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Bonds begins HOF campaign

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by LongTimeListener, Aug 7, 2012.

  1. mateen

    mateen Well-Known Member

    Getting back to Carew vs. Bagwell, you can certainly make an argument that Carew had the better career, broadly defined (I wouldn't personally make it but I can see it's a close and interesting case). But I don't even see how it's debateable as to who was a better first baseman. Carew had one season with an OPS over .900 after he moved to first in 1976; Bagwell had 10 in his career. You certainly wouldn't give Carew an edge defensively. And even if you assume that Carew had played first his entire career, his power numbers are preposterously low (granted, the late 60s - early 70s were a pitching-friendly time in which offensive numbers were down) for a corner infield spot.
     
  2. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Not an issue.

    The number of teams has doubled since Ruth's time.

    The number of players available to compete for spots on those teams has more than tripled.

    Mathematically speaking, it was easier to make a MLB roster in 1920 than today.
     
  3. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Growth of the talent pool has far outpaced growth of the major leagues and there have been similar advancements in mining and developing that talent pool through the years, so the level of competition has steadily improved despite whatever minor drag the expansions may have caused.
     
  4. Drip

    Drip Active Member

    Two different type of hitters. Carew could hit. Period. Bagwell was not in his class as a hitter. I'll give him better power numbers but as a pure hitter, there should be no argument which was better.
     
  5. mateen

    mateen Well-Known Member

    If in determing the best hitter you go solely by batting average, yes. But Bagwell's career OBP is actually higher because he walked so much more (.408 vs. .393). Bagwell had a career SLG of .540, while Carew had 92 homers for his entire career and only a single season with a SLG above .500 (.570, in his unreal 1977 season). Carew did steal more bases, but not so many more to give him a huge edge (353 to 203).

    Rod Carew was a great player and an absolute magician with a bat, in a way which was valued more in the 1970s than it is now. But which team is going to score more runs - one with Bagwell at first, or Carew?
     
  6. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Bagwell was clearly a better player than Carew.
     
  7. Also, Rod Carew was not Jewish.
     
  8. mateen

    mateen Well-Known Member

    I swear I'm not on some crusade to darken the image of Rod Carew, who I think without question belongs in the HOF . . . but from the perspective of 2012, it seems really strange that the Angels kept him as the regular at first, a power position, for as long as they did. He had 18 homers and a .392 SLG in 834 games with California. In 1985, he got 116 starts at first base, and hit .280/.371/.345 for an Angel team that finished one game out; do they make up that game if they get more production out of that position?
     
  9. Stupid question:
    What does the fact that he played 1B have to do with how and where he bats in the lineup?
     
  10. mateen

    mateen Well-Known Member

    It has nothing to do with his spot in the batting order; what it does have to do with is the general proposition that the more difficult a position is to play defensively, the harder it is to find players who can handle the position and also excel offensively. Corner outfielders and first/third basemen are expected to, and generally do, provide more offense than center fielders, second basemen, shortstops, and catchers, which are more difficult positions to play (Bill James developed a continuum of positions based on difficulty and noted that players almost always move in one direction as they get older; center fielders move to left or right, not the other way, and shortstops move to second or third).

    At the end of his career Carew was playing first base, but was providing no power and not reaching base as much as he did in his prime, so the Angels were putting themselves at a disadvantage compared to other teams offensively (think of other AL first basemen in the mid-80s - Mattingly, Eddie Murray, Kent Hrbek, Alvin Davis, Darrell Evans).
     
  11. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    The '85 Angels were just an old club trying to hang on. They weren't a good offensive team. You could go up and down the lineup and find a need to upgrade at practically every position.
     
  12. mateen

    mateen Well-Known Member

    That's true, but they were still doing a decent job of it - they won 90 games in '85, and 92 to win the division in '86 (Wally Joyner replaced Carew, who retired after '85). The other old guys - DeCinces, Downing, Grich, Reggie - hadn't started to drop off quite the way Carew did.
     
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