Honus Wagner vs. Lou Gehrig

[Cowtipper]

Another battle of two greats.

Honus Wagner had a stellar 21-year career, in which he had over 3,400 hits, 700 stolen bases, 1,700 runs scored and 1,700 RBI. He holds the record for most triples by a right-handed batter.

Lou Gehrig, in his own right, had over 2,700 hits, with nearly 500 home runs, 1,900 runs scored and 2,000 RBI. He trails Wagner in black and grey ink, but beats him in OPS and OPS+.

But which one was better?

[GiambiJuice]

They are both in the top 6 or 7 players of all time, so we're splitting hairs here, but I'll go with Wagner due to his all-around game and longevity.

[pheasant]

This one is a really tough call. Honus was without a question a more complete player. The question is whether or not Gehrig's edge in hitting would be enough to cover the spread. I like to assume some modest increase in League quality through time. I'll quantify it and say 5 OPS+ per 20 years(excluding the 1940s, which was terrible quality due to the War). Thus, Wagner's mid 150s OPS+ would translate to high 140s in Gehrig's era. THat's a whopping 30 point spread. Is Wagner's positional value and excellent baserunning enough to cover that spread? I'd say that it probably is. Wagner was a great defensive shortstop and a great baserunner. I'll take that over a decent 1st baseman that was a decent runner with an era-adjusted OPS+ that's about 30 points higher. But I think Wagner wins this battle outright. I cannot see a case for Gehrig unless you think that Wagner's adjustment to the Live Ball era would have been around Cobb's level, which wasn't very good. I believe Wagner was stronger than Cobb and would have adjusted better than Ty did.

[PVNICK]

Wagner is top three or five for me. I could see a (quirky) case for him as #1. Gehrig is the next step down in the 6-10 range. Wagner was maybe 90-95% or more the hitter Gehrig was, and played what appears to be an A level SS and ran the bases well.

[Honus Wagner Rules]

Guess who I voted for?

[redban]

I go with Lou Gehrig.

Wagner came from a completely different era, and a player like him became obsolete very quickly.

Gehrig was a player more modern. In 2012, I can actually look at his career stats and appreciate them. Not so with Wagner.

[Dude Paskert]

I feel that Wagner would have been a great player in any era, while Lou probably wouldn't have been such a standout in Honus' time.
You could also stick Wagner pretty much anywhere other than P or C on defense and get good results, certainly not true with Lou (even ignoring him being a lefty).
No disrespect to the Iron Horse, but this one's pretty easy for me.

[BigRon]

Two alltime great players- the greaterst shortstop and the greatest first baseman. I have Wagner at about number 6 among position players and Gehrig at 9-10, so it's quite close. Gehrig clearly is among the 5-6-7 or so greatest hitters, but Wagner's in the top 15 or so. Gehrig probably lost several good seasons to his disease, but remember this- Wagner played 7 seasons at an older age than Gehrig's oldest. Gehrig's stats show no natural decline phase, while Wagner is one of the alltime leaders in games played past the age of about 37.

Wagner's all around skills were enormous- I have no doubt that had he come up in Gehrig's time, he would have been a high average power hitter, routinely hitting 25+ homers- a feat unheard of for shortstops before WW2. Wagner was a great baserunner and an outstanding fielder. His all around performance overrides Gehrig's hitting.

[pheasant]

One thing about Wagner is that he aged so well; arguably better than anyone in history that didn't take steroids. From ages 36-42, he still hit .298 in the Dead Ball era with a 127 OPS+ and averaged 4.7 WAR per year. That's huge for a guy way past his prime. He accumulated 32.9 WAR from ages 36-42. Had he only matched that performance his previous 7 years, then he still would have had a 65.8 WAR over 14 years. That is arguably good enough to make the Hall. I.e, Wagner from ages 36-42 was close to a Hall of Fame caliber type of player. That is insane.

[rsuriyop]

In a more livelier era I think Wagner would've been more like Willie Mays playing SS, while Gehrig probably would've been more like Sam Crawford playing 1B in the Deadball Era. I'll take Wagner without hesitation.

