OK, Shoeless Joe vs Dick Allen

[leecemark]

--Just as hitters...
1) Bonds
2) Schmidt
3) Ramirez
4) Martinez
5) Rodriguez
6) Jackson
7) Guerro
8) Brett
9) Clark
10) Sheffield
11) Delgado
12) Giambi
13) Singleton
14) Sosa
15) Cooper
16) Hernandez
17) Cedeno
18) Oglive
19) Kent
20) Bell
--that was with no stat checking and, again, as hitters only.

[538280]

You're honestly telling me you've never heard that before? Of course there's no proof, just as with most steroid users, but there are a lot of allegations, and some actual verified connections. Curt Wenzlaff, the guy who supplied Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire with their steroids in the late 80's, was one of Reggie Jackson's best friends (not just was an acquantance of his, but actually slept in his guest room all the time and stuff), as well as Reggie's personal trainer.

Of course I've heard that. It's nothing but a load of crap from a bunch of people who ridiculously hate Reggie for being loudmouth and want to connect him with something just out of pure hate. This is a short excerpt from a New York Daily News Article:

However, Wenzlaff's longtime friend Reggie Jackson, who Wenzlaff insists never used steroids or knew he was dealing them, says he saw Wenzlaff and Canseco work out and socialize together.

"Yes, they had spent some time together," says Jackson, who met Wenzlaff after his career ended with the Oakland A's in 1987.

"Curt's a good guy that got mixed up in steroids at a very young age. He's a good, solid, stand-up guy and he's honest."

Jackson, who let Wenzlaff stay in his Oakland home for long stretches in the late 1980s, says he was not aware that Wenzlaff had allegedly supplied steroids to Canseco or anyone else until last year when Wenzlaff testified before a Senate subcommittee investigating steroid use in pro, college and high school sports.

Yes, there's no proof whatsoever Reggie was ever on steroids, no circumstantial evidence. What really annoyed me is that you said it as if everyoneshould give Reggie a hit for steroids because everyone knows he used them.

[Ubiquitous]

From 1976 to 1980.
Mike Schmidt
Reggie Jackson
George Brett
George Foster
Dave Parker
Eddie Murray (though he would move to the next level in the ensuing years)
Rod Carew
Jim Rice
Pete Rose


To me that list has quite a few all time greats with a few just missing the cut because of age. Players like Joe Morgan, johnny bench, Willie Stargell, and McCovey.

[ElHalo]

--Just as hitters...
1) Bonds
2) Schmidt
3) Ramirez

I'm trying very, very, VERY hard to come up with a set of circumstances where Mike Schmidt could be considered a better hitter than Manny Ramirez. Very hard.

It's obviously not in contact hitting, where Manny's a .314 hitter and batting champion and Schmidt's, well, Schmidt. Schmidt's got a small BB lead, but Manny's no slouch, and has a sizable lead on Schmidt in the on base department. It can't be in slugging, where Manny isn't quite Schmidt's match in relative HR's, but almost, and more than makes up for it by being a doubles machine. What other aspects of hitting am I missing?

Manny is almost, but not quite, as good of a hitter as guys like Foxx or Mantle. Schmidt is probably roughly equal in skill as a hitter to, say, Jim Thome; or, to put it in a slightly more historical context... say Frank Howard. That's two completely different planets of hitting skill, and for you to say that Schmidt should be ahead of Manny as a hitter just truly boggles my mind.

[ElHalo]

From 1976 to 1980.
Mike Schmidt
Reggie Jackson
George Brett
George Foster
Dave Parker
Eddie Murray (though he would move to the next level in the ensuing years)
Rod Carew
Jim Rice
Pete Rose


To me that list has quite a few all time greats with a few just missing the cut because of age. Players like Joe Morgan, johnny bench, Willie Stargell, and McCovey.

Let's take a quick run through this list.

Schmidt and Brett are all time greats, of course, but that's largely because they were third basemen. If Brett's a left fielder, he's Goose Goslin. If Schmidt's a left fielder, he's Frank Howard. Both tremendous ballplayers, but more for their all around skill than, strictly speaking, their skill with the bat.

Reggie Jackson I'm not even going to get into yet again.

Carew is easily my favorite 70's player, but he falls in that BA hell of underratedness that a lot of similar guys (Gwynn, Terry, Heilmann) get thrown into because people forget just how tremendously valuable they were without winning HR crowns.

Eddie Murray's good, of course, but by no means even remotely sniffing at greatness... he's a not nearly as good version of Raphael Palmeiro, who nobody would have remembered fifty years from now if it wasn't for the steroids.

None of the rest of the guys on your list would even get a SNIFF of an all star game if they were playing today. Unless Rose happened to be playing 2B in the AL that day.

[ElHalo]

Of course I've heard that. It's nothing but a load of crap from a bunch of people who ridiculously hate Reggie for being loudmouth and want to connect him with something just out of pure hate. ...

