Ted Williams vs Carl Yastrzemski

[SHOELESSJOE3]

I see your point, Willshad, but I think you may be generalizing across viewpoints. I lauded Yaz and pointed out that Rice shared his home/away OPS+ splits, but I have never considered Rice a fraud thereby. I feel that his strength in triple crown categories does not accurately indicate his ability to help his teams win, but that's a different story.

Yaz was great because he took advantage of Fenway AND

had a career OPS+ of 130 for 14000 plate appearances
ranks 25th in career WAR for position players
carried the Red Sox on his back to the pennant in 67
won three batting championships, five on-base titles, three slugging titles, seven gold gloves
Four adjusted OPS+ titles, three offensive WAR titles, five times in the top three. . .

I think you can see where this is going. Aside from the home/away split, he and Jim Rice don't have that much in common.

I absolutely agree, however, that anyone who looks at Yaz's home OPS+ as an accomplishment, not a pile of filth that contaminates his career, should grant Jim Rice the same courtesy.

I don't see it that way but I don't get some downplaying the fact that he made hay at home, hugh gap home away.
Anyone wanting to give him credit for taking advantage of that home park, not a problem, only saying his stats were padded by that home park.
Funny when it's Hornsby we keep hearing about some of his home parks, why is Yaz looked upon differently
All one has to do is look at the chart I posted, post #42, some Bosox hitters home and away, the park was made for hitting.
Not a bad thing but a fact. The home/away gaps are hugh.

[TonyK]

Having seen both of them play I would say Ted was the better ballplayer. I wonder if he might have won a World Series or two with the same teammates that Yaz had?

[dl4060]

To bring the discussion back to Yaz: In 1977, the Red Sox home-away split in OPS was 115/86 (measured against their own average of 100, not against the league). But for Yaz, the home-away split was 123/76 (again, measured against his own average of 100).

Compared to the league, Yaz has a 115 OPS for away games (i.e. 15% better than the average player playing away) and a 161 home OPS (i.e. 61% better than the average player at home).

So from three perspectives, comparing Yaz with his teammates, comparing him with the league, and comparing him with himself, it's clear that Fenway per se is not the whole story. Yaz was smart enough and skillful enough to exploit his home park at a truly outstanding rate. Lifetime, his personal home-road split was 115/86 (again, vs his own average of 100).

This is really unusual. Ott, Wynn, Ruth, and Teddy F. Ballgame had splits of around 104-6/96-4. Interestingly, another doubles champ, Tris Speaker, has a 114/86 split (from 1918-1930). Jim Rice's splits were also the same.

Success on the home field at this level isn't something that just happens if you just show up with a bat and glove and let the park effects carry you along.

In 1977, the Red Sox scored 495 at home, 364 on the road for a 1.35:1 ratio. Using crude runs created (TB * OBA) gives Yaz 66 runs created at home and 40 on the road, for a 1.65:1 ratio. So in 77 Yaz did better at home than the typical Fenway slugger by 1.65 to 1.35, or +22%.

I get a better sense of Yaz's accomplishments from comparing Yaz's own splits with those of his mates and the league than I do from comparing Houston to Boston in two different years. It is a huge difference, but not as huge as Yaz's.

He was 37, had a WAR of 4.1, and it was his last really good season.

This is exactly the sort of info I was talking about. He seemed to take advantage of Fenway, more so than others.

Like I said before, Wade Boggs had big Fenway splits. Then, when he went to the Yanks, his splits were quite big. He seemed to adapt to Yankee Stadium.

[GiambiJuice]

Fun fact: Ted and Yaz are the only AL players of the Live Ball era with three batting titles and three OPS titles.