ttdude's stupid Friday poll #9: The Kid

[ttdude]

It's poll #9 (his number), and with the tribute to be held at Fenway on Monday, it seems right to veer away from the TT for a moment.

Ted Williams - the greatest hitter who ever lived?

Self-answer: you betcha. I could quote a stack of numbers, but I shouldn't have to - looking at his swing, you just KNOW...


Last weeks results, on nice touches: there were far more suggestions than I expected! I was happy to see the popularity of the gas cap. I must admit that Sean was most insightful in mentioning the chick magnet.

[economisTT]

multiplied by slugging average

(OBP X SLG)

while he doesn't quite equal the babe by this measure, you have to take into account the following factors:

1) williams lost nearly 5 years in the middle of his career vs an equal amount of time ruth lost at the beginning of his career as a pitcher -- if both were hitting full-time during those periods, williams would get an advantage.

2) different eras in baseball favor offense to a greater or lesser degree. while both played during strong offensive periods, williams played in a period when offense wasn't quite as good. so if you adjusted for the era played, williams would again get an advantage.

bottom line -- with the adjustments above, there is little to choose between williams and ruth as hitters, so either one could be labled "the best".

of course, neither were great fielders, but ruth was a great pitcher (really!) and he stole bases early in his career (although he was caught about as many times as he was successful -- so that's a negative!

[Absolut Todd]

It's not the best, but very good quick and easy stat. Win shares, Runs created, and other stats offer perhaps better perspective on a players output, but you probably know that as an econometric savvy guy.

[economisTT]

the exact statistic is OBA X SLG. this is the wrong place to go into the statistics behind why the exact measure is the multiplicative one rather than the additive one.

on the other hand, they rarely give different ordinal results, and it's a heck of alot easier to add the numbers in your head rather than multiply them!

i think the best overall measure of a player's worth is the linear weights created by thorn and palmer, although james's new win shares is a big improvement over his original runs created.

everyone else on the forum, if they've even bothered to read this far, is scratching their head and wondering what in the world we're talking about (and probably figuring we have way too much time on our hands!)! :-)