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Who was better, Winfield or Yount?
craig44
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So these players are somewhat linked. Both were drafted in the first round of 1973. Yount 3rd, Winfield 4th. I believe the only time hofers have been drafted successively. Both shockingly have almost exactly the same number of PA and AB. But there is where the comparison ends. Two very different players. Winfield relied on power, Yount more on finesse.
In retrospect, if you were starting a team in 1973, who would you have chosen? Who was the greater player?
I would choose Yount. Less power, but still a good bat for two plus defensive positions. he has a sizable war advantage over big dave.
I think the brewers got it right back in 1973. What do you think?
In retrospect, if you were starting a team in 1973, who would you have chosen? Who was the greater player?
I would choose Yount. Less power, but still a good bat for two plus defensive positions. he has a sizable war advantage over big dave.
I think the brewers got it right back in 1973. What do you think?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
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Winfield could do spectacular things on the field. His arm was as much a weapon as his bat.
You can't argue the steadiness and dedication Yount provided his club. The fact that he stuck it out with Milwaukee for his entire career is as much of a testimony to his greatness as anything he ever did on the baseball field.
At the end of the day, I'm a Winfield fan, so my opinion is somewhat biased. He was an athletic wonder and a thrill to watch.
Also Yount had a really historic 1982. One of the best seasons ever by a shortstop.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Just to add, I love discussions like this. I was afforded the unique opportunity of seeing these guys play during the best days of their careers. I loved watching both of them play their sport with determination and guile.
Sometimes, the stats don't equal the facts completely. I'm not a big fan of the digital mish-mosh which comprises so much of today's thinking toward the game.
If there were a stat for driving pitchers nuts, I'd see Winfield near the top of that list. He had the ability to waste pitches and stay in the box. It's something that's taught all the way down the line. But there's no number for it. It just requires someone who's good at it.
I think we need to be able to measure things like "clutch" (if such a thing even exists) to be able to really understand who was better. the thing with using eyeball accounts is that humans are traditionally bad witnesses. We will often over exaggerate the good. For example, we tend to remember the game winning hit, but forget the dozen times a player popped out to the infield in a late and close situation. That is where statistics come in.
As far as playoffs, yount was better there. Ops of .888. He also hit .414 in his lone world Series.
Winfields ops was only .641. In two world series he hit .136.
In the playoffs, yount was clearly better though Winfield did have the one big hit.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Winfield also perfected the whiff. That big round swing missed plenty of fastballs. Yount made contact regularly, put the ball in play, moved runners with outs. I doubt Winfield was a precocious bunter or cared to roll a ball to the right side with a man on 2nd and no outs. I re-examined his Yankees stats, and dang! He was a rock for most of the 80s. Big power numbers, consistently. In Yankee Stadium. Playing for you-know-who. The guy who ultimately ran him out of town.
Yount played for Bud Selig. That must have been interesting.
I imagine he could have had much more productive seasons in 77,78 and 79 had he been fully committed from the outset. As it is, I think he was a top 10 all time shortstop.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
IT CAN'T BE A TRUE PLAYOFF UNLESS THE BIG TEN CHAMPIONS ARE INCLUDED
Winfield had the benefit of a 4 year college program with him as the feature guy in baseball AND basketball. Imagine the career he might have had on hardwood. So he was already well conditioned for the pros.
Yount was a San Fernando Valley phenom, and I think he was into dirt bikes for awhile, no? Those of us young guys who knew the game also knew about him for his local exploits. To be drafted as a teenager and be MLB ready so quickly was pretty amazing then. The focus on David Clyde was much heavier. He flamed out too soon.
Winfield had the benefit of a 4 year college program with him as the feature guy in baseball AND basketball. Imagine the career he might have had on hardwood. So he was already well conditioned for the pros.
Yup, Yount is the second most famous Taft alum after Ice Cube (class of '87).
Yount would still be a HOFer, Winfield wouldn't.