[Nimrod]

Here is a picture of Wagner that I posted a short time ago on a different thread.The photo is from 1931 when Wagner was a coach with the Pirates batting in an exhibition/old-timers game.You can see what approach Wagner would have taken had he played in Gehrig`s era.Gone is the thick handled hickory bat and hands apart choke grip.Those are replaced with a thin handled white ash bat and hands together down at the knob grip.Note Wagner`s freakishly wide shoulders and HUGE hams...er...hands,the better to blast the ball into orbit as he appears to do in this photo.Also note that Wagner and the umpire seem to be looking to the same distant spot,but the poor catcher is looking almost straight up!honus wagner 1931.jpg

[pheasant]

Great photo. Look at his shoulders. He looks like a football player. And he's what, 57 or 58 years old there. That guy might have been good enough to play in the Live Ball era--at the age of 50!

[3and2Fastball]

I think Wagner was better than Gehrig but the difference wasn't a huge amount. Wagner would be much more difficult to replace though. I'm not quite sure who the 2nd greatest SS of all-time is (maybe Arky Vaughan or Pop Lloyd or Willie Wells?) but the difference between that guy and Wagner is bigger than the difference between, say, Gehrig and Albert Pujols or Jimmie Foxx....

And then there is Wagner's versatility (he was even successful as a pitcher the few times he pitched in MLB!). If I was drafting an All-Time team I'd do my best to get both Wagner & Gehrig but I'd put a higher priority on Wagner (first I'd make sure to get Ty Cobb though!)

[Dude Paskert]

Here is a picture of Wagner that I posted a short time ago on a different thread.The photo is from 1931 when Wagner was a coach with the Pirates batting in an exhibition/old-timers game.You can see what approach Wagner would have taken had he played in Gehrig`s era.Gone is the thick handled hickory bat and hands apart choke grip.Those are replaced with a thin handled white ash bat and hands together down at the knob grip.Note Wagner`s freakishly wide shoulders and HUGE hams...er...hands,the better to blast the ball into orbit as he appears to do in this photo.Also note that Wagner and the umpire seem to be looking to the same distant spot,but the poor catcher is looking almost straight up!

That's a great shot...it honestly looks to me like Wagner is holding the knob in his bottom hand, which I think Ruth did at times and is also pretty common amongst slowpitch power hitters. I think that Honus was pretty flexible as a hitter even in his dead ball prime and would bring his hands together when he wanted to drive the ball, while using the split grip when he wanted to place it. Wagner was a fitness fanatic and had massive forearms, at least partly from working out with weights many years ahead of his time.
I've seen a few shots of Wagner hitting in which he looked a lot like Hornsby and Foxx...tended to bring his weight well forward and lift the back foot at or just after contact, but was clearly trying to really put some oomph into that ball.

[pheasant]

Wagner from 1900-1909 was pretty sick. I guess I feel a little better now about choosing him over Gehrig. He was almost always in the top 5 in just about every major category during that 10 year span.

Here's how often he was in the top 5 during that decade in just about every important category that I can think of:

WAR: 10 times(1st 9 times, 2nd 1 time)
dWAR: 6 times
OPS+: 9 times(1st 6 times)
SB: 9 times(1st 5 times)

avg: 10 times(1st 7 times, 2nd 1 time)
OB%: 9 times(1st 4 times)
slug%: 9 times(1st 6 times)
runs: 7 times(1st 2 times)
hits: 10 times(1st 1 time)
TB: 10 times(1st 6 times)
2b: 10 times(1st 7 times)
3b: 6 times(1st 3 times)
HR: 2 times
RBI: 10 times(1st 4 times)

defensively, he was in the top 5 in the following: putouts(6 times), assists(6 times), fielding pct(6 times).

His homerun power was his weakest link. Other than that, he was pretty much the best for just about every other category! And he did this as a shortstop. Even at face value, his .328/.391/.467 look good. But consider that he played most of his career in the worst hitters' park ever with the deadest ball ever and he looks even better.