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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
WSJ: Biderman: Best Second Baseman Ever? Utley Makes a Case
ZOOOOOM!...Moving quicker to the top than Jax Teller!
Given that the New York Yankees are soaking up all the World Series oxygen, it’s no wonder Philadelphia’s Chase Utley isn’t getting heaps of praise. But here’s something to ponder while watching Game 6: Mr. Utley may be the best second baseman in baseball. Ever.
Mr. Utley, whose two home runs and four RBIs on Monday kept the Phillies’ season alive, has numbers that make his colleagues drool. He’s already recorded three seasons with at least 30 home runs, tied for the most ever by a second baseman, and his career .902 on-base plus slugging percentage—a statistic that combines power with the ability to get on base—is better than that of Jackie Robinson and second only to Rogers Hornsby—both baseball immortals.
And in case you were wondering, Mr. Utley’s not bad with his glove. Using a combination of “range factor” and “UZR,” statistics that quantify defensive range and overall contributions compared to an average player, Mr. Utley has been the best second baseman in the majors the past three seasons.
Certainly, Mr. Hornsby, Eddie Collins or Joe Morgan, all Hall of Fame second basemen, might have a bone to pick. But Mr. Utley, 30, is on pace to have more hits than Mr. Morgan’s 2,517, he’s got infinitely more power than Mr. Collins—who, admittedly, played in a very different era—and is a better defender than Mr. Hornsby.
Repoz
Posted: November 04, 2009 at 12:11 AM | 61 comment(s)
Related News: General, History, Hall of Fame, Sabermetrics, Philadelphia
Related News: General, History, Hall of Fame, Sabermetrics, Philadelphia
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Next question.
shouldn't Utley pass Sandberg or Kent before entering a Morgan/Hornsby discussion?
OPS+s ages 26-30 (in descending order)
Hornsby: 222, 210, 207, 188, 124Collins: 176, 165, 164, 140, 128
Morgan: 159, 154, 149, 116, 113
Utley: 145, 135, 135, 132, 125
Or, hell, Lou Whitaker.
OK, I'm kidding, sort of--Utley's got Whitaker on peak already, but has a good ways to go to match him on career, which sort of highlights how absurd the Hornsby comparison is.
And that was preceded by his 22-25 stretch: 171 152 162 156
And followed by a late-career surge at 36-39: 141 134 135 139 (And he was still really good between 30 and 36, just not *as* good.)
The length, quality and consistency of Collins' career was amazing. I think Bill James wrote something to the effect that it's hard to pick Collins' best season, but whichever one it is he had it about 16 times.
that is what I mean, I was looking for any 4 or 5 all star second baseman in history, and would bet that they have as good of a case or stronger as being better than Utley. Just looking at the all star list, Alomar, Whitaker, Carew, Gehringer, etc... Utley isn't in the top 20 of all time discussion yet. I'm a fan of Utley because he is underrated, but late development pretty much eliminates any chances he has of being top 5? 10? of all time.
and I'm not sure that I would say he has Whitaker on peak either, if you define peak as five best seasons it's pretty close, and then Whitaker has the other 14 or so seasons tacked onto that.
Not anymore, I guess...
we'll see in the National League MVP vote, if Howard finishes ahead of Utley, then he is still underrated. (I know that Howard will finish ahead of Utley, just think it's ridiculous--my guess for mvp goes Pujols, Hanley, Howard, Fielder----then who knows after that, there is a very good chance Howard finishes ahead of Hanley, but I just can't believe the writes are that stupid)
Well, I'd define peak as being a sustained multi-year stretch of comparably high performance (Whitaker never really had a blow-you-away awesome season, and his best seasons were scattered throughout his career--he never had a stretch of consecutive seasons like what Utley's put up over the last 5), but I get what you're saying.
Technically, this would just mean that Utley was still underrated at the end of the regular season.
As far as the BEST EVAR talk goes... what everyone else said.
