Quote:
Originally Posted by bblair_2002
I'm not a Yankees fan,yet it's always bothered me that Pettitte,Jeter,Posada and Rivera were known as the Core Four,yet Bernie Williams was excluded from that group.
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I'm a Yankees fan...and it's always bothered me to.
63.2 Offensive War is pretty impressive. His defensive metrics kill him though. Odd for a guy with 4 Gold Gloves.
Watching him everyday, his arm was subpar. He covered a lot of ground in Centerfield earlier in his career, but I suspect he began to lose some of his vision, and wasn't tracking balls well for the 2nd half of his career, and more.
I know he got laser surgery on his eyes at one point, and I think it took him awhile to adjust to it. Eventually it helped him at the plate, but I suspect it threw off a bit of his depth perception playing the outfield.
Bernie was also a horrible base stealer (a good base runner, but a horrible base stealer), so maybe he was just bad at timing his jumps.
This is all hypothetical of course, from somebody who went from glasses, to contact lenses, to laser surgery myself. I remember having a horrible time tracking balls when I popped in the contact lenses. Had to ditch them mid-game a few times to go back to my glasses. Didn't have much experience playing ball after my laser surgery to make a proper comparison though.