2nd base: I had forgotten how good Alfonso; he had a .284 career batting average, .292 with the Mets, both numbers well ahead of Willie Randolph, .276 and .275 respectively. He also hit more than twice as many home runs as Randolph.

Alfonso with the Mets: 1086 G, .292/.367/.445, .812 OPS, 113 OPS+
Cano with the Yankees: 1122 G, .307/.348/.499, .847 OPS, 120 OPS+

So much of Mr. October's postseason reputation centers on the '77 Series when he hit 5 home runs and that one game when he hit 3. (Jackson had no particular reputation as a postseason hitter before then.)

Unless you count that 1973 World Series MVP.

I'm not seeing Beltran over Bernie. Obvious Mets slant to this article.

Mickey Mantle won the MVP in 1962 but had only one good year after that)

I assume he means 1964 (league leading 177 OPS+)

But not...

1966 - 170 OPS+ 2nd in league (only 108 G's)
1967 - 149 OPS+ 7th in league
1968 - 143 OPS+ 8th in league

Larry, with all due respect, I'd take the 1999-2000 version of Alfonzo over Cano, though Cano will almost certainly end up with a better career. Alfonzo's 1997, 1998, and 2002 weren't too shabby either.

though Cano will almost certainly end up with a better career

BBRef: Alfonzo 26.5 WAR, Cano 29.7 WAR and counting.

Larry, with all due respect, I'd take the 1999-2000 version of Alfonzo over Cano,

Over the 2010 or 2007 versions of Cano? Can't see that. And this year he's at a pace for a 7.2 WAR. It's admittedly quite close, but Cano's already beaten Alfonzo in WAR in roughly the same length of career, and his rate stats are also higher.

So is he basically just saying best season from each position? If so, I'm guessing every team in baseball would have a pretty awesome starting lineup. Otherwise, there is now way, for instance, that Strawberry is in the same league as Reggie Jackson or that Wright is even close to A-Rod (yet).

I will certainly give him that the Yankees don't have a SP even close to comparable with Seaver. I guess maybe if Sabathia is great for another few years he would become the choice...

from TFA

At catcher, it would have to be Jorge Posada over Thurmon Munson and even over Elston Howard, if only because Elston despite winning an MVP award in 1964, had just a couple of good years as a starting catcher from 1962 on.

don't they have fact-checkers at the Voice?

I'm not seeing Beltran over Bernie.

Beltran: .280/.369/.500, 129 0PS+
Williams: .297/.381/.477, 125 OPS+

Beltran was also a better fielder. Bernie does have a better peak, though.

Without meaning it as a slight to Bernie, Beltran was a WAY better fielder.

Let's compare Beltran's seven years (well, almost seven years) with the Mets to the seven seasons Bernie had also starting at the age 28 season -- which is when Carlos started with the Mets:
Bernie 1997-2003: 30.3 WAR, per BB-Ref
Beltran 2005-2011 (including the part of 2011 he played for the Giants): 31.2 WAR, per BB-Ref

Closer than I thought it would be. Williams has a big oWAR advantage over Beltran, while Beltran obviously was a much, much better fielder. I like Beltran a lot, but people forget that Bernie was a very, very good hitter during his peak.

EDIT: Just to clarify, I agree with taking Beltran over Bernie, but my point is that it's a pretty close call of around 1 WAR.

Also, I understand Barra might sentimentally prefer Carter over Piazza, but in terms of Mets careers Piazza wins hands down. Carter's last great season was 1985, his first with the Mets. Piazza was still "Piazza" in 1999-2001, not to mention that big part of 1998 he was with the Mets.
Let's compare full seasons only, which favors Carter by excluding Piazza's great partial 1998:
Piazza, first five full years with Mets, 1999-2003: 17.8 WAR, per BB-Ref
Carter, entire five-year Mets career, 1985-89: 10.3 WAR, per BB-Ref

Larry, with all due respect, I'd take the 1999-2000 version of Alfonzo over Cano,

Over the 2010 or 2007 versions of Cano? Can't see that. And this year he's at a pace for a 7.2 WAR. It's admittedly quite close, but Cano's already beaten Alfonzo in WAR in roughly the same length of career, and his rate stats are also higher.

I'm puzzled as to why Randolph is being so quickly dismissed. His WAR with the Yankees is almost as high as Alfonzo's and Cano's combined. As for peak:

Top 4 years (advantage to Alfonso here, as he had only 4 good years)

Randolph - 6.5, 5.6, 5.1, 4.7
Fonzie - 6.1, 6.0, 5.9, 4.8
Cano - 7.8, 6.3, 5.2, 4.1

Randolph is probably 3rd, but it's close, and like I said, he blows them away by career.

So is he basically just saying best season from each position? If so, I'm guessing every team in baseball would have a pretty awesome starting lineup.

Cubs since 1962:

C - Rick Wilkins 1993 6.5
1B - Derrek Lee 2005 7.5
2B - Ryne Sandberg 1984 8.4
SS - Don Kessinger 1969 4.1
3B - Ron Santo 1967 9.6
LF - Billy Williams 1965 7.4
CF - Adolfo Phillips 1967 5.8
RF - Sammy Sosa 2001 10.1

SP - Greg Maddux 1992 8.9
SP - Fergie Jenkins 1971 9.6
SP - Dick Ellsworth 1963 9.9
SP - Bill Hands 1969 8.3
SP - Rick Reuschel 1977 9.2

RP - Bruce Sutter 1977 6.5

Lots of one year wonders there.

With the big caveat that WAR probably gets catcher defense wrong, let's compare Piazza and Posada. We start with Piazza's 8 years with the Mets -- for comparison's sake, we'll include the 42 games he played for the Dodgers and Marlins in 1998 so we have eight full seasons. That gives us 1998-2005, which are his age 29 through 36 seasons. We'll compare with Posada's career with the Yankees staring with 2001, his age 29 season, and continuing through 2008, which was a bad year for Jorge.

