Who do you got? Darin Erstad or Garret Anderson

[Erstad Grit]

3 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

The entire discussion re: Salmon vs Anderson comes down to the 5936 outs Anderson made with the Angels in 8480 PAs vs the 4468 outs Salmon made 7039 PAs. Thats 1468 more outs in 1441 more plate appearances... In other words, Anderson's entire Angel career beyond Salmon's was all outs.... other than that they are, as you said, 'very close stats-wise.'

Why?

That's completely ignoring defense,  baserunning,  health,  etc.

Personally I think salmon did in fact have the better angel career, but I think it's a fair discussion.  I get many view old school stats as less important but 2300 hits is still pretty impressive.  

[Second Base]

I always think some of my heroes growing up were really good, until I go to their bbref page and see their career OBP. It sticks me to this day, how archaic judging a player based solely on BA and RBI's really was. 

GA with a career OBP of .327.  By today's standards, he'd get a few years starting in Baltimore or Pittsburgh during a rebuild and that's it. 

[tdawg87]

4 minutes ago, Erstad Grit said:

Why?

That's completely ignoring defense,  baserunning,  health,  etc.

Personally I think salmon did in fact have the better angel career, but I think it's a fair discussion.  I get many view old school stats as less important but 2300 hits is still pretty impressive.  

I don't disagree with the hits thing, but that's a product of longevity and literally swinging at everything. 

Health and longevity can't be ignored. There's no quantifying stat for it, but GA had 8 straight seasons with at least 642 PA's. That's impressive in its own right. 

But the OBP...he made so many outs. 

Remember how much we all hated GMJ? His OBP with the Angels was .325. Anderson's was .327. 

Not saying GMJ was as good as Garret, but I'm just making a point.

As for defense, GA wasn't bad in left. He got a bad rap for being "lazy", but he definitely was decent with the glove. He was just very casual so it looked like he didn't give a shit.

I don't recall Salmon being that bad in right, but I can't imagine he was significantly better or worse than GA. 

Baserunning? They both sucked at stealing bases. Salmon especially. Who cares? 

[ten ocho recon scout]

22 minutes ago, Second Base said:

GA with a career OBP of .327.  By today's standards, he'd get a few years starting in Baltimore or Pittsburgh during a rebuild and that's it. 

If we get .327 OBP out of someone w 25 HRs and 25 doubles, I think wed be pretty pleased right now.

[ten ocho recon scout]

As for the more outs thing, like i said in the GA vs Glaus thing, a 350 OBP is better than a .327, for sure. But over the course of 6 months, theres a ton a variables involved that wont show. 

And doesnt OBP favor guys who walk a lot? Because its ABs, not PAs? I just remember years ago being really bored and counting out erstad vs someone else, when OBP came up. And whoever was being compared to erstad (i was an erstad homer) had a much better OBP, but only reached base like 40 more times

Sure, 40 less outs. But spread over 6 months. And I want to say the other guy was delgado, or palmeiro. Who had like a much higher OBP, like .400 range. So .327 vs .350, I cant imagine it was a ton more. 

Im not at all arguing it isnt important. And that Glaus was the better hitter. I just think its not as clean cut as it looks on first glance. 

[tdawg87]

5 minutes ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

If we get .327 OBP out of someone w 25 HRs and 25 doubles, I think wed be pretty pleased right now.

Depends entirely on who it is.

Walsh? Ward? Thaiss? Absolutely.

Upton? Ehhh. I guess. 

[tdawg87]

1 minute ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

As for the more outs thing, like i said in the GA vs Glaus thing, a 350 OBP is better than a .327, for sure. But over the course of 6 months, theres a ton a variables involved that wont show. 

And doesnt OBP favor guys who walk a lot? Because its ABs, not PAs? I just remember years ago being really bored and counting out erstad vs someone else, when OBP came up. And whoever was being compared to erstad (i was an erstad homer) had a much better OBP, but only reached base like 40 more times

Sure, 40 less outs. But spread over 6 months. And I want to say the other guy was delgado, or palmeiro. Who had like a much higher OBP, like .400 range. So .327 vs .350, I cant imagine it was a ton more. 

Im not at all arguing it isnt important. And that Glaus was the better hitter. I just think its not as clean cut as it looks on first glance. 

[ten ocho recon scout]

Just now, tdawg87 said:

Depends entirely on who it is.

Walsh? Ward? Thaiss? Absolutely.

Upton? Ehhh. I guess. 

Im more pointing out that we're basically trout/rendon.... then the rest. 

Upton, we hope for. And if upton put up a GA season, Ill take it after his last few. Ohtani, we hope for better, but...

After that, there isnt really any solid guy to bank on. Fletcher for sure, but no power

[ten ocho recon scout]

Just for argument, i just looked up the 02 stats. GAs obp was .332, glaus .352

GA had 195 hits and 30 walks for 225 combined. Glaus had 142 hits and 88 walks for 240 combined.

