Great discussion folks! One point about Caruthers is that he crammed in many extra years of pitching in terms of innings pitched because of the way Comiskey used/abused him. Even if he probably deserves to be in based on pitching alone, his batting was legitimate: he finished second in average and first in on-base percentage in one of the years he played.
I think the only somewhat serious argument against Caruthers--and it also applies to Stovey--is that the American Association was too weak. But there are pretty good arguments against that belief, and in any event even if it were sometimes true for some years, you'd have to discount the league an extraordinary amount to knock out Caruthers.
|