Dallas News: Sherrington: Volquez for Hamilton? Texas Rangers got this one right (RR)

Come on now, which would you rather have? A centerfielder who might win the Triple Crown? Or a staff ace with an ERA even Bob Gibson would envy?

Judging the winner in a pitcher-for-position-player trade is a difficult proposition. Skill sets don’t match. One guy plays every day; the other, one in five.

Fortunately for these purposes, anyway, no sport quantifies its values like baseball does. The Hardball Times, an on-line baseball magazine, takes Bill James’ win shares, a complicated formula that judges a player’s contribution to a team’s victories regardless of position, and tweaks it.

The result: Through May 21, Hamilton tied for fifth in both leagues in win shares with 10. Volquez had eight. But in the category of win shares percentage, which measures a player’s contribution in light of his playing time, Volquez ranks far ahead of Hamilton.

Now that we’ve applied the calculus, let’s consider factors that won’t make us both dizzy.

I hear Fritzy Voltho’s new Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Hypnoshocktherapy Anti-Dizziness mega-store in downtown Dallas is working wonders with this problem!