Best Ever Offensive Center Fielders: Unblurring History

[Wassit3]

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1...urring-history

[Wassit3]

I found these two comments in the aricle interesting:

"Bill James, you're telling us who had the best "career". You're NOT telling us who the "best player" was. There's a huge difference. I don't have a huge problem with it, but change the name of your book to the best "careers" ever, because they are sure as hell not the "best players" ever. The Hall of Fame voting committee is looking for a guy like you."

and:

"The fundamental difference: I want to find the best "player", not the best "career." Don't get me wrong, you have to adjust for long careers. If a player plays 2,000 games and wasn't any good the last 200—then take out the last 200 games to find his numbers. But if a player only played in 1,100 games, don't fault his numbers for that.

You obviously can't adjust upward for that, but don't adjust downward either—don't adjust at all."

[dps]

I found these two comments in the aricle interesting:

"Bill James, you're telling us who had the best "career". You're NOT telling us who the "best player" was. There's a huge difference. I don't have a huge problem with it, but change the name of your book to the best "careers" ever, because they are sure as hell not the "best players" ever. The Hall of Fame voting committee is looking for a guy like you."

and:

"The fundamental difference: I want to find the best "player", not the best "career." Don't get me wrong, you have to adjust for long careers. If a player plays 2,000 games and wasn't any good the last 200—then take out the last 200 games to find his numbers. But if a player only played in 1,100 games, don't fault his numbers for that.

You obviously can't adjust upward for that, but don't adjust downward either—don't adjust at all."

Yeah, it is interesting, and while I certainly see where he's coming from, I'm not sure that I agree with him. If you take his position to the extreme, then you just rate everyone on the basis of their best individual season, and you end up with a system that says that Mark Frydrich was one of the best pitchers ever.

Also, this is nothing new. James himself explicitly wrote about how the ranking in the New Historical Abstract would change depending on how you balance peak vs career value, and admits that there is no "right" answer. The author of the linked article, however, seems to think that there is one correct answer.

[Wassit3]

Also, this is nothing new. James himself explicitly wrote about how the ranking in the New Historical Abstract would change depending on how you balance peak vs career value, and admits that there is no "right" answer. The author of the linked article, however, seems to think that there is one correct answer.

not to mention he apparently IGNORED that part of James writings...