Obviously thats super simple and lazy. But id personally take the 50 more hits than the 50 more walks, regardless of the 20 points higher OBP

 

[arch stanton]

I can't really separate any of that group. After so many years of watching stars from other teams play in Angels unis it was great that they finally won it all with such a homegrown core. And I really want this current group to graduate and do it again

[ten ocho recon scout]

34 minutes ago, arch stanton said:

I can't really separate any of that group. After so many years of watching stars from other teams play in Angels unis it was great that they finally won it all with such a homegrown core. And I really want this current group to graduate and do it again

That is a huge deal. Not only finally breaking the curse, but that just about every major guy that year was "ours".

[SlappyUtilityMIF]

2 hours ago, Second Base said:

I always think some of my heroes growing up were really good, until I go to their bbref page and see their career OBP. It sticks me to this day, how archaic judging a player based solely on BA and RBI's really was. 

GA with a career OBP of .327.  By today's standards, he'd get a few years starting in Baltimore or Pittsburgh during a rebuild and that's it. 

You also have to remember different kind of baseball....And Sven's reasoning for the productive out and moving runners around.

How many times did GA come up with a runner on second and less than 2 outs and hit a ground ball to 2B to get the runner to 3B???....

Many times!

[SlappyUtilityMIF]

2 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Just for argument, i just looked up the 02 stats. GAs obp was .332, glaus .352

GA had 195 hits and 30 walks for 225 combined. Glaus had 142 hits and 88 walks for 240 combined.

Obviously thats super simple and lazy. But id personally take the 50 more hits than the 50 more walks, regardless of the 20 points higher OBP

 

Also, at the time Glaus was a DP candidate so he got walked a lot to setup a double play!

[Lou]

1 hour ago, SlappyUtilityMIF said:

Also, at the time Glaus was a DP candidate so he got walked a lot to setup a double play!

Glass hit into only one more DP than Anderson in 2002.

[tdawg87]

3 minutes ago, Lou said:

Glass hit

[Lou]

7 minutes ago, Lou said:

Anderson

[Tank]

4 hours ago, Lou said:

Glass hit into only one more DP than Anderson in 2002.

well said.

[Erstad Grit]

8 hours ago, tdawg87 said:

I don't disagree with the hits thing, but that's a product of longevity and literally swinging at everything. 

Health and longevity can't be ignored. There's no quantifying stat for it, but GA had 8 straight seasons with at least 642 PA's. That's impressive in its own right. 

But the OBP...he made so many outs. 

Remember how much we all hated GMJ? His OBP with the Angels was .325. Anderson's was .327. 

Not saying GMJ was as good as Garret, but I'm just making a point.

As for defense, GA wasn't bad in left. He got a bad rap for being "lazy", but he definitely was decent with the glove. He was just very casual so it looked like he didn't give a shit.

I don't recall Salmon being that bad in right, but I can't imagine he was significantly better or worse than GA. 

Baserunning? They both sucked at stealing bases. Salmon especially. Who cares? 

Good points.

Looking back we were overly critical on GMJ because we all knew it was a bad deal from day 1. He was better than Hamilton and Wells. 

GA looked lazy in LF because Edmonds and Erstad were mimicking superman in CF. GA was an above average defender. He even took over CF for a few years .

Base-running is more than stealing bases. I don't know if it's recorded but I imagine GA went 1st to 3rd more etc. 

I think Salmon was better, but my point is I resent how some answered. They point to stats of their choice and insinuate anyone who disagrees is an idiot. Baseball is a lot of stats but it's also an art aspects cannot be shoved into an algorithm. 

 

 

 

[AngelsLakersFan]

10 hours ago, Pancake Bear said:

Is it ignored, though? Or does the data show it leads to more outs and less runs? 

It leads to more double plays. If you take the double plays out of the equation though it has to be a net positive.

[AngelsLakersFan]

11 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

So along those lines. One of the moments I always cringe when I remember. 

Glaus taking the called 3rd strike in the 04 playoffs against Boston to end the series. Kind of ties in to what youre talking about right there.

And Im not old. I just think theres too much swearing on television these days.

I think the big difference between why guys like Anderson were generally more well remembered than Glaus or Salmon is the emotional example you give. Anderson was more likely to make an out, but less likely to go down looking. He was also more likely to get a hit, which are more memorable than walks. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

10 hours ago, Erstad Grit said:

Why?

That's completely ignoring defense,  baserunning,  health,  etc.

Personally I think salmon did in fact have the better angel career, but I think it's a fair discussion.  I get many view old school stats as less important but 2300 hits is still pretty impressive.  

That's two and a half additional seasons worth of entirely outs. Sure I'll say GA was arguably better at the other things you mentioned but that only goes so far. GA was also exceptional at avoiding getting hit by pitches, only happened 8 times in his career vs 67 for Salmon, in the big picture it's just hard to make up for all the outs GA made.