My vote... Yount.
This discussion will not be official until Dallas gets in here with his geek stats.
Indeed! LOL!
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
This discussion will not be official until Dallas gets in here with his geek stats.
I wonder if either one can compare favorably to the legendary
exploits of Gene Tenace in the world Dallas actuary lives in.
In the course of every human endeavor since the dawn of time the risk of human error has always been a factor. Including but not limited to field goals, 4th down attempts, or multiple paragraph ramblings on a sports forum authored by someone who shall remain anonymous.
This discussion will not be official until Dallas gets in here with his geek stats.
I wonder if either one can compare favorably to the legendary
exploits of Gene Tenace in the world Dallas actuary lives in.
I will say one thing, though~whether you agree with his assessments or not, he provides plenty of empirical evidence to support his assertions and is always intriguing with his analysis.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Both were great.....but.....I would take big Dave in a heartbeat. And play Ozzie Smith at SS....the best SS ever....period! And I'm not a Cardinal fan at all!
But... Ozzie Smith was still in high school in 1973. Shortstop is a much more important position than corner outfielder and Ozzie wasn't available in this scenario.
I still go with robin
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
He's two years later but I would have taken Jim Rice over both of them. Stud outfielder with a huge bat. Deserved HOF'er.
Rice is far inferior to both in my opinion. Really not a great choice for the hof. A very poor outfielder with a low obp for a corner outfielder. And all those double plays he grounded into. Led the league 4 years in a row.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Craig, i chose Rice for a reason. Was hoping it would attract the resident stat expert to come out and play.
Oh, I understand. The force is strong with this one.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Sorry, I missed this thread.
Both Yount and Winfield were great players, both easily deserve to be in the HOF, and in terms of overall value they're fairly similar. But if you're drafting in 1973 and somehow know what you're going to get, you should take Yount.
The margins aren't enormous, but if you sort from best season to worst Yount is better in seasons 1 through 8, and cumulatively he's about 10% better than Winfield over those years. Winfield is then better in seasons 9 through 16, and again by about 10%. Yount then wins the junky seasons beyond that. That sounds really even, but being 10% better in your peak seasons is worth a lot more than being 10% better in your mediocre seasons.
And just so it's clear, Winfield was clearly a better hitter than Yount. WAR doesn't show that because Yount's replacement player is a shortstop and Winfield's is an outfielder. So Yount was a better hitter than a random shortstop by a larger margin than Winfield was a better hitter than a random outfielder, but Winfield was still clearly better head to head. But the margin, while clear, isn't enormous, and Yount more than makes up the offensive gap with his fielding. Not that Yount was a stellar shortstop, but he was good, and a good shortstop is more valuable than even a great outfielder. And my apologies in advance if this bursts any bubbles, but Winfield was not a great outfielder. He had a great arm, but his range, which was adequate when he was young, was pretty bad for most of his career. He beats Yount 7-1 in Gold Gloves, but I don't think either one of them deserved any.
And Jim Rice isn't fit to wash either of their jockstraps, but he's busy washing Gene Tenace's so it doesn't matter.
Gene Tenace vs. Buddy Biancalana, who was better?
In the course of every human endeavor since the dawn of time the risk of human error has always been a factor. Including but not limited to field goals, 4th down attempts, or multiple paragraph ramblings on a sports forum authored by someone who shall remain anonymous.
Of the three main things that go into an evaluation of the two players, Offense, Defense, and positional value adjustment, it is the hitting measurement that is the most valid of the three.
When looking at their WAR of Winfield 63.8 vs Yount of 77, knowing that it is the defense and positional adjustment as the primary components or reasons why Yount has that 'not so big' a lead...also knowing that both those components have a low validity compared to the hitting measurements...I would actually lean toward Winfield because his high WAR stems mostly from the valid portion of the measurement(the offense. The offense excluding the WAR positional adjustment).
