Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
I guess you are very well-informed, since you know more about baseball than Barney Dreyfuss. Poor, benighted Barney traded Leach (and a talented Lefty) to the Cubs for a washed up 4th outfielder and a bad pitcher but neglected to trade the immensely over-valued but unproductive Pie Traynor.
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Holy overreaction Batman.
A few things.
1. Yes I (and all of us) know a crapton more than Mr Dreyfus did 100 years ago.
2. Who said Traynor was unproductive? I certainly haven't. Strawman argument.
3. I have said in the thread that during Traynor's career he was overall the best 3B in baseball. I have also said that that isn't saying much given his competition at the time.
4. I have been arguing that Traynor is not a worthy HOFer. Which, as the links I have provided show, I am far from alone in so feeling.
5. It has been said in this thread that Traynor was the best 3B of the first 80-90 years of baseball. Which is certifiably insane when Frank Baker is part of the equation.
6. Tommy Leach was a more productive third baseman than Pie Traynor. Traynor played the position for a longer time, I get that. I simply said that Leach, while a third baseman for the Pirates, was more productive than Traynor . Not sure how that means that Traynor was unproductive.
7. Not sure your point regarding the trade you mention. To me it shows why we know more now in some ways than Barney did then. It was a smart trade in as much as Dreyfus got the team younger. He took a chance that the year Solly had two years prior (when he was one of the top four hitters in the NL) was not a career year. Turned out it was. He took a chance on King Cole who two years prior had been the toast of the league in his rookie season. 20-4 with a league leading ERA. Barney may have been a bit fooled by Cole's pedestrian sophomore season because he went 18-7 and wins were everything back then. Today we know that Cole's peripherals were way down from his rookie year and that should have been a warning sign. It wasn't a bad trade as, like I said, they got younger and took two players with potentially higher upside. It didn't work out and Leach had a couple solid years left in him.
8. As an aside, I bet the Pirates wish they had traded Traynor at the same age as they traded Leach. Traynor wasn't very good thereafter whereas Leach actually had some better than average years remaining.
Tom C