[Inside Pitch]

9 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Just for argument, i just looked up the 02 stats. GAs obp was .332, glaus .352

GA had 195 hits and 30 walks for 225 combined. Glaus had 142 hits and 88 walks for 240 combined.

Obviously thats super simple and lazy. But id personally take the 50 more hits than the 50 more walks, regardless of the 20 points higher OBP

 

The problem with focusing on 2002 is that in that season, GA was far and away the better hitter.  He was actually Glaus-ish while Glaus himself posted the third lowest OPS+ of his career in a full season.

2002 makes the case for why Glaus was so much better -- his career 119 OPS+ dwarfs GA's 102.    In 2002 the numbers were 127 for GA, 113 for Glaus.   But consider this -- Glaus in a subpar year was better than GA's career average.

This is making it seem like I'm anti-GA..  In reality he is one of the reasons why I got into stats -- I was always trying to prove he was better than the numbers argued.  What I finally came to believe is that he was just one of those guys that was a player that fit a particular team style and flourished in it and he was consistent in what he was good at.

Check these career OPS numbers out

Home - .781
Away -  .789

1st half - .770
2nd half - .801

So how does a guy with mediocre rates end up with such good counting stats?

4450 at bats with Men on -- .832
4725 at bats with Nobody on - .742

And the reason Angels fans likely remember him as being a better offensive player than he was...

4579 at bats in WINS -- .907
4061 at bats in LOSSES - .646

And there you have it..    

Had the good GA been around more the Angels likely win more games.  The games where he went 1-4 with a hit, he may have helped keep his numbers look respectable and it averaged out over the season but the team suffered -- this is where Salmon and Glaus were so much better, in not creating outs they were helping the team win -- it ads up man.

Also --despite his consistent overall numbers he was hurt by playing the majority of his career at the Big A ..  I did a batted ball thing with him once and had he played in Cleveland for instance he would have been adding 7-9 HRs per season to his yearly totals.   May not seem like much but over the course of his career that would have bumped the OPS up a lot.  In 2002 and 2003 it was more like 10-12 HRs..  A big reason he was such a doubles machine is due the wall in RF.   Mo Vaughn, Jim Edmonds -- they all saw their numbers dinged by that RF wall.

At worst GA is the Angels version of Joe Carter.  He was actually better than Carter at getting on base, better average, a much better defensive player, a lesser baserunner.  Despite that, Carter got MVP votes in 8 different seasons -- mostly due to his power totals.  Take GA and put him anywhere but Anaheim and he would have ended up with power totals similar to Carter and the narrative would have been very different.

BTW - career OPS.  Carter 105 -- GA 102.   Career bWAR, Carter 19.6 -- GA 25.7

Ask most non Angels fans and they likely tell you Carter was a much better player.  He wasn't.

[AngelsLakersFan]

9 hours ago, ten ocho recon scout said:

Just for argument, i just looked up the 02 stats. GAs obp was .332, glaus .352

GA had 195 hits and 30 walks for 225 combined. Glaus had 142 hits and 88 walks for 240 combined.

Obviously thats super simple and lazy. But id personally take the 50 more hits than the 50 more walks, regardless of the 20 points higher OBP

 

Anderson was one of the best players in baseball in 2002-2003. If we are talking about that player it becomes a different discussion... but then you gotta be fair to the others and use 2000-2001 for Glaus, 94-95 for Salmon, 2000-2001 for Erstad etc. Most of the argument with Anderson comes from his other seasons where he was getting a lot of hits and hitting a lot of homeruns but not putting up impressive offensive numbers compared to the league at the time.

[ten ocho recon scout]

@Inside Pitch @AngelsLakersFan

Great posts, and agree with both.

Just to clarify what I was getting at. I dont think GA was better than glaus. And i only picked 2002 as the year because i knew off the top of my head glaus had a .350 obp that year (not sure why i knew that), and that that was Glaus' last full year w us. (Without being hurt and missing time)

So i checked and that year glaus and GA were within like 4 PAs of each other, so that made it pretty straight forward for variables

Anyway, my only "point" (if you can even call it that) was that yes, glaus w his higher obp made less outs... but it worked out to like 15, spread over 6 months. Obviously it was more drastic in other years, but that year, glaus with his .350 obp to GAs .330 looks "better", but it isnt as big of a deal at first glance.

Mainly just saying that unless its drastic, like salmons .380 obp to GA at .330, then I dont think the more outs part is the end all (in the GA vs Glaus example). 

And again, unless im reading it wrong, OBP favors guys who walk more, because they have less ABs to divide by. (Hits + walks divided by ABs).

So again, I agree glaus was the better hitter. But because of the total sum, not simply the obp (which neither of you implied). I just think that once OBP became popular and accepted, too many people took it as the end all argument.

[Tank]

for a few years there was someone here (or maybe on the espn board) who kept a running total of who had more hits between GA and derek jeter. 

it was entertaining.