Quote:
Originally Posted by sago
Hernandez is GOAT fielding first baseman. His range made the entire infield better. Overall better than Olerud.
|
If Hernandez is the best-fielding 1B of all-time, Olerud is only a hair behind.
Offensively, Olerud hit 93 more homers in 146 more games. They had essentially the same batting average (.296 vs .295) with Olerud having a higher slugging percentage (.465 vs .436) and essentially the same OPS+ (129 vs 128). Hernandez won a (shared) MVP but never had a season that approached Olerud's 1993 - .363 average, .473 OBP, .599 slug, OPS+ of 186.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by pbspelly
According to one sabermetric stat (Total Zone Runs), Hernandez's defense saved 117 runs in his career, the most ever for a first baseman. Olerud comes in fourth at 97, still excellent, but nearly 20% behind.
|
So, defensively, the difference between them was 20 runs over the course of 2100 games (or so). A run every 105 games. I believe that difference would qualify as "statistically insignificant".
And, in the end, we're talking about what is, by FAR, the least-important (other than pitcher) and easiest position defensively. But among the guys who played that position, we're talking about Hernandez and Olerud - the elite of the elite defensively. They are really, really close defensively and really, really close offensively. If anything, Olerud was the best offensive player. And yet there are folks who advocate for Hernandez to be in the HOF but dismiss Olerud out-of-hand. That doesn't compute.