I am a huge Parker fan. i grew up watching Garvey and agree the there is a pretty huge disparity between the eye test at the time and the analytics, which is one of the reasons that I'm not too sold on analytics being anywhere close to the end-all and be-all of the determination. There are tons of things you see watching someone play that don't show up in the numbers crunching, which, by they way, will probably have morphed into a completely different analysis in a few more years. IMO, it is fine to use them as part of the analysis, but foolish to use them as the only basis upon which to make the decision.
Walker was a stud. Parker was too. Lots of people played in Colorado. Back then, Walker, and later Helton, did what they did. Yeah, there is a difference in the splits, but they are both pretty good. There's probably a split in the difference of everyone else who played there and who is in the HOF too. i would imagine that's the case in every ballpark that's s considered a hitter's ballpark, for example, Seattle. Yet a bunch of folks advocate for Edgar, who couldn't play defense at all , as a HOFer. He couldn't hold Walker's jock on the field. Oh yeah, he wasn't even there. Walker won 7 gold gloves in addition to his MVP and his 3 silver sluggers. Edgar had 5 silver sluggers and 0 gold gloves and 0 MVPs. Right. The comparison, IMO, isn't even close.
Apart from Walker and Helton, no one else came close to what they did in Colorado. I think that means something. Then, they also played pretty well everywhere else. Now you have Arenado, who is rapidly moving up on the list of best 3B of all time both offensively and defensively. He's a stud too. But he, obviously, is also in Colorado. Does that mean he can't get in? Or is the "humidor" effect, which IMO means nothing, the reason he's different?
Last edited by Kenny Cole; 10-30-2018 at 08:17 PM.
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