That is what people need to understand with WAR. The defensive and positional adjustments are murky at best, and that is why Ben Zobrist has led the league in WAR a couple times...and he was not the best players those times. Not at all.
If one looks at their Win Probability Added.
Winfield is at 40 wins above average.
Yount is at 20 wins above average.
Considering Yount's error prone ways at SS, the murky nature of defensive measurements in general, and the theory of positional adjustments not being nearly as valid as offensive measurements in baseball....I see Winfield as the preferable of the two, as his WAR is more valid.
I agree that defensive metrics are not really valid. However, a ss/cf is worth more than a corner outfielder.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Not when there is a large offensive gap...and the Shortstop isn't anything exceptional there.
Skin - I hear what you're saying but I'm sticking with Yount. What I said about their offense was, I think, correct; Winfield is clearly better, but the gap isn't enormous. Their WPA difference of about 1 per season is consistent with that description, I think.
And I referenced WAR because someone else before me did, but I didn't use it in reaching my conclusion. I agree that defensive WAR is crap. But you described Yount as "error prone" as a shortstop, and I don't know why. In the roughly half of his career that he spent at SS, his fielding% was exactly at league average, and he did that with a range factor that was well above league average. He certainly didn't have Ozzie Smith numbers, but he was better than average. In the other half of his career, Yount played CF, and had a fielding % and range factors better than average. Winfield, playing LF and RF, because he wasn't good enough to play the positions Yount played, had a fielding % just a hair above average but he did it with a range factor significantly below average.
I agree with you that defensive measurements, especially WAR, are "murky", but that is not the same thing as saying they don't matter. ALL of the various measurements show that Yount was much more valuable defensively than Winfield. Sometimes, WAR and WS and other defensive stats don't line up and it can indeed be "murky" just how to compare two players. Not so with Yount and Winfield - Yount was clearly more valuable on defense. Was he more valuable enough to make up 1 WPA per season? I won't claim that the answer to that can be proven one way or the other, but it sure appears to me that Yount was the better player overall.
Also, the OP presented the question in terms of who would you draft if both were available. If you draft Winfield, and the next team drafts Yount, when you finally get around to drafting a SS who are you going to take and how much worse than Yount will that SS be? In all likelihood, you will end up playing someone at SS who is much, much worse than Yount. The team that drafted Yount, on the other hand, is not going to get anyone as good as Winfield in RF, but they'll have a much easier time getting at least somewhat close than you will at SS.
No matter how you slice it, I think drafting Yount ahead of Winfield is the way to go.
The positional adjustments with WAR are just not valid, and neither are the defensive measurements. Yount is getting a high boost in positional adjustment because he is being compared to the league batting totals of the shortstop position. The problem is, baseball is not played in a position by position vacuum, as all players are intertwined, and it is impossible and wrong to only compare players vs their offensive position as WAR attempts to do.
Take for example Toby Harrah. Toby Harrah was a shortstop, and for several years a much better player than Robin Yount when they were in the league playing SS at the same time. Problem is, some managers/organizations make decisions that preclude players from playing SS, players that are more than capable of doing so. Also, some team situations also mean that some players play a position other than SS(like Arod and Jeter playing on same team). So the result is THAT THERE ARE MORE SS available to play there, even though they may not actually be playing there at the time. So it is foolish to preclude those players when comparing Yount to league SS, and then say, "Well Yount out-hit all these shortstops by so much, so he is that much better a player!"
From 1974-1976 Harrah had a 1.7 defensive WAR as a shortstop, which is very comparable to Yount. But then they decided to move him to third base for the next several years. That doesn't mean he wasn't a capable SS, and he IS in the pool of comparisons that Yount should be compared to, even though WAR doesn't add him in that pool, thus falsely looking like Yount is out hitting the other shortstops to the degree one thinks.
