View Single Post
  #57  
Old 06-13-2016, 07:10 PM
nat's Avatar
nat nat is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2016
Posts: 929
Default

Hodges was good defensively. The first stat line I posted was Carlos Delgado, the third was Hodges. Delgado was the better hitter (138 to 120 OPS+), but they have virtually identical WAR totals. The difference is defense (plus maybe some base running). So we can and do take his defense into account.

As noted above, RBIs are extremely team dependent. They're not a good way to evaluate a player. Take June 12, 1949 for example. Hodges had 8 RBIs. Pretty nice. But it doesn't hurt that he's got Pee Wee Reese (.411 on base percentage), Gene Hermanski (.452 at the time), Duke Snider (a relative slacker at .348), and Jackie Robinson (.411) batting in front of him. He's going to have a TON of opportunities to drive in runs, because those guys are going to be on base all the time.

The all star appearances show that he was thought of as a star at the time, but are only a very weak indication that he was actually a good player. See, for example, George Kell and his 10 all star appearances. Dave Concepcion made 9. Frank McCormick made 9. It happens.

The "advanced" stats are just records of what happened, just like wins and RBIs are. The difference with a lot of them, though, is that they try to isolate the player's contribution from the effects of the parks that he played in (this is what the various + stats do), or they try to strip out the effects of events that aren't under the player's control (that the guys batting in front of Hodges reached base frequently, is one example).
Reply With Quote