The POV of the article is overheated, of course--that's what folks do in the dead tree trade these days--but Utley does have an outside shot to be in the discussion of best second baseman ever; he'll just need an atypical decline period. But as far as catching Morgan for hits... He'd have to average ~160 per season for the next TEN to do that, and I don't see him being 40 and manning the keystone.
But if Utley doesn't pass Morgan (and I'm guessing he won't), Ed Wade gets some of the blame.
Jimmy Rollins has more home runs than Ozzie Smith, he's got infinitely more speed than Cal Ripken and is a better defender than Ernie Banks. Time to start that discussion, too, I guess. How does this Phillies team ever lose a game?
Brad Lidge, of course!
Utley's defense is really very, very good, something that I doubt the average fan is aware of (as per Nichols' Law.)
Too dumb to even get upset about, or laugh at. Refund my time and electrons, please. (And to hell with "sportswriters.")
Where's the article extolling my greatness?
Uh, he did drop the f-bomb on live TV at last year's World Series celebration.
Yes, but is he also a homestar runner?
Mr. NBC is already getting a big head, I see.
Cnt Player OPS+ RC G PA From To+----+-----------------+----+----+----+-----+----+----+
*1 Rogers Hornsby 178 1409 1534 6617 1915 1926
*2 Nap Lajoie 166 891 1040 4561 1896 1905
*3 Eddie Collins 154 930 1479 6336 1906 1917
4 Fred Dunlap 135 555 939 4157 1880 1889
*5 Rod Carew 132 847 1328 5635 1967 1976
*6 Joe Morgan 132 922 1346 5939 1963 1974
7 Chase Utley 129 695 891 3813 2003 2009
8 Cupid Childs 129 779 1131 5316 1888 1898
*9 Tony Lazzeri 127 848 1253 5358 1926 1934
10 Larry Doyle 127 789 1441 6134 1907 1917
11 Bobby Grich 125 646 1135 4769 1970 1979
*12 Joe Gordon 125 570 888 3785 1938 1943
13 Jimmy Williams 121 666 1198 5078 1899 1907
*14 Charlie Gehringer 119 800 1140 5037 1924 1933
15 Del Pratt 118 488 1031 4295 1912 1918
16 Roberto Alomar 117 1025 1563 6889 1988 1998
*17 Frankie Frisch 117 970 1432 6370 1919 1929
18 Danny Murphy 117 363 780 3163 1900 1907
*19 Ryne Sandberg 115 883 1389 6060 1981 1990
20 Alfonso Soriano 114 661 961 4218 1999 2006
*21 Bobby Doerr 114 886 1471 6279 1937 1948
22 Chuck Knoblauch 113 915 1313 5992 1991 1999
23 Jose Vidro 112 640 1060 4242 1997 2005
*24 Billy Herman 112 840 1333 6121 1931 1940
25 Davey Johnson 110 554 1152 4580 1965 1973
26 Bill Doran 109 487 914 3927 1982 1988
27 Lou Whitaker 109 797 1432 6078 1977 1987
28 Tony Cuccinello 108 668 1258 5233 1930 1938
*29 Johnny Evers 108 532 1273 5111 1902 1912
*30 Bid McPhee 108 492 1043 4597 1882 1890
Let's shoot 'em all.
I believe for this one you're thinking of Cole Hamels, the "World ####### Champions" thing.
He's got more power than Wade Boggs, is a better defender than George Brett, and strikes out infinitely less than Michael Jack Schmidt.
Really? Huh. Boy, I had really remembered that wrong. I always think of Utley as stoic, so it must have messed with my head as I thought back.
Where's the article extolling my greatness?
When you have been a character on the Simpsons, been played by Sam Jaffe in a movie (more or less), walked across the country and had your visage on the penny, then I will write you the greatest tribute ever. I promise.
He's great, but Joe Morgan from 1972-1976 was insane, he averaged a 10 WAR season those years.
