Our love with Wagner

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Posted By: Anonymous

"I would caution anybody from putting too much faith in (Bill James) "statistical analysis." "

To argue for or against Bill James is something I have neither the time nor ability. However he did revolutionize the way people evaluate BB players. I would highly recommend his historical BB Abstract book where he goes into great detail about his "statistical analysis."

I will say that if you are annointing greatness SOLEY on Batting Average without any thought given to the era you are definately missing the boat. If there are two things people like Bill James have helped us understand it's the importance of on base percentage (and slugging) and the fact that batting .301 in the 1930 NL means you are an average player. Batting .301 in the 1968 AL means you are a tremendous player. Hence many players of the 1930's are terribly overrated.

Everything in context.

If I had first pick in 1910 I'd take Wagner mainly becasue I think the difference between him and any other SS if far greater than the differenct between Cobb and any other OF.