Franchise Fours

[zyron]

You're just writing them off because Mattingly hit 5 more homeruns per year and won gold gloves which are basically meaningless as average defenders win them all the time.

What? Look up best defensive first baseman off all time. Mattingly is near the top of every list.

 

[mets1090]

What? Look up best defensive first baseman off all time. Mattingly is near the top of every list.

I'm not saying he wasn't a good defensive first baseman. I'm saying winning a ton of Gold Gloves isn't necessarily the best way to point to him being the best 1B.

Defensive metrics, while far from perfect, are still generally better than whatever eye test people were using 30 years ago. Here's the top defensive player (2nd in parentheses) for those 4 years at each position by Fangraphs defensive ratings.

C. Bob Boone (Jody Davis)
1B Sid Bream (Keith Hernandez)
2B Frank White (Glenn Hubbard)
3B Tim Wallach (Gary Gaetti)
SS Ozzie Smith (Ozzie Guillen)
OF Gary Pettis (Jesse Barfield)

The main point is that while you could easily argue that players should move up or down a few spots in the rankings, it's not a coincidence that these are the names you see at the tops of the statistical lists. Maybe Mattingly was better than 17th in those 4 years. Maybe he was more like 10th. I just doubt that the metrics would be so far off that he was legitimately a top 3 defensive 1B compared to his ranking in the mid teens.

 

[superjohn]

You are completely devaluing steals and walks. Henderson walked twice as frequently as Mattingly and stole 64 bases per year compared to Mattingly's 1 per year.

Raines was basically Henderson with a step less power and defense and slightly better OBP.

Modern defensive metrics have Boggs as the 4th best defensive 3B in those 4 years. Meanwhile, Mattingly was basically league average at 17. Boggs also hit .353, walked almost twice as often as Mattingly (13.9% to 7.3%), and struck out only 1.6% more often.

Ripken was the worst hitter of the 5 but he was also the 4th most valuable defensive player in baseball.

All 4 have legit arguments as being better players for those 4 years. You're just writing them off because Mattingly hit 5 more homeruns per year and won gold gloves which are basically meaningless as average defenders win them all the time.

I wasn't even a big Mattingly fan but are you trying to say he was an average defensive player? He is one of the best defensive first baseman of all-time.

 

[mets1090]

I wasn't even a big Mattingly fan but are you trying to say he was an average defensive player? He is one of the best defensive first baseman of all-time.

No not at all, I should have been more clear. The main point here is that it's possible he was "only" top 5 or 6 for those 15 years (which is still a great defender obviously). You'd be surprised how many players were perceived to be all time great defensive players because of the great plays when in reality the total number of plays they made indicate otherwise (Jim Edmonds for example).

And on top of that, being a great defensive first baseman is far less valuable than being a great SS or OF. So much so that it's almost not even worth talking about. And I say that as a huge Keith Hernandez fan. The value simply doesn't stack up compared to a great defensive SS or OF. You're much better off having a great SS and a below average 1B than a great 1B and an average SS and it isn't even close.

Which brings us back to the original argument, to write off guys like Ripken and Henderson who played positions where their great defense made a much bigger impact and also performed comparably offensively when factoring in OBP and speed is insane. I'm not even saying Mattingly is worse than them, just that it's ludicrous to say so definitively that he was better.

 

[zyron]

Which brings us back to the original argument, to write off guys like Ripken and Henderson who played positions where their great defense made a much bigger impact and also performed comparably offensively when factoring in OBP and speed is insane. I'm not even saying Mattingly is worse than them, just that it's ludicrous to say so definitively that he was better.

How is Left field a position where defense makes a big impact? And I have never heard of Ripken or Henderson as great defenders. Also about Mattingly's defense:

He's also a player who conferred a great deal of defensive value. Long regarded as the best defensive first baseman of his generation, Mattingly committed just 64 errors in 14,132 defensive innings at first -- or roughly one every 223 innings in the field. Mattingly's range was also impressive. In fact, in 1986 he became the first left-hander to man third base since Wee Willie Keeler in 1905. In all, Mattingly made at least one appearance at six different positions in his career -- that kind of defensive flexibility is exceedingly rare in a primary first baseman.

Mattingly also had the highest OPS in all of baseball during those four years.

 

[storrsroars]

Let's remember this was the quote that started the argument:

@mauconnfan: He's had 5-6 real good years the rest are either shortened by injury or just not very good years for a "franchise guy". Let's be honest he's not even in Don Mattingly territory with his career. I will say this though, there aren't a lot of other options I guess.

Which, as the facts have shown, is total B.S. Wright and Mattingly live in the same neighborhood.

Btw, Mattingly did lead MLB in OPS for those four years. A couple of guys were ahead of him in wRC+. And Mattingly's HR totals are somewhat a byproduct of old Yankee Stadium. If he played in the new one, he'd have cleared 300 HRs easily. But he did have a phenomenal 4 years, no arguing that.

