Baseball's Top 100

[Max Power]

Originally posted by pwdennis
You miss the point, which is that if Schmidt got a later start to his career he would not have piled up the counting stats that he did.

Forget the counting stats, try the qualitative ones - - -
all 3Bs, 5000+ PA, OPS over league average:

OPS                           DIFF  PLAYER LEAGUE
1    Mike Schmidt             .187    .908   .720 
2    George Brett             .163    .882   .719 
3    Eddie Mathews            .153    .892   .740 
4    Ron Santo                .121    .838   .717 
5    Home Run Baker           .120    .805   .685 
6    Wade Boggs               .116    .858   .742 
7    Bob Elliott              .112    .842   .730 
8    Bill Madlock             .088    .807   .720 
9    Ken Boyer                .087    .818   .731 
10   Ron Cey                  .080    .799   .719 

One hundred sixteen is good - - but, it ain't one hundred eighty seven.........

[pwdennis]

Originally posted by Max Power
Forget the counting stats, try the qualitative ones - - -
all 3Bs, 5000+ PA, OPS over league average:
[code]
OPS DIFF PLAYER LEAGUE
1 Mike Schmidt .187 .908 .720
2 George Brett .163 .882 .719
6 Wade Boggs .116 .858 .742

One hundred sixteen is good - - but, it ain't one hundred eighty seven.........

Again true but Schmidt pulled the plug on his career when he still could have played a few more years. By getting the early start to his career he didn't need to hang on to get the counting stats, and was able to avoid having his % stats drop - the years Boggs lost would have improved the % stats. The simple truth is that from a career perspective Schmidt got all the breaks and Boggs got none. Schmidt was the better fielder and had more power but Boggs was better at getting on base, which was his job as a lead off hitter. Schmidt retired at 39, Boggs at 41. I bet Wade would gladly have traded his age 22 & 23 seasons (based on MLB equivalency) for his age 40 & 41 seasons. These would narrow he gap between them considerably.

OPS is a useful stat but it is does have its limitations, and in fact it overweights the power component as it is not possible to have an OBP that is .250 better than the league average (not even for Bonds or Williams) whereas it happens with some frequency with SLG. I think a better weighting would be 2X OBP + SLG / 3 (perhaps 3X OBP + 2 X SLG / 5 would be better). This would also tend to deflate the alleged value of the Dave Kingmans of the world

As an FYI , in a clutch situation I'd much rather have Brett at the plate than either Boggs or Schmidt

[Max Power]

PW - we'll have to agree to disagree on this one - - - there's nothing anyone can say that will convince me that Boggs was as good as MJS - - and, that Boggs got unlucky breaks.

[pwdennis]

ok

[Alan Smithee]

some bullet points of interest:
- The difference between Boggs and Schmit's starting ages is not really all that great. Schmidt was 23 turning 24 during his first full season. Boggs was 24 turniing 25 during his first full season. ITs not not like we are comp[asring Cedeno and Sam Rice. Boggs starts was not that much later than Schmit's.

- Schmits's first season was not really all that bad in context. he hit .196 but with power, walks and very good D. The team may have stuck with him because they were not very good but in a way thats how they got good. finding young players and sticking with them.

- Boogs was very good at getting on base but so was schmidt. Over 650 PA's boggs gets on base 272 times, schmidt 250. Its not that big of a gap and not nearly enough of a gap to make up for the difference in total bases.

- boggs was a good third baseman but Schmidt was of of the very finest with a glove ever. it was a key part of why he gets rated #1. HIts like matthews but fields like robinson.

-Schmidt was faster than boggs. much faster really.

Boggs had a huge home park advantage. Schmidt did not.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Originally posted by Alan Smithee
some bullet points of interest:
- The difference between Boggs and Schmit's starting ages is not really all that great. Schmidt was 23 turning 24 during his first full season. Boggs was 24 turniing 25 during his first full season.

I would argue that Boggs was ready for the majors before Schmidt was, age-wise. I don't have Minors-to-Majors translations, but I believe that if I had that data, it would show Boggs as ready for the bigs at 21 or 22. He was kept in the minors because of terminal stupidity by the Sox, who were still enamored of Glenn Hoffmann, Dave Stapleton, ad nauseum.

