Who was the Greatest Magician with the Lumber?
 

Was it Suzuki? Gwynn? Carew? Boggs?

Just for argument's sake, let keep the discussion down to these four.



...and batting practice doesn't count, Chicken Man.

Gwynn, he was the most consistent for the longest period of time. Boggs was pretty close as well just seemed to tail off more at the end of his career.

Wade Boggs easily in my opinion. Wade had his best for years from age 27 to 30 like most athletes. Tony Gwynn had his best 4 years from 34 to 37 similar to Barry Bonds.:eek:

Game time or batting practice, it's still the same guy. The big difference is Wade isn't just better than the others he blows them away in batting practice.:D

LOL I hated Boggs when he played for the Red Sox. I used to say, he's the worst .350 hitter I've ever seen, and he was.

I hated the Red Sox after he left.:D

I will openly and honestly admit I am very biased on this subject as Mr Boggs is by far my all time favorite player.

I have to say Rodney Carew. It was like the bat was just an extension of his arm.

But they were all great.

It's Boggs all day, imo. I watched a lot of Boggs growing up. I never saw him break a bat, he popped up ONCE in the '85 season (I'm not kidding), and to see him swing and miss was a rarity. Think about this...Boggs had 240 hits in 1985. 240!!! And he did this with absolutely no speed. So these are not infield hits. He is line driving EVERYTHING that year. Batting titles in 83, 85, 86, 87,and 88. 200 hits and 100 walks 4 straight years, .328 lifetime. Simply the best.

There is no question he could hit. And he was a very very good third baseman. But I just didn't care for him, and I am sure that exaggerated in my mind every time he didn't come through in the clutch, which of course happens frequently to all players.

I hear ya, Peter. I should back up a bit and mention that I am by no means saying Boggs was the best baseball player. But in terms of being a "magician with the lumber", Boggs stands alone. Gwynn is the only other guy I would put in the same sentence with Boggs. For all the Gwynn fans out there, I do not under estimate HIS greatness. Another quick stat, this time for Gwynn....in 1995, in 535 at bats, he struck out...wait for it...15 times!!!! Incredible.

Depends on what you mean by wizard.
Their overall stats are very similar.
Over a 162gm avg
Boggs H 200 HR 8 RBI 67 w/so 94/49 AVG .328 GIDP 16 Total WAR 91.4
Gwynn H 209 HR 9 RBI 76 w/so 52/29 AVG .338 GIDP 17 Total WAR 69.2
Carew H 200 HR 6 RBI 67 w/so 67/67 AVG .328 GIDP 14 Total WAR 81.3
Ichiro H 189 HR 7 RBI 48 w/so 39/66 AVG .311 GIDP 6 Total WAR 59.4

I find it difficult to make definitive assessment of who had more wizardry. According to the stats above, Gwynn seems to have a slight advantage as he had most hits-HR-RBI/yr, struck out least and had highest BA...but he had lowest war.

I know the OP wanted to keep it to these 4, but it made me curious about my favorite player Lou Gehrig and how he might stack up vs these players. While I knew he was great, I did not realize he would stack up so well vs players who were identified as more "pure" hitters.

Gehrig H 204 HR 37 RBI 149 w/so 113/59 AVG .340 GIDP ? TWar 112.4

I don't know who would be the best magician but 2 things.
I played baseball in high school at the same time as Wade Boggs did in Tampa, FL and he was already a hitting legend then . The ball came off his bat literally like a rocket with a sound that you had never heard before. If you saw him play or had the unfortunate experience of pitching to him you knew he was special.
Also a friend of mine did spring training with the Padres back in the Gwynn era and he loves to tell stories of Gwynn's hitting practiices after regular BP during spring training. All the hopefuls would watch Gwynn hit baseballs after BP with a live arm full speed pitcher and hit the balls into 3-5 Home Depot buckets placed on their sides around the infield and outfield, and not finish until he had hit a set number of baseballs into these buckets. He always moved the buckets to different spots everyday and set a pre-determined number of balls to hit into them before he started. He did this everyday without fail my friend said and he had a number of people watching , and when he finished he would just smile at them with a confidence that said ...See that's how it's done !
That isn't a stat but shows true magic with the bat .

I'm not so sure about that assertion. Here's an article showing Gwynn was very outspoken against steroids and amphetamine use in MLB in the mid 90's before anyone was talking about it: http://www.espn.com/blog/buster-olne...post/_/id/6803

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Boggs had more appreciators than fans, while Gwynn may have had more fans than appreciators...the quality of one's character weighs heavy through time.

Agree. Carew was a magician in that he could not only bunt, but bunt with intentional backspin. The other 3 guys were good hitters but Carew was the magician.

Being a Redsox fan Boggs was always one of my favorite players but seeing Carew in the batters box waving his bat as he did, always reminded me of a magician's wand.. He would be my choice..

Another infuriating thing about Boggs -- in BP he would hit pitch after pitch out of the park, starting with left field and moving across to right. He had serious power but except for one weird year where he hit 24, seemed to prefer to hit for the high BA.

Unlike Boggs, Peter doesn't like chicken.:eek:

I didn't see Carew in his prime, so can't comment.

I grew up watching Boggs, but due to the state of baseball media at the time and the whole time-zone thing, didn't see a ton of Gwynn even though they were contemporaries.

Beyond the skills at getting hits, which both had in spades, they were different in more ways than they were similar.

One was an OF. One a 3B. One played in the NL. One the AL. One on the West Coast. One on the East. One was part of the biggest rivalry in sports (on both sides). One was in somewhat forgotten San Diego.

Boggs usually batted 1st. Gwynn usually batted 3rd, I believe (someone correct me if I'm wrong on that).

Both AVERAGED 200 or more hits per 162 games played, which is nuts.

Both hit doubles in spades, and not nearly as many HR or triples.

Gwynn averaged 21 steals per 162 games. Boggs averaged 2.

Boggs averaged 94 BB and a .415 OBP per 162. Gwynn 52 and .388.

I think the difference in BB/OBP is the key difference when talking about a "magician" with the bat.

Oddly enough, Boggs used to get a lot of bad press about the walks (taking a walk and clogging up the bases instead of "trying to win the game".) We now know that kind of talk to be mostly foolish. OBP is one of the biggest ways a player can help a team win.

Anyway, if you give credit for the walks as magicianship (AKA "knowing the strike zone"), maybe that puts Boggs ahead.

At any rate, what we can all agree on is that they were all amazing hitters and players, and awesome to watch!

Carew to me
 

I saw him play in his prime as a kid. He was thought of as a singles guy - but I went to a double header against the A's, and he went something like 6-8 with 3 doubles and a triple if I remember correctly. And all those balls were off the wall- hitting with a thud. The ball just jumped off his bat, and kind of like Aaron, it was a with a magician-like quick snap of the wrists.

Or Margo Adams.

How about insane amounts of Miller Lite?:D

Great hitters all of them but only Boggs got 3 hits right after drinking as many as 70 beers in a coast-to-coast flight. RIP Wade Boggs.