This blew my mind. And made me a bit...sad.
If you‘re not a baseball geek you prolly don’t care.
medium.com
They include some eye-opening examples, but this is the one that really gets me:
Keith Hernandez was a conductor, the infield his orchestra. The quickest feet, the quickest mind — and those hands… what hands! Wayward throws were like plankton to a whale.
Don Mattingly’s reflexes and range were so superior, his arm so accurate, that manager Lou Pinella stationed him at third base for three games in 1986.
Hernandez and Mattingly. The two best defensive first baseman in the game, two of the very best to ever man the position. Playing at the same time, in the same city, The City. It inspired one of the great arguments of 1980s baseball: “Who was better with the glove?” Hernandez, the Mets’ cosmopolitan man-about-town? Or Mattingly, the blue-collar superstar for the Yankees?
The answer was usually Hernandez, acknowledged in his time as perhaps the best glove man of all time — but it wasn’t without a caveat or two: Mattingly, it was accepted, might very well be the second-best defensive first baseman to ever scoop one out of the dirt. The proof was in the glove, or in this case, the Gold Gloves.[ii] Nine of them — an American League record and second-most for the position behind Hernandez, who claimed 11. There’s no shame in running a close second to Keith Hernandez in the mythical “Greatest of All-Time” rankings.[iii]
So it might come as something of a surprise to learn that, according to Defensive Wins Above Replacement (dWAR), Hernandez (1.3) ranks third all-time among first baseman (since 1901), behind Frank Chance and Fred Tenney.
Mattingly? Mattingly’s defensive stock plummets, with dWAR (-6.2) ranking him a good, but far from elite, defensive first baseman.
More at the link.
If you‘re not a baseball geek you prolly don’t care.
WAR Doesnât Care One Bit About Your Reputation
Keith Hernandez was a conductor, the infield his orchestra. The quickest feet, the quickest mind — and those hands… what hands! Wayward…
medium.com
They include some eye-opening examples, but this is the one that really gets me:
Keith Hernandez was a conductor, the infield his orchestra. The quickest feet, the quickest mind — and those hands… what hands! Wayward throws were like plankton to a whale.
Don Mattingly’s reflexes and range were so superior, his arm so accurate, that manager Lou Pinella stationed him at third base for three games in 1986.
Hernandez and Mattingly. The two best defensive first baseman in the game, two of the very best to ever man the position. Playing at the same time, in the same city, The City. It inspired one of the great arguments of 1980s baseball: “Who was better with the glove?” Hernandez, the Mets’ cosmopolitan man-about-town? Or Mattingly, the blue-collar superstar for the Yankees?
The answer was usually Hernandez, acknowledged in his time as perhaps the best glove man of all time — but it wasn’t without a caveat or two: Mattingly, it was accepted, might very well be the second-best defensive first baseman to ever scoop one out of the dirt. The proof was in the glove, or in this case, the Gold Gloves.[ii] Nine of them — an American League record and second-most for the position behind Hernandez, who claimed 11. There’s no shame in running a close second to Keith Hernandez in the mythical “Greatest of All-Time” rankings.[iii]
So it might come as something of a surprise to learn that, according to Defensive Wins Above Replacement (dWAR), Hernandez (1.3) ranks third all-time among first baseman (since 1901), behind Frank Chance and Fred Tenney.
Mattingly? Mattingly’s defensive stock plummets, with dWAR (-6.2) ranking him a good, but far from elite, defensive first baseman.
More at the link.