However, when looking a entire body of work, Wright has a higher OPS, WAR and wRC+, along with more HRs, in 1155 fewer PAs. How is it "that's not even in Don Mattingly territory with his career"?

Mattingly was an excellent player and probably the best Yankee to never win a championship. But saying Wright's not in the same zip code is just silly, if not worse.

 

[mets1090]

This debate isn't even really worth having as it's obvious you don't care about modern metrics and I do which is probably the biggest chasm anywhere in sports theory. I put stock in both Fangraphs and Baseball America saying Mattingly was merely very good and not legendary defensively and you don't. No amount of argument can really change that. You think I'm way off, I think you're way off. Such is life.

The main point is that dismissing Ripken and Henderson (also Wright's career which is where this all started) and saying that Mattingly is undoubtedly the best player of those 4 years is flawed. You haven't even so much as admitted it's close. I think his OPS being 60 points higher than Henderson's while Henderson was stealing 60 bases a year is at best a wash, and I'd probably want Henderson instead. 55 net steals (SB-CS) over an average of 600 plate appearances is more than enough to make up for 60 points in OPS.

Also, error rate is not a good indicator of defensive ability. Duda's errors per inning at 1B is almost identical to Mattingly's. I don't even mean to point to that and say Mattingly wasn't a great 1B, just a criticism of the stat itself. Ruben Tejada has a similar error rate to Ozzie Smith.

 

[zyron]

This debate isn't even really worth having as it's obvious you don't care about modern metrics and I do which is probably the biggest chasm anywhere in sports theory. I put stock in both Fangraphs and Baseball America saying Mattingly was merely very good and not legendary defensively and you don't. No amount of argument can really change that. You think I'm way off, I think you're way off. Such is life.

The main point is that dismissing Ripken and Henderson (also Wright's career which is where this all started) and saying that Mattingly is undoubtedly the best player of those 4 years is flawed. You haven't even so much as admitted it's close. I think his OPS being 60 points higher than Henderson's while Henderson was stealing 60 bases a year is at best a wash, and I'd probably want Henderson instead. 55 net steals (SB-CS) over an average of 600 plate appearances is more than enough to make up for 60 points in OPS.

Also, error rate is not a good indicator of defensive ability. Duda's errors per inning at 1B is almost identical to Mattingly's. I don't even mean to point to that and say Mattingly wasn't a great 1B, just a criticism of the stat itself. Ruben Tejada has a similar error rate to Ozzie Smith.

I like WAR, I don't like defensive metrics however. On most lists Mattingly is usually 2nd or 3rd rated defensive first baseman of all time. The defensive metrics treat him like he was a below average first baseman

I didn't say it wasn't close at all. But I am not taking Boggs, Raines, Henderson or Ripken over Mattingly those four years. I think Wright and Mattingly are very similiar. Two guys who got derailed by back injuries. Wright had much more speed and walked more so he is going to have a higher WAR.

 

[mets1090]

I like WAR, I don't like defensive metrics however. On most lists Mattingly is usually 2nd or 3rd rated defensive first baseman of all time. The defensive metrics treat him like he was a below average first baseman

I didn't say it wasn't close at all. But I am not taking Boggs, Raines, Henderson or Ripken over Mattingly those four years. I think Wright and Mattingly are very similiar. Two guys who got derailed by back injuries. Wright had much more speed and walked more so he is going to have a higher WAR.

Oh ok so we're on the same page then. I got the feeling you were saying it wasn't close and that Mattingly was clearly better than those guys. Obviously we entirely disagree on the validity of defensive metrics particularly in this case which is understandable. I was just trying to illustrate that they were all comparable so while I agree he was a top 5 player, it's not like he was on a different level than Wright who was a top 10 player for 4ish years.

The career path of being an elite level player in the mid 20s and then dropping off after 30 is incredibly similar. I'd say they have similar careers and if Wright manages to bounce back from the stenosis (big if) he'll take it by a slight edge.

 

[mauconnfan]

Okay maybe Wright's a little closer than I think but it ain't much. Then again maybe you guys didn't watch baseball in the 80's early 90's I'm not sure. Again call me lame but I don't need all these stupid fn metrics to see who's a real good baseball player. Many of them are so misleading it's ridiculous. Mattingly was a great defensive first baseman only an idiot would argue that - he and Hernandez were always thought to be 1 and 2. As far as hitting, Wright may have been pretty damn good for a few years while Mattingly was dominant for a few years. Both as zyron said derailed by injuries which took away potentially 2 HOF careers away. 2 real good players on 2 different teams with fans being bias. To me it's just not that close but I'll give you closer than I may think!