From 1977-1981 Toby Harrah had an OPS+ of 119
From 1977-1981 Robin Yount had an OPS+ of 105
Toby Harrah was a MUCH better hitter than Yount during those years, and he should be in the positional comparisons vs Yount. When you add those players in, then Yount's offensive star doesnt shine as bright
He doesn't outhit the position to the same degree, and his value is not the same as it seems.
The funny thing about Harrah is that he actually had a better defensive WAR from 1974-1976 as a SS, than he did from 1977-1979 as a third baseman! He was a SS.
Should Harrah have been playing SS in 1979?
Tom Veryzer was their SS and he had a 1.5 defensive WAR as a SS, and he had 0HR/22RBI/.220 AVG, and a 46 OPS+. He sucked. Plain and Simple. His defensive WAR wasn't much different than Harrah's at SS just a few years earlier.
1979
Tom Veryzer 0 HR/22 RBI/.220 AVG...46 OPS+
Toby Harrah 20 HR/71 RBI/.279 AVG...125 OPS+
Robin Yount 8 HR/51 RBI/,267 AVG.....83 OPS+.............2.3 WAR
Dave Winfield 32 HR/116 RBI/.283 AVG...138 OPS+.....2.3 WAR (1983 season)
in 1979 Toby Harrah was a much better baseball player than Robin Yount. He dwarfed Yount offensively. Problem is, his team played him at 3B even though he was a SS, and their SS was terrible. So when looking at available SS in MLB in 1979 Toby Harrah was most definitely one, but WAR does not use him to compare Yount to.
Instead, WAR compares Yount to Tom Veryzer's terrible offense, and that makes Yount look like a God...but Toby Harrah was better, and he should be in that comparison as well.
I added Dave Winfields 1983 season in there because he has the same WAR as Yount in 1979, despite being a MUCH better player than Yount was for that season...yet they get the same WAR credit.
My old school friends like Perkdog can see that Winfield's 1983 season was MUCH better than Yount's 1979 season, despite what WAR says, because that offensive line is just too big a difference, and Yount is no Ozzie Smith(and even if he was it STILL wouldn't matter in that case).
Those positional adjustments simply aren't accurate. The defensive measurements themselves are weak. The offensive ones are strong. Winfield is better. Toby Harrah was better for a long while too. Draft Harrah
skin - I think maybe you misunderstood me. I agree with everything you're saying about WAR so you don't need to convince me. Again, when I reached my conclusion that Yount was the better player, I didn't even look at WAR.
I did look at a lot of other things, but Win Shares sums up what all the other stats show pretty well. From best season to worst season, Yount - Winfield:
Winfield wins most of the remaining seasons by 1 or 2, and Yount wins a few by 1 or 2. So Win Shares says that they were essentially equal players from season 5 through season 21, but Yount was clearly, but not dramatically, better for seasons 1 through 4. Overall, Yount was better. I'll grant you that these two are close enough that I'm much more sure that Gene Tenace was better than Jim Rice than I am here, but if I'm drafting in 1973, knowing what I know now, I'd take Yount and feel pretty comfortable I'd made the right choice.
WinShares still employs the same positional adjustment. Again, just because teams employed players at SS doesn't mean there weren't better fits. Cal Ripken proved that the Mario Mendoza body mold for a SS is not necessary. In fact, the teams that employed Mario Mendoza would have been far better off drafting(or acquiring) people like Doug DeCinces, who played SS in the minor leagues, continue to develop him there, and no matter how weak a MLB defensive SS he was, he still would have made any team much better that employed Mario Mendoza(or similar) as their SS.
In 1979 Mendoza had an OPS+ of 25. 25!! That is worse than pitchers hitting. His defensive WAR was 1.5(nothing special), That is who Yount is being compared to, and that is ridiculous. Add Doug DeCinces, and Toby Harrah to compare to Yount...instead of Mario Mendoza and Ton Veryzer who were foolishly employed at SS, then you have a different view of Robin Yount's value.
