Trivia Question
dallasactuary
Posts: 4,338 ✭✭✭✭✭
in Sports Talk
Based on Win Shares (Bill James' calculated stat that attempts to quantify the total value of a player's hitting, pitching, fielding and base running), there were five players in the 20th century who were (a) the most valuable player in baseball over a five-year period, and (b) more than 25% more valuable than the second-best player over that period.
Who can name all 5?
Who can name all 5?
This is for you @thisistheshow - Jim Rice was actually a pretty good player.
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Comments
/s/ JackWESQ
Ruth's the easy one, Wagner is too when you think about who else was playing in the first decade of the century. Wagner was nearly 50% better than #2 at one stretch, by far the biggest 1-2 gap in history.
The hardest two, I think, are Morgan and Schmidt, but they were indeed head and shoulders above their contemporaries for several years.
The fifth one hasn't been mentioned which I find fitting, although JackWESQ probably knows the answer (hint).
Some of the very greatest players don't make the list because they played at the same time. Musial and Williams and DiMaggio, Mantle and Aaron and Mays - they completely cancel each other off the list. Aaron and Mays actually have one five-year stretch where they are exactly tied. Ty Cobb had Wagner, Ruth and Walter Johnson; Gehrig had Ruth, Foxx and Ott.
I would guess Barry Bonds had enough awesome seasons to be an addition.
Mantle is not one of the five. He's #1 over several five-year stretches, but being 25% better than both Mays and Aaron is something he never accomplished; to be fair to Mays and Aaron, they were also each #1 playing at the same time as Mantle (but never by close to 25%).
Schmidt was, for a time, 25% better than Brett, in roughly equal parts hitting, fielding, and staying healthy (Brett missed a lot of games, and there is 0 value in sitting on the bench). No single gap was remarkable but at his peak, Schmidt was enough better at all three to reach the 25% marker.