 

[mauconnfan]

Let's look at WAR for each, from each player's best season to worst:
Wright/Mattingly
8.4/7.2
7.4/6.1
7.0/6.1
6.1/5.3
5.8/3.7
4.7/3.3
3.5/2.9
3.3/2.5
2.3/2.0
1.8/1.7
1.7/0.3
0.3/-0.1

Total: 52.2/40.7

I'd say Wright is not only the better player, but decisively so.

You're lost! LOL, oh yeah and decisively. Do you really know anything about baseball or do you just read stats??

 

[8893]

Then again maybe you guys didn't watch baseball in the 80's early 90's I'm not sure.

Rest assured that Mets fans watched a lot of baseball in the 80s and early 90s. Those were the heydays for us.

 

[mauconnfan]

I remember vividly in the whole Boggs vs Mattingly era that NY fans would routinely mock Boggs for being a little slap hitter who feasted on the green monster.
When did you guys change your tone?
Also if we are going to throw steroid accusations around Boggs likely used steroids for at least a couple years with the Yankees when his numbers went from low 700 ops to upper 800's lower 900's when he was 36 or 37.

Why Papi hasn't been lucky enough with the left field wall in his home park? In his defense he used it as he should have, turned into a better hitter no doubt. And of course he scared me more than Boggs but the DH can't be compared to guys who went out and did it in the field too. Jim Rice scared me as much as Papi but he had a glove. I mean the guy just said he didn't like playing the field, what "baseball player" in his right mind wants to watch his teammates go out on the field without him unless they are just old and injured?

That's why I say he can't be but hey I'm obvioulsy not a Sox fan.

 

[mauconnfan]

Rest assured that Mets fans watched a lot of baseball in the 80s and early 90s. Those were the heydays for us.

Obviously not all of them 8893.

 

[mauconnfan]

Let's look at WAR for each, from each player's best season to worst:
Wright/Mattingly
8.4/7.2
7.4/6.1
7.0/6.1
6.1/5.3
5.8/3.7
4.7/3.3
3.5/2.9
3.3/2.5
2.3/2.0
1.8/1.7
1.7/0.3
0.3/-0.1

Total: 52.2/40.7

I'd say Wright is not only the better player, but decisively so.

OMG the more I look at this the more I laugh about what people deem "logical baseball stats". WAR is irrelevant obviously with these kind of irrational conclusions. This is whacked.

 

[mets1090]

To use a more conventional stat, his OPS ranks in the top 25 during the span of his career. Mattingly's OPS ranked 39th during the span of his career (using 3000 PA as a qualifier in each range to filter out people who only played a couple seasons in those spans).

 

[Deadrody]

Through Yankee fan goggles?

I just gave you the evidence. Mattingly's best 4 years (84-87) accounted for 24.7 WAR. He never exceeded 4 WAR in any other season.

http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.as...4&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0

As you can see, a handful of players can make a solid argument they were better over that four year span. Heck, Mattingly was never better than third highest in WAR in any single year. At least Wright was 2nd one year, behind ARod.

And yes, even Wright's best four year streak (05-08) was better than Mattingly's. The difference being that Wright managed to tack on back-to-back 6+ WAR seasons a couple of seasons after that run.

Mattingly was an excellent player. And if you said, "best hitter in AL for a four year period" or "best at his position for a four year period", then you probably wouldn't have an argument, as Wright couldn't claim that due to ARod. But "best player"? Nope.

Did you ever actually SEE Don Mattingly play ? He WAS, no question, the best player in teh game at one time. Period, end of discussion. His back sapped him of his greatness, but he was the best in the game when healthy. WAR. You're seriously $hitting me with that.

Mattingly was a league MVP, won a batting title, led the league in hits, RBI, OPS and SLG all in different seasons. David Wright has led the league in sacrifice flies twice (Mattingly only did it once).

Give me a break.

 

[mets1090]

Did you ever actually SEE Don Mattingly play ? He WAS, no question, the best player in teh game at one time.

In Mattingly's MVP season, Henderson hit 24 HR (Mattingly had 35), stole 80 bases (Mattingly 2), and had a .934 OPS (Mattingly .939). Henderson's season was objectively better, and it isn't close. 78 extra steals far outweighs 11 homeruns.

That same year, George Brett hit 30 HR, had an average 10 points higher than Mattingly, and walked 103 times (Mattingly 56). This is basically a toss up.

I have no desire to say Mattingly wasn't an elite player during that span. The issue I have is with him being without question the best player in baseball.

 

[The Viking]

Why Papi hasn't been lucky enough with the left field wall in his home park? In his defense he used it as he should have, turned into a better hitter no doubt. And of course he scared me more than Boggs but the DH can't be compared to guys who went out and did it in the field too. Jim Rice scared me as much as Papi but he had a glove. I mean the guy just said he didn't like playing the field, what "baseball player" in his right mind wants to watch his teammates go out on the field without him unless they are just old and injured?