Utley's been a 6-7 WAR player the last few years.
Utley's at 295/379/523/902, OPS+ 129.
Realistically, that's Utley's territory at the moment – somewhere around Lazzeri, Larry Doyle, Joe Gordon, on the outskirts of the various Halls if he plays this well long enough to be eligible. Outstanding ballplayer, and as everyone has mentioned, not in the Top Ten competition at all.
Looking at the B-ref page, I think Gordon is the perfect comp. He had the walks and power, and in his first 5 years even stole a good number of bases. Few people ran back then, his 18 steals in 1940 was 3rd in the league.
It's over here.
Well, there's a big difference between these three guys. One of them could field. That one is (now) in the Hall; the others aren't.
Utley can field. Whether he'll actually be recognized as someone who can field is another question entirely.
Edit: And I'm late. Coke to AROM.
As has been pointed out, Utley was in AA at age 23 and played only 43 games at age 25 by which time Gordon had almost 10X as many games. Gordon was worn out at age 35. I would guess that at age 35 they'll still be fairly comparable because, as I said, Gordon's missing years came before he turned 30. But again, Gordon missed age 28-29 versus Utley missing age 23-24 not in the majors yet. Advantage Gordon. If Utley goes beyond 35, maybe.
And all of that is why Lazzeri is probably a better comp offensively, but not a great defender. Gordon > Utley > Lazzeri.
Any hypotheses on why star players are often getting late starts to their careers a lot more often these days, as compared to earlier epochs? His teammate Howard being another example of same...
Phillly had players in place ahead of them that were good and making good money, that it wasn't worth the trouble to bring up either guy while they still owed the players money.
as to the first part, are you sure that is really happening? I thought most studies have shown that players on average were reaching the majors quicker. Great players(inner circle guys that is) make the majors early (you're Maddux, Clemens, Pujols, Griffey, Arod, Jeter etc) The second tier of players may seem like they are getting held back, and realistically speaking it's in a teams best interest to be positive the player is major league worthy to take full advantage of their seven years of control.
Lazzeri and Gordon are both in the Hall.
This clip was at the All-Star Game though, not the World Series.
(head smack)
As far as Craig's "I can run faster than Steven Hawking, sing better than Albert Einstein, shoot better than Ghandi and shave closer than Lincoln.
Where's the article extolling my greatness?" I was going to say (Gandhi) you spell better than Quayle but now I'm not sure. Quick, spell out "Yaz" and "Minky"!
With the exception of Lajoie, whose Phillies career was pretty short anyway, Utley is already there.
Lajoie was a first baseman his first two seasons with the Phils, too. Yeah, Utley has the crown now.
Cnt Player OPS+ RC G PA From To+--+-----------------+----+----+----+-----+----+----+
1 Nap Lajoie 146 395 492 2204 1896 1900
2 Chase Utley 129 695 891 3813 2003 2009
3 Juan Samuel 104 483 852 3780 1983 1989
4 Dave Cash 99 268 484 2238 1974 1976
5 Manny Trillo 89 212 502 2022 1979 1982
6 Fresco Thompson 89 332 575 2595 1927 1930
7 Tony Taylor 88 651 1669 6424 1960 1976
8 Bert Niehoff 88 137 408 1592 1915 1917
9 Otto Knabe 88 351 946 4057 1907 1913
10 Al Myers 88 171 420 1859 1885 1891
11 Mickey Morandini 86 426 965 3829 1990 2000
12 Bill Hallman 86 497 1060 4663 1888 1903
13 Granny Hamner 84 673 1501 6222 1944 1959
14 Cookie Rojas 82 302 880 3369 1963 1969
15 Bernie Friberg 81 322 795 2885 1925 1932
16 Marlon Anderson 80 204 479 1869 1998 2002
17 Kid Gleason 79 252 769 3191 1888 1908
18 Denny Doyle 66 139 446 1710 1970 1973
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