Steve Garvey

[rats60]

Originally Posted by btcarfagno

Powell was the best offensive player on his team by any and every measure you wish to choose. I suppose if you just go by WAR then Jim Palmer was more valuable, but I doubt you want to bring WAR up, seeing as Steve Garvey in 1974 was FOURTH on his own team in WAR. Garvey was not the best offensive player on his own team by any measure you wish to use that year. He was far down the list in oWAR in 1974, ranking no better than 11th in the league from what I can tell. In WAR he wasn't in the top 20 in the league. Boog was fifth in oWAR in 1970, so while his being named MVP wasn't the best idea in the world (especially with a traditional stats monster yuear from Yaz), it wasn't nearly the joke that Garvey's 1974 selection was.

Range factor and fielding percentage as measures of defensive ability at first base? That's cherry picking nearly useless stats. If the player is from post 1953, Total Zone Runs needs to be the metric used. Historically speaking, let's look at the players whom I have always thought to be outstanding defensive first baseman and the TZR figure:

Keith Hernandez 114
John Olerud 89
George Scott 87
Mark Grace 84
Vic Power 59
Eddie Murray 59
Bill White 55
Rafael Palmeiro 48
Gil Hodges 41 (only 1953-on)
Wes Parker 29
Don Mattingly 29

So even though Parker and Donnie Baseball seem a bit low, overall the best of the best are recognized as such.

How about the worst defensive first basemen? How do they rank?

Frank Thomas (Chi) -61
Dick Stuart -59
Mo Vaughn -43
Jason Giambi -36 (with solid .992 career fielding % - go figure!)
Adam Dunn -34 (in just 528 games)
Dave Kingman -22 (in just 603 games)
Frank Howard -14 (tough in just 334 games)

So TZR does its job as you would expect it to as a metric for defense at first base.

Steve Garvey?

Career TZR at first base?

Negative two.

Not exactly gold glove caliber.

In 1975-1977 as Garvey was winning gold gloves, you know who was also playing first base in the NL? Keith Hernandez. Arguably the greatest fielding first baseman of all time. But sure. Steve Garvey totally earned those gold gloves.

Pete Rose didn't become a first baseman until age 38 in 1979. During and after which he had two solid seasons. Just two. The rest of the time he was pretty bad.

Tony Perez had some consistently decent seasons, but his post 1973 high for OPS+ was 124. So, solid but not great for a 1B for sure.

Keith Hernandez I will grant you.

Willie Stargell was good post 1974 but constantly injured. Over 500 AB in a season just once.

Tom C

Garvey was also 3rd in TZR 3 of his 4 gold glove seasons. So how is someone 3rd in one catagory and 1st in 2 others unworthy of gold glove? I can also throw out that he was playing the most games at 1b, so that durability adds value. He had good seasons at 1b when he won gold gloves, saving 5 and 6 runs. If he had brought that level of defense his whole career, he would be near the top of your list. Gold glove is a yearly award, so having good defensive seasons and winning gold gloves doesn't mean you have to be good defensively over your whole career and if you aren't they take them away and give them to someone else. Garvey did deserve to win.

You rate players by WAR. Garvey was the best player on the Dodgers from 74-81. He doesn't fair well in WAR because He didn't walk a lot. He just got a lot of hits and drove in a lot of runs. I know some of you guys don't like RBIs, but at some point reality has to kick in. To win games one of your players has to actually get hits with RISP, having a high WAR doesn't win anything.

I don't ignore WAR, but at some point actual on field accomplishments have to come into play. There are some players who the stat doesn't fit well, such as Steve Garvey and Bobby Grich. I lived in LA at the time. If you had asked anyone at the park, who was the better player, it would have been unanimous for Garvey. That is probably why Grich only got 11 votes for the HOF and Garvey got 176 the next year when he appeared on the ballot.