I also wonder how much the Margo Adams business affects how we think of Boggs today. It's not much mentioned, but Boggs seems to get very little respect for a player who, I believe, is a no-questions-asked HOFer. I remember the Steve Garvey thread where the criticism of Garvey seemed a bit excessive, granted that his personal hypocrisy made him a laughingstock. The assessment of Boggs the player is subtly clouded by that chapter in his life; it provided negative coloring to perceptions of him that don't fade easily.

[JamesI]

Originally posted by Fuzzy Bear

I also wonder how much the Margo Adams business affects how we think of Boggs today. It's not much mentioned, but Boggs seems to get very little respect for a player who, I believe, is a no-questions-asked HOFer.

I don't think Boggs gets as much respect as many similiar players get. He is overall underrated I think, partly because he had a long decline. He made his name hitting for a high average, then played nearly a decade at well below the standards he had set.

What is the Margo Adams business?

[VNV Nation]

James, I take it you are under 25.

Margo Adams was Boggs' road lover. When he broke things off with her, she demanded to be compensated, as she had provided "wifely services" or something. He refused, it became this big, ugly, very public mess...I don't remember exactly how it was resolved, or if it just went away, but I remember wondering why he didn't just pay her off to shut her up.

This was about 1989-1990...coincidentally or not, Boggs never quite was the same hitter after that.

And all that time, we thought it was the chicken.

[pwdennis]

Originally posted by JamesI
I don't think Boggs gets as much respect as many similiar players get. He is overall underrated I think, partly because he had a long decline. He made his name hitting for a high average, then played nearly a decade at well below the standards he had set.

It speaks volumes about what a high level Boggs was at during his peak that he was able to play out an extended decline as a major league player. Boggs really started to decline at age 34 when he hit .259 although he still had some decent seasons remaining to his career after that point. One of these days I will dig out the old Bill James Baseball Abstracts to get the data on the first half of Wade's career. During that period he would have been a sensation regardless of park as he put up terrific road numbers in all but the worst hitters parks (in those parks he was merely a .325 hitter).

[SmedIndy]

Is this just a Boggs thread or is a thread on the entire list?

[Alan Smithee]

Originally posted by pwdennis
It speaks volumes about what a high level Boggs was at during his peak that he was able to play out an extended decline as a major league player. Boggs really started to decline at age 34 when he hit .259 although he still had some decent seasons remaining to his career after that point. One of these days I will dig out the old Bill James Baseball Abstracts to get the data on the first half of Wade's career. During that period he would have been a sensation regardless of park as he put up terrific road numbers in all but the worst hitters parks (in those parks he was merely a .325 hitter).

Boggs was a great hitter wherever you put him. BA was 52 points better at home than on the road for his entire career. lets look at his home road breakdowns in his early years.
82: .356/.342 +14
83: .397/.321 +76
84: .352/.296 +56
85: .418/.322 +96
86: .357/.356 +1
87: .411/.312 +99
88: .382/.351 +31

Two things:
1) home road splits vary widely season to season. you need to look at it over a period of years to make it mean anything. and
2) the Home road split dorung thsi peark era for boggs was +53, almost exactly what it always was. .

[VNV Nation]

So he was like .325/.410/420 on the road and 380/.470/.500 at home?

[Max Power]

Originally posted by SmedIndy
Is this just a Boggs thread or is a thread on the entire list?

Good question - - -
just a heads-up to all - - - - the more this is on Boggs, the greater the chance that someone may forget that there's a line in terms of knowing when to stop advancing a point. Please be careful not to cross that line. Thanks.

[Ytown Tribe fan]

I wonder where Pete would rate based on his career as a player, and not based on the dumb things he did when his playing days were over.

James has him as the 33rd best player ever, two spots above Biggio. That may be a little low.

Aside from the hits, Pete got on base more than any other player in his league NINE times, and was second five other times.

Pete was in the top 10 in MVP voting 10 times. How can people ignore the impact of that?

To exclude him from the top 100, or even the top 50 of all time reflects very poorly on the morons doing the voting.

[KCBOOMER]

Originally posted by Ytown Tribe fan To exclude him from the top 100, or even the top 50 of all time reflects very poorly on the morons doing the voting.

Ah, yes, when you disagree with someone call them a moron. Incisive argument.