Greater player. Eddie Murray or Palmeiro

craig44

Pretty similar players overall. Played the same position and finished with similar counting numbers. Who do you take? Palmeiro has the slightly better rate stats, but also has the PED cloud hanging over his head.

dallasactuary

Palmeiro doesn't have a "PED cloud" hanging over him, he was struck dead by lightning from the PED storm he created. What he did was not allowed under the rules of baseball, so the game he was playing wasn't baseball; on that basis he was a worse baseball player than Mario Mendoza, let alone Eddie Murray.

That said, if we pretend that Palmeiro was a baseball player, I'd still rank him below Murray. Their stats are pretty similar, but Murray gets the edge because it was easier to put up those stats for Palmeiro than it was for Murray.

Palmeiro has a career OPS+ of 132 to Murray's 129, but Murray finished 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 10 in OPS+ during his career, while Palmeiro finished 2, 5, 6, 8, 8 and 10.

In Win Probability Added, Murray had 51.7 total and finishes of 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8 and 8. Palmeiro had 43.2 and finishes of 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

And if you compare their Win Shares from best season on down Murray beats Palmeiro, narrowly, every year (with two ties) except in their 9th best season where Palmeiro wins 22 to 21.

Murray was better at baseball than Palmeiro was at whatever game it was that Palmeiro was playing. Not by a lot, but by enough to make the gap clear.


I created a "dominance" index many years ago and the thread is probably still out there somewhere if any is so inclined to hunt it down. Babe Ruth, naturally, had the highest index with 104 (the number itself is meaningless, just compare it to other peoples numbers), Wagner had a 62, Williams had a 53, Schmidt a 55, Morgan a 49, Yaz a 39, Ripken a 34, Murcer a 29, Stargell a 26, Grich a 21, Perez an 18, Tenace a 10 and Mayberry a 4. The index gives no points at all for being good or very good, only for being one of the best in a season, and lots more points for being the very best than for being the fifth best.

Anyway, Murray's index was 37 and Palmeiro's index was 19. Murray was among the very best players in the majors much more often than Palmeiro.

craig44

I would agree that Murray was the better player, especially when comparing their performance against their peers. Maybe a better question would be where does Murray rank amongst his peers. Maybe from the late seventies through the early nineties? I don't think there would be many position players who would rank above him.

PM770

Murray began to tail off in 1991, but had one last great season for that magical 1995 Indians team. Had a rough start to 1996 and got traded.

Great player from that 1977-85 stretch before Baltimore completely fell of the map competitively.

All time career leader in Sac Flies which is interesting.

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: craig44Maybe a better question would be where does Murray rank amongst his peers. Maybe from the late seventies through the early nineties?

From 1978 through 1990, his prime, Murray had 334 Win Shares. Other players from his time look like this for their best 13 year stretch:

Schmidt - 413
Henderson - 378
Boggs - 342
Raines - 331
Brett - 330
Ripken - 329
Yount - 328
Sandberg - 316
Winfield - 303
Hernandez - 303
Gwynn - 302
Carter - 300
Singleton - 297
Molitor - 296
Grich - 295
Simmons - 286
Jack Clark - 283
Murphy - 283
Whitaker - 282
Puckett - 281
Butler - 280
Da. Evans - 279
Trammell - 275
Dw. Evans - 271
Dawson - 271
Rice - 270

Palmeiro's number is 309; right up there with other HOFers, but a clear step below Murray.

craig44

Thanks for the research Dallas. I knew Murray was great, I didn't realize quite how great. Could it be that Murray was one of the most underrated/underappreciated stars of his time?

dallasactuary

Originally posted by: craig44Could it be that Murray was one of the most underrated/underappreciated stars of his time?

He's underrated by some, but I don't think any first ballot HOFer can be considered all that much underrated. He did suffer, I think, for not being the best player on his team, although since he was clearly a better hitter than Ripken that minimized any damage to his reputation there may have been. McCovey and Mathews suffer the most from that, and Santo does, too, even though he was the best player on the Cubs; he wasn't as good as Banks was before Santo got there, though, so Banks was still regarded as "the best Cub" even after he wasn't.

perkdog

Without doing any research if Palmeiro was given a pass on the PED use I would have thought he would have blown Murray away. Interesting read

garnettstyle

Murray by a mile. The guy was a beast in the late 70's-early 80's.

Skin2

Originally posted by: dallasactuary
Palmeiro doesn't have a "PED cloud" hanging over him, he was struck dead by lightning from the PED storm he created. What he did was not allowed under the rules of baseball, so the game he was playing wasn't baseball; on that basis he was a worse baseball player than Mario Mendoza, let alone Eddie Murray.

That said, if we pretend that Palmeiro was a baseball player, I'd still rank him below Murray. Their stats are pretty similar, but Murray gets the edge because it was easier to put up those stats for Palmeiro than it was for Murray.

Palmeiro has a career OPS+ of 132 to Murray's 129, but Murray finished 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 10 in OPS+ during his career, while Palmeiro finished 2, 5, 6, 8, 8 and 10.

In Win Probability Added, Murray had 51.7 total and finishes of 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 5, 6, 8 and 8. Palmeiro had 43.2 and finishes of 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

And if you compare their Win Shares from best season on down Murray beats Palmeiro, narrowly, every year (with two ties) except in their 9th best season where Palmeiro wins 22 to 21.

Murray was better at baseball than Palmeiro was at whatever game it was that Palmeiro was playing. Not by a lot, but by enough to make the gap clear.


I created a "dominance" index many years ago and the thread is probably still out there somewhere if any is so inclined to hunt it down. Babe Ruth, naturally, had the highest index with 104 (the number itself is meaningless, just compare it to other peoples numbers), Wagner had a 62, Williams had a 53, Schmidt a 55, Morgan a 49, Yaz a 39, Ripken a 34, Murcer a 29, Stargell a 26, Grich a 21, Perez an 18, Tenace a 10 and Mayberry a 4. The index gives no points at all for being good or very good, only for being one of the best in a season, and lots more points for being the very best than for being the fifth best.

Anyway, Murray's index was 37 and Palmeiro's index was 19. Murray was among the very best players in the majors much more often than Palmeiro.

That analysis was spot on. Excellent job.

keets

Murray began to tail off in 1991, but had one last great season for that magical 1995 Indians team.



I think the argument could be made that the Indians were special that year in part because of guys like Eddie Murray and Dennis Martinez, veterans who helped some very good younger players to perform past their potential, so-to-speak. I remember that year well, for a good part of the season they flirted with having a .300 Team batting average and at times all nine hitters were over .300.



I'm sure that Murray helped take care of the bench and Martinez was doing the same with the pitching staff.