Carew vs Bagwell

[George H Ruth]

In your opinion who was the better overall player? And why?

Thoughts?

[PVNICK]

Overall careerwise Bagwell gets my vote. Carew gets bogged down, so to speak, by being a high average little else 1B with the Angels. If we are talking the Twins version of Carew, if the defense at 2B was at least average I would prefer him, especially with the baserunning thrown in. But Bagwell has more R, RBI, and a 149 OPS+ to Carew's 131 and there is so much career where they were at the same position. Interestingly WAR has then at 0.1 apart.

[Tyrus4189Cobb]

I think it's unfair to penalize Carew for not being an offensive power threat while at first. He started as a second baseman, then moved to first. It's not like his skills were going to shift because of a position change. This is why I consider him a second baseman when I do my yearly "Top Ten by Position" poll.

[3and2Fastball]

Very different players who played in very different eras. I would give the edge to Bagwell because of his superior OPS+ numbers and power but I am a big fan of Rod Carew and his career .328 BA

[pheasant]

As a Twins' fan, I am torn. I loved watching Carew bat. He had the smoothest swing and he was a great base stealer and bunter. But Bagwell's power is too much to ignore. I'm afraid I'd pick Bagwell for peak, but just barely.

[3and2Fastball]

I took the time to look deeper at the numbers and would now give a pretty significan edge to Bagwell here.... I forgot that while he wasn't a baserunner on the level of Carew, he did steal quite a few bases earlier in his career.... and Bagwell was way better than Carew at getting on base, and much more durable until his career ending injury....

[Ben Grimm]

This is a tough one for me because of two things.

The casual fan considers Carew a career 2B when in fact he's very close to 50/50 in games played between 1B & 2B.

The casual fan also discounts Bagwell's years spent in a brutal ballpark and will also link him to the steroid era.

[BigRon]

Two outstanding, very different players. Carew wasn't a particularly good second baseman- as I recall, he was mediocre on turning the double play and I think the Twins were also worried about him getting hurt there. So, he moved to first where he was less valuable- though still valuable- because of his lack of power. Had Carew been able to stay at second he might have had a better chance here.

I see Bagwell as a top 35-40 all time position player, He did everything you can ask of a first baseman. Excellent average, outstanding power, plate discipline. He ran very well for a first baseman and was a good gloveman.He was a topflight, consistent player for a dozen years before he got hurt. Carew, to me is a top 60-70 guy. Really great, but a tier down from Bagwell. Not enough defense at second, not enough pop at first.