Yes, there's no proof whatsoever Reggie was ever on steroids, no circumstantial evidence. What really annoyed me is that you said it as if everyoneshould give Reggie a hit for steroids because everyone knows he used them.

First off, I don't hate Reggie for being a loudmouth. Far from it. David Wells is my favorite current baseball player, and my main man Rajah was one of the hardest guys in baseball history to get along with. I just think that it's unfair that people look at his career HR total and think he's an all timer instead of looking at his BA and OBP and realizing he's lucky to be in the Hall. Second, no, there is no proof, and I firmly stated such before... but a whole lot of people have had steroid tags slapped on them for a whole lot less (such as, for example, Todd Helton, Alfonso Soriano, Jim Edmonds, Adrian Beltre, Jason Schmidt, and Carl Pavano).

[538280]

I'm trying very, very, VERY hard to come up with a set of circumstances where Mike Schmidt could be considered a better hitter than Manny Ramirez. Very hard.

It's obviously not in contact hitting, where Manny's a .314 hitter and batting champion and Schmidt's, well, Schmidt. Schmidt's got a small BB lead, but Manny's no slouch, and has a sizable lead on Schmidt in the on base department. It can't be in slugging, where Manny isn't quite Schmidt's match in relative HR's, but almost, and more than makes up for it by being a doubles machine. What other aspects of hitting am I missing?

Manny is almost, but not quite, as good of a hitter as guys like Foxx or Mantle. Schmidt is probably roughly equal in skill as a hitter to, say, Jim Thome; or, to put it in a slightly more historical context... say Frank Howard. That's two completely different planets of hitting skill, and for you to say that Schmidt should be ahead of Manny as a hitter just truly boggles my mind.

Ever heard of a positional adjustment?

[leecemark]

--I wasn't making any positional adjustment. My ranking Schmidt ahead of Ramirez as a hitter was based primarily on one fact. At his peak Mike Schmidt led the NL in OPS+ 6 times in 7 years. Manny has led the AL once in his career. It might be that Manny has had better competition for the top spot, although I'm not convinced that is true. Even if that is part of it,being the best in your league 6 times to somebody eles's one is a pretty big advantage.

[four tool]

I said if the 1970s are better than the deadball era, today's era must be better than the 70s so today's players must be as superior to the players of the seventies as those players are to the deadball players.

Granted it doesn't affect Jackson vs. Allen, but it effects the claim that Allen is one of the top 25 hitters of all time.

[ElHalo]

--I wasn't making any positional adjustment. My ranking Schmidt ahead of Ramirez as a hitter was based primarily on one fact. At his peak Mike Schmidt led the NL in OPS+ 6 times in 7 years. Manny has led the AL once in his career. It might be that Manny has had better competition for the top spot, although I'm not convinced that is true. Even if that is part of it,being the best in your league 6 times to somebody eles's one is a pretty big advantage.

No, not really. Dan Brouthers led his league in OPS+ 8 times... does that mean he's a better hitter than Gehrig, who only did it three?

[538280]

I said if the 1970s are better than the deadball era, today's era must be better than the 70s so today's players must be as superior to the players of the seventies as those players are to the deadball players.

Granted it doesn't affect Jackson vs. Allen, but it effects the claim that Allen is one of the top 25 hitters of all time.

Why is that true? Why if baseball today is better than deadball baseball baseball today also has to be better than 1970s baseball? Those are two completely different issues that don't effect one another.

[538280]

No, not really. Dan Brouthers led his league in OPS+ 8 times... does that mean he's a better hitter than Gehrig, who only did it three?

No, because Brouthers did that in the 1880s, when the league was really, really, weak.

[four tool]

Why is that true? Why if baseball today is better than deadball baseball baseball today also has to be better than 1970s baseball? Those are two completely different issues that don't effect one another.

How can two eras affect each other but have no basis for using them to compare players from a third era also? You're saying we can compare the players from the 1970s to the deadball players, but cannot use the same comparisons vis-a-vis today's players.

[ElHalo]

No, because Brouthers did that in the 1880s, when the league was really, really, weak.

Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner!

And Schmidt did it in the 1980's, when baseball was almost as weak as in Brouthers' day.

[538280]

How can two eras affect each other but have no basis for using them to compare players from a third era also? You're saying we can compare the players from the 1970s to the deadball players, but cannot use the same comparisons vis-a-vis today's players.

We can't use the same comparisons becuase the league has changed in quality (in my opinion for the worse) from the 1970s to today. You can take your thoughts on league quality, and apply it to the players. We can still compare players in the same way, just making different LQ adjustments.

For example, I think Allen's era was probably about 20% better than Jackson's. So, I can adjust Allen's stats up 20% to give him what I feel is the proper boost. I feel today's baseball is 15% better than Jackson's era, so we can increase a current player's stats by 15% to give him the proper boost. Understand?