The one player I am a bit surprised didn't get a even a single vote was Brian Giles. A .291 BA with only 287 career home runs may not seem like much for a right fielder. Yet when you look at his Runs above average he has 294 over a 15 year career. This averages to 19.6/year. This is actually better than Gwynn's 17.65 (353 over 20 years). This comes from his On Base % being 400. There are only 59 players who have a career OBP of 400 or higher. Gwynn's was only 388. Giles OPS was a 902, only 63 players have career OPS above 900 (Gwynn had an 847).
Now I use Gwynn as a comparison for these stats because he is unquestionably the greatest hitter of the modern game (post 80s). His batting average 338 compared to Giles 291. Giles was able to accomplish his OBP by walking a lot. His 162 game average for walks was 104 compared to Gwynn's 52. Giles also didn't lead in power, but he had enough to end his career with a 162 game average of 25, which helped bring his RBI's for a 162 game average to 95 compared to Gwynn's 9hr and 76 RBI average.
So Giles didn't have the batting average of a Gwynn, and he certainly didn't have the power of a Ruth. He stuck somewhere in the middle. His best 7 year RAA (Runs above average) total is 255. Gwynn's best 7 year total is 252. Gwynn's WAR7 (best 7 year WAR total) is 41.1 (ranked 18th for RF) whereas Giles is 37.3 (26th).
I can see how Giles wouldn't make it into the Hall, but for him not to even get a single vote while Darin Erstad got one just doesn't make sense.
One last note about Giles. His K% (strike outs divided by PA) was 10.7% and his BB% (walks divided by PA) was 15.1%. This when the average was 16.9% (K%) and 8.8% (BB%). This ranks him as excellent in both categories on fangraphs (
http://www.fangraphs.com/library/offense/rate-stats/).
01-06-2015, 08:21 PM
Brian Giles
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