience for the other two.

>>>>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; 

>>I think DT's numbers showed otherwise....  If you have access to a
>>baseball encyclopedia, look up Clemente's career sometime.

> If you trace back the >>>'s, you'll see that you are responding to
> someone else here (Dave Tate). I have a baseball encyclopedia, and
> have Clemente's numbers virtually all memorized.

I was responding to the comment, which is a type of statement that 
irritates me somewhat unduly.  I always check the ">'s" to see who
said what, and assume everyone else does.  But apologies anyway.

> Yes, I think there have been numerous players who have really benefited
> from playing in parks well suited to their hitting, like Reggie in
> Yankee Stadium.

Now this one -- if you're suggesting this was a career trend for 
Reggie -- IS yours....

> Could be. I wasn't trying to come up with the closest player to
> Clemente in any sense, and I'm not sure there really is a close one in
> the majors right now. Just comparing along certain dimensions.

Well, I suggested Puckett.  That's him under "?" above.  The
comparison without the numbers didn't seem unobvious.  

Bill Guilford