So Dallas, somewhere in your comparisons, you are going to have Robin Yount's 1979 season being nearly equal to Dave Winfield's 1983 season(as pointed out above). That simply is not accurate because Yount is only being favorably compared in that comparison because he is being measured against Mario Mendoza and Tom Veryzer, and that is not a valid way to do it!
How do they stack up in Win Probability Added top seasons?
Winfield 7.2, 4.7, 4.5, 3.8, 3.6, 3.2, 2.8, 2.7, 2.6, 1.9
Yount......4.1, 3.8, 3.4, 3.2, 2.4, 2.2, 2.1, 1.9, 1.7, 1.5
BTW, Yount's 1979 season he had a NEGATIVE 2.3 WPA, and Winfield had 3.8 for his 1983 season. Yet WAR has them as equals because of smoke and mirrors with the positional adjustment(as pointed out above).
So to answer the question of the OP, draft Winfield...then you can draft guys later like Harrah, Decinces, Ripken etc, mold them as your SS...all of whom will be just as good, or better than Yount at SS overall...or guys who are at least close enough to Yount....and you get your GUARANTEED value with Dave Winfield, and not the value of smoke and mirrors with Yount and the positional adjustment..
skin, I think positional adjustments are important. Otherwise we are making unfair comparisons between positions. Should we be comparing catchers against first baseman without making a positional adjustment? Do you think Gehrig would have produced the same numbers had he caught for 15 years? Of course not. We also need to not delve into the realm of speculation such as when you say other players "could" have played shortstop at the same time yount did. In reality, they didn't. Positional adjustments should only be made using same position players contemporary to yount. I also don't see yount as poorly defensively as you do.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
No, Win Shares does not employ any positional adjustment (except for "closers", which is the one glaring flaw in the system). It places higher value on the positions that make the most plays, but it does this directly by assigning a value to each play made rather than through any type of adjustment. A SS making 750 plays a year has much more value (contributes more to his team winning) than a RF making half as many plays. If, under some bizarre set of circumstances, a team's right fielder made more plays than its shortstop (and assuming they were both equally successful with the plays they made), the RF would get more Win Shares than the SS while WAR would "adjust" that away. (Note: I have grossly oversimplified how Win Shares works for fielding - it distinguishes between routine and non-routine plays, for example - but this is the gist of it.)
Win Shares for Robin Yount in 1979: 14 (loosely translates to "bad"; terrible at the plate, above average in the field)
Win Shares for Dave Winfield in 1983: 22 (loosely equates to "good"; very good at the plate, below average in the field)
A difference of 8 Win Shares in one season is substantial. It is the difference between Eddie Murray and Carney Lansford in 1984.
Win Shares is an infinitely better system than WAR; when you find a season where WAR is showing you a result that doesn't make any sense, you can be pretty sure that Win Shares will show you something very different.
As pointed out, Harrah DID play SS. Others similarly could. It was poor managerial/organizationl decisions that precluded those players from playing that poistion in a particular season...so that is a measure of the manager, not the value of Yount and being compared to available SS like Harrh instead of veryzer or Mendoza.
Sure, you can compare the two as ss for the years they both did play ss, but poor managers decision or not, when Harrah was a 3b, the comparison is invalid. We have to stay in reality as much as possible. You also need to keep in mind that for the years you compared the two that yount had yet to hit his prime whereas Harrah was already there. If you try to compare any of Harrah's ss seasons with younts 1982, yount will come out on top significantly.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Wrong. WAR is stating Yount's value vs replacement level SS. Harrah is a replacment SS. WAR does not account for that fact. They are ignoring the fact that Harrah is a replacement SS. Actually, he IS a SS...just being played in the wrong position by his organization. So when people go around saying "look how much Yount out-hit the league average SS," they are not accounting for the other SS around the league who are more than capable of playing there, but simply aren't due to a organziational decision. That IS the realm of reality. Yount's value isn't as high as WAR states, because he could be replaced by Harrah(or Ripken before he moved to SS)...yet they only look at the Tom Veryzer's of the league.
