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?