By Blaidd Drwg
Looking at these 162 game averages, who would you rather have on your team?
| Player | AVG | HR | RBI | BB | SO | OBP | SLG | IBB | SB |
| A | .299 | 30 | 99 | 53 | 147 | .357 | .531 | 8 | 25 |
| B | .314 | 29 | 96 | 103 | 127 | .419 | .541 | 14 | 8 |
Based on the more traditional stats, it is close, but player B seems to be the better choice.
What if I include this?
| Player | OPS+ | ASG | MVP | GG | oWAR | dWAR | Pos | Age | GP |
| A | 125 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 17.5 | 0.0 | LF | 28 | 704 |
| B | 155 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 31.4 | -3.2 | 1B | 30 | 903 |
Player B is obviously a better hitter, but B is, in theory, a “better” defender and he is in his peak season right now.
One more:
| Home | Road | ||||||
| Player | BA | SLG | tOPS+ | BA | SLG | tOPS+ | |
| A | .330 | .608 | 124 | .267 | .450 | 75 | |
| B | .302 | .536 | 97 | .325 | .546 | 103 |
Both of these guys play in home parks that favor hitters pretty extremely. Player A has huge home/road splits while player B is essentially the same hitter no matter where he plays. Given all of the above info, I think player B is clearly the better player and the guy I would want to take for my team. Just for the record, player A is Carlos Gonzalez of the Colorado Rockies and player B is Joey Votto of the Cincinnati Reds.
This came from a discussion on a baseball board about who was the better player, Gonzalez or Votto. Superficially at least, they look pretty close until you take into account that Gonzalez gets a huge boost from his home park and is somewhat more pedestrian on the road. For what it was worth, before I looked deeply into the numbers, I sided with Votto. How could you not take the guy who has led the NL in OBP 4 consecutive seasons?
FlatbreadGarden 