Some attention whores in Boston like to declare that David Ortiz was a more impactful or better hitter than Ted Williams but until someone says about Ortiz, "there goes the best hitter that ever lived" I'm not playing that game. However, I was curious about how Ortiz compares to Captain Carl - Carl Yastrzemski.
Player A - 2291 G/ 1360 R/ 513 HR/ 1674 RBI/ .285 BA/ .928 OPS/ 140 OPS+
Player B - 3308 G/ 1816 R/ 452 HR/ 1844 RBI/ .285 BA/ .841 OPS/ 130 OPS+
Ortiz is Player A and Yaz is Player B. Very close - very close indeed. The numbers get even more interesting if you just drop the last 3-years of Yaz's career. That would give each player 20-years of MLB service. Yaz would then have a better BA and be 8 RBI ahead of Ortiz (for now). It is true that Yaz did win an MVP but surprisingly Ortiz had more Top 5 MVP finishes (5 to 2 for Yaz). Ortiz would appear to be the better slugger but surprisingly Ortiz never led the league in slugging (something Yaz did 3-times).
Yaz should get the nod as the better all-around player with 7 Gold Gloves as an outfielder and 164 stolen bases to Ortiz's 16. However, are those factors outweighed or at least equaled by Ortiz's postseason heroics? But even there surprisingly Yaz had a better postseason OPS (1.047 to Ortiz's .964) but in just 17 games versus 82 for Ortiz.
Very close - very close indeed!
No comments:
Post a Comment