In another example, imagine today if Javy Baez was actually hitting his 35 home runs, but is playing left field becasuse 2B and SS are occupied by the Cubs. It is foolish to think that Javy Baez and his 35 Home are not considered when measure the value of a SS vs their peers...because he IS one of their peers...just not playing that spot at the moment or season.
In the case of Harrah, a smarter team, or a team with a desperate need(like Mendoza's team), Harrah would be playing SS. He is a peer, and IS in the pool of replacement shortstops...but WAR unrealistically excludes him.
In 1979, two years after no longer being a regluar SS, Harrah ended up playing part time there again(REPLACING THE STARTER
...and he out played Campaneris defensively that year at SS). Even though he played 3B most of the time, he was in the pool of viable replacement SS for Yount to be compared to...yet WAR fails to see that, and does not compare Yount to the SUPERIOR Harrah.
Decinces is a guy drfated as a SS. He would be a vast improvement over Mario Mendoza as a SS to the team that employs him there. It isn't a matter of if. He iS. That answers the OP question, you CAN fill that SS position better than you think, and you DO NOT have to resort to Ton VEryzer or Mario Mendoza to do so, as WAR says you do.
Forgive me for NOT thinking like many of those stupid GM's that failed to see this logic.
Wrong, you are creating your own reality here. Maybe Harrah was capable of playing ss, but in reality he was playing third. You can make any hypothetical you want, but it is not reality. There are many athletes who have the ability to play many different positions. However, we can only measure them with the positions they ACTUALLY played. I am sure Aroid could have played 2b, but we can't make an adjustment for him playing there just because he could have. It is too bad that management didn't play Harrah at ss for his whole career, but they didn't. Therefore you don't get to compare him to shortstops during the years he was a 3 baseman. Baseball is full of could have beens, or should haves but we need to stick to reality.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I think there are two different arguments going on here. skin is criticizing the WAR method for the manner in which they define a replacement player, and then rate a player by how well he compares to that replacement player. Under WAR, Robin Yount is rated higher because Mario Mendoza is bad. And when Mendoza retires, Yount immediately becomes worse. I agree with skin that this is nonsense. Skin is not arguing that Harrah should be himself rated as a shortstop, but rather that the WAR system should recognize that Harrah could play shortstop and include him, and others like him, in their definition of "replacement player". I don't know how WAR could do this, though, because there are several overlapping flaws in the system. Better to just ignore it.
Craig, the point is lost on you. Not surpirsed. It is lost on a lot of GM's too, so don't fee bad. Baseball isn't played position vs position. They are intertwined. When comparing Robin Yount to replacement level SS, if Toby Harrah is not part of that comparison, then you are getting an invalid comparison, because Harrah is a SS peer, regardless where his current team is choosing to play him.
You can't say, "Robin Yount is so great because SS is such a hard position to fill", and then point to WAR and Tom Veryzer as an example, and then neglect the fact that Toby Harrah is also a SS that can fill the position that you are claiming is so hard to fill.
So when you ask the question, "who do you pick, Winfield or Yount," and then support your Yount decision by saying the position is so hard to fill, and use a measure that thinks Veryzer and Mendoza are the only alternatives, then you are wrong...because all a GM has to do is plug Toby Harrah there.
It isn't creating my own reality. He can and did fill it.
The faulty reality is thinking that in a given season(1979), that Robin Yount should only be compared to the 25 other SS that are playing SS that year, and thinking those are the only 25 men that can and do play there.
No, if Harrah is not playing shortstop in a given year, he is not a ss peer. You can try to rationalize it however you want, but it just is not reality. Should we lump Carlos Delgado in with catchers because he could play the position? Should we do the same for biggio? Both could hypothetically play catcher. Why can't we adjust their stats as catchers? Because it isn't reality. It is your hypothetical. Those players, while capable, did not actually play the respective positions. Sorry.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Skin isn't arguing that Harrah is a SS peer, but rather that he is a potential replacement at SS. Skin is correct.
