[howard38]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Looking at his career stats, it seems he had some big numbers in the 1890s but had a fairly mediocre second half of his career in the 1900s. Ended up only at .295 lifetime in an era where the top tier players obviously hit much higher than that. I am guessing most of those WAR numbers are coming from a few years in the 1890s which, for most people anyhow, would tend to omit him from discussions of all time greats.

What appears to be a mediocre second half of his career is largely due to the very low offensive output in the league from about 1904 until near the end of his career. He wasn't as good a hitter as he had been in the 1890s but he was still good. FWIW, his WAR for ten seasons in the 1890s is 43.1 and for eight full seasons in the 1900s (not counting two seasons that he totaled 100 ABs) it's 41.8.