That's why I say he can't be but hey I'm obvioulsy not a Sox fan.

Ortiz's road OPS is 890. Its not far from his overall OPS of 945. Fenway does not help anywhere near how Fenway helped Boggs.
Hell if Ortiz played at Yankee stadium his numbers would be even bigger as he would abuse the short RF porch. As is in over 200 PA there he has an OPS of about 1025.

Besides this whole thing is the best 4 players in a team's history regardless of glove or not. I know you don't like the DH and bash DH's whenever you can, but it doesn't matter really in this exercise if your offense is SO good that glove doesn't matter.
Ortiz is one of the top 4 players in Sox history. He was a dominant regular season hitter, an even MORE dominant postseason player and played a large part in 3 rings. He played a huge part in changing the organization from being constant choke artists to 3 championships.

 

[storrsroars]

You're lost! LOL, oh yeah and decisively. Do you really know anything about baseball or do you just read stats??

Some people understand baseball. Some people slobber over their heroes like they were auditioning for a Peter North money shot.

When someone says Wright's career doesn't measure up to Mattingly's, I have to put them into the second category.

 

[storrsroars]

Did you ever actually SEE Don Mattingly play ? He WAS, no question, the best player in teh game at one time. Period, end of discussion. His back sapped him of his greatness, but he was the best in the game when healthy. WAR. You're seriously $hitting me with that.

Mattingly was a league MVP, won a batting title, led the league in hits, RBI, OPS and SLG all in different seasons. David Wright has led the league in sacrifice flies twice (Mattingly only did it once).

Give me a break.

He had a great short run. I've already said that. But I'm challenging the assertion that his career was miles ahead of Wright's. It's simply not, four great years or no.

How did you feel about Ralph Kiner getting elected to the HoF?

 

[mauconnfan]

Ortiz's road OPS is 890. Its not far from his overall OPS of 945. Fenway does not help anywhere near how Fenway helped Boggs.
Hell if Ortiz played at Yankee stadium his numbers would be even bigger as he would abuse the short RF porch. As is in over 200 PA there he has an OPS of about 1025.

Besides this whole thing is the best 4 players in a team's history regardless of glove or not. I know you don't like the DH and bash DH's whenever you can, but it doesn't matter really in this exercise if your offense is SO good that glove doesn't matter.
Ortiz is one of the top 4 players in Sox history. He was a dominant regular season hitter, an even MORE dominant postseason player and played a large part in 3 rings. He played a huge part in changing the organization from being constant choke artists to 3 championships.

Been talking to a lot Sox fans since this and all of them agree he has no right to be there. Again everyone is different but these are hardcores. Interesting to throw that argument out there because it's less obvious "4" than the Yanks. Your opinion, I get it, but I can name a lot ahead of him and some my busses mentioned: "Foxx, Clemens, Fisk, Boggs, Evans, especially Rice and even Pedroia" Put a glove on please! He can't be one of them.

 

[mauconnfan]

Some people understand baseball. Some people slobber over their heroes like they were auditioning for a Peter North money shot.

When someone says Wright's career doesn't measure up to Mattingly's, I have to put them into the second category.

My dad is my hero FF I slobber over NOONE.

Donnie was better period and your argument makes you look like an idiot! Just ask the question at what time was Wright the best player or even Top 10 for the matter in the NL? Maybe the best 3rd baseman for a couple years I will give you that. Then ask an easier question - out of his best years how many years was Don Mattingly the best payer in all of baseball? Maybe it's one, maybe it's 2 or 3 but no matter he WAS considered just that and proved it despiye the Mets fans nonsense here.

'Nuff said now stop!

 

[mauconnfan]

In Mattingly's MVP season, Henderson hit 24 HR (Mattingly had 35), stole 80 bases (Mattingly 2), and had a .934 OPS (Mattingly .939). Henderson's season was objectively better, and it isn't close. 78 extra steals far outweighs 11 homeruns.

That same year, George Brett hit 30 HR, had an average 10 points higher than Mattingly, and walked 103 times (Mattingly 56). This is basically a toss up.

I have no desire to say Mattingly wasn't an elite player during that span. The issue I have is with him being without question the best player in baseball.

Imagine how many more RBI he would have had if Rixky stopped at first. You guys are so stupid it's funny. Keep up the nonsense I now understand why you wold be a Mets fan!

 

[zyron]

In Mattingly's MVP season, Henderson hit 24 HR (Mattingly had 35), stole 80 bases (Mattingly 2), and had a .934 OPS (Mattingly .939). Henderson's season was objectively better, and it isn't close. 78 extra steals far outweighs 11 homeruns.

Want to see me make all those stolen bases and walks getting Henderson extra bases disappear?

Total bases over the four years by Henderson: 975
Total bases over the four year by Mattingly: 1400