Yes, you should include Delgado and Biggio as catchers for the purpose of defining who the potential replacements are at catcher. Because they are, in fact, potential replacements at catcher.
But here's where you're missing the point. Skin is not arguing that Delgado's and Biggio's stats should be adjusted as if they were in fact catchers in years where they were not. He's mostly arguing against the practice of adjusting any player's stats by virtue of the position that they are playing, but he's also arguing that the players who are actually playing catcher, if their stats are going to be adjusted, should be adjusted by correctly recognizing who the potential replacement group is. Catchers should be evaluated as catchers, against a potential replacement group that includes Biggio, even when Biggio is playing second base. Biggio, when he is playing second base, should be evaluated as a second baseman against a potential replacement group that includes the players who are also playing second base, but that also includes players playing other positions who are capable of playing second base. In other words, any given player should be evaluated solely at the position he is playing, but that same player might be included in the potential replacement group at multiple positions.
I understand that line of thinking, it just doesn't work. If you follow that paradigm to its end, there would be no more positional adjustments at all because in theory, any major league athlete "could" play any position. Where would the cut off be? If a player played 90% of his games at one position in a season? 50%? 5%? If a player looks as though he could play another position? If a player played that position in the minors, college or high school? That is why we should only include the players who actually played those positions for adjustments. We need adjustments in order to compare players across positions. I don't think anyone would say it is "fair" to compare the statistics of a catcher to those of a dh or left fielder.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Again, there are two arguments here. Skin is primarily arguing that there should be no positional adjustments, and I think he's right about that. A player hits as well as he hits and should be compared to other hitters without dragging their positions into it. As fielders, they would be measured at their actual position based on the plays that they actually make and no adjustment would be necessary. This is essentially the Win Shares system.
The other argument is that if we accept that we are going to be adjusting people based on which position they play, then we should do it correctly. Let me ask you this: when comparing Yount to Winfield, should it make any difference whether Mario Mendoza is playing or not? Because it is possible that we could compare them in a year when Mendoza was playing SS and WAR would say that Yount was better than Winfield; the next year, even if Yount and Winfield perform identically the same as the year before, if Mendoza is not playing SS then WAR might say that Winfield was better. I think this is nonsense. Yount and Winfield are who they are, and they are as good as their plays say they are. Whether Mendoza is playing SS, or 2B, or not at all surely has no bearing whatsoever on how good Yount is or how good Winfield is. Yet you are arguing that where Mendoza's manager chooses to play him, or whether Mendoza chooses to play at all, should determine who among Yount and Winfield is the better player.
You are correct that ultimately determining which of two players was better involves at least some subjectivity - or questions of "fairness", as you put it. Was Walter Johnson better than Rogers Hornsby? Cap Anson better than George Sisler? Frank Robinson better than Johnny Bench? I have my own answers to each of these, but there is no right answer to any of them. In a draft that was not subject to time or space constraints, I would take Johnson, Anson and Bench, but I could make solid arguments for Hornsby, Sisler and Robinson. But the subjective elements in these comparisons are necessarily enormous, and with Yount and Winfield objective systems can get us most of the way to an answer. But objective systems can't be perfect, so we should recognize any flaws that they do have. One flaw in WAR is the way they handle positional adjustments, and skin has proposed one way to make them better.
Do you not think that playing a more demanding defensive position can have a negative impact on a players offense?
If you think it can, then you must agree that in order to level the playing field for player comparisons we need to adjust for position.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Yount was a below average center fielder and maybe just maybe an average shortstop defensively
mark
Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
I don't see it mark. He was right at league average for fielding percentage both at ss and cf. He also is slightly better than average at both positions in range factor although I put very little value in range factor
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.