Piazza: 1998-2005: 23.5 WAR per BB-Ref (oWAR of 30.0), OPS+ of 135, 1,014 G
Posada: 2001-2008: 28.2 WAR per BB-Ref (oWAR of 31.3), OPS+ of 127, 1,040 G

In 2004, Piazza played 68 games at 1B, which probably hurts his oWAR. Posada gets knocked less for his bad defense than Piazza does: Jorge's dWAR is 2.6 while Mike's dWAR is -0.8. I don't know much much confidence I have in those numbers. So depending on how you rate the two defensively, Posada is either a little better, equal to, or a little worse than Piazza. Either way, it's close. Of course, Posada got a late start, so his Age 29-36 seasons captures more of his peak than does Piazza's, and Piazza's Dodgers seasons blow Jorge away. But if we're just comparing Mets vs. Yankees, I bet the Piazza-Posada matchup is closer than a lot of people would have thought.

Doesn't Piazza rate really highly on studies of pitch calling/framing, while Posada rated poorly there? I imagine if you were to include those numbers with the defensive numbers you've already got (which are mostly based on throwing), Piazza will come out as clearly superior.

At catcher, it would have to be Jorge Posada over Thurmon Munson and even over Elston Howard, if only because Elston despite winning an MVP award in 1964, had just a couple of good years as a starting catcher from 1962 on.

don't they have fact-checkers at the Voice?

Not to mention "Thurmon".

2nd base: I had forgotten how good Alfonso [sic]; he had a .284 career batting average, .292 with the Mets, both numbers well ahead of Willie Randolph, .276 and .275 respectively.

Seriously, is this Bill James' pal Allan Barra?? My God.

Interesting idea for an article, I'll grant. But yikes.

Allan Barra's book on Yogi Berra had as many small factual inaccuracies as any book I've ever read, such as claiming that Babe Ruth won four World Series as a player (or perhaps to Barra WS titles won as a member of the Red Sox don't count...)

Re: #17, I wouldn't be surprised if Piazza rated as much better than Posada at pitch calling and pitch framing. And Posada's defense really seemed to take a sharp turn for the worse in 2009 and 2010. Maybe I'm unusual, but Posada came out better than I would have expected.

As for the article over all: I used to think of Barra as one of the smarter and more stat-savvy mainstream sportswriters. Either the bar was much lower years ago, or something has happened to Barra.

Re: #17, I wouldn't be surprised if Piazza rated as much better than Posada at pitch calling and pitch framing. And Posada's defense really seemed to take a sharp turn for the worse in 2009 and 2010. Maybe I'm unusual, but Posada came out better than I would have expected.

Your comparison rates Posada as an above-average defensive catcher, while the pitch-framing stuff rates him as one of the worst defensive catchers of all time. Here's the link to the study.

Piazza was +7.4 per year and Posada was -14.5 (both numbers regressed to the mean)--that's a 2 win per season swing, or 16 wins that WAR isn't capturing at all. I'm pretty confident that Piazza was the better player.

1st base: Mattingly was a very good hitter and probably as good a fielder as Hernandez, but the difference is slight.

If Barra (and a bunch of Yankee fans) says that Mattingly was as good a fielder as Hernandez, then it must be true.

I did a quick look at the San Francisco Giants since 1962:

C - Dick Dietz 1970 4.2
1B - Will Clark 1989 8.5
2B - Jeff Kent 2000 6.9
SS - Rich Aurilia 2001 6.5
3B - Jim Ray Hart 1966 6.4 (Matt Williams 1994 honorable mention)
LF - Barry Bonds 2001 11.6
CF - Willie Mays 1965 10.9
RF - Bobby Bonds 1973 7.7

SP - Juan Marichal 1965 9.9
SP - Tim Lincecum 2008 7.6
SP - Gaylord Perry 1970 7.1
SP - John Montefusco 1975 6.6
SP - Jason Schmidt 2004 6.5

RP - Greg Minton 1982 5.3

SS: Jeter, of course, at shortstop, but at their respective peaks, not so much over Reyes as you might think.

Of course, Reyes missed a huge amount of time at his "peak", whereas Jeter has been one of the most durable short stops ever.

Reyes' four best seasons by WAR (2006-08 and 2011) -- 5.6, 5.0, 4.7, 4.7 (he has no others over 2.2)
Jeter's four best seasons by WAR -- 7.8, 7.3, 6.4, 5.4

Yeah, just about as much as I thought.

Yanks since 1962

C - Thurman Munson 1973 6.9
1B - Don Mattingly 1986 7.1
2B - Robinson Cano 2010 7.8
SS - Derek Jeter 1999 7.8
3B - Alex Rodriguez 2007 9.2
OF - Roy White 1970 6.6
OF - Bernie Williams 1995 6.1
OF - Mickey Mantle 1962 5.7 (in 123 games)
SP - Ron Guidry 1978 9.3
SP - C. C. Sabathia 2011 7.0
SP - Mel Stottlemyre 1965 6.6
SP - David Cone 1997 6.5
SP - Whitey Ford 1964 6.4

RP - Goose Gossage 1982 4.4
Closer - Mariano Rivera 2008 4.2

Reyes' four best seasons by WAR (2006-08 and 2011) -- 5.6, 5.0, 4.7, 4.7 (he has no others over 2.2)
Jeter's four best seasons by WAR -- 7.8, 7.3, 6.4, 5.4

Yeesh, watching Reyes I know how much of a terror he was in his good seasons, and yet even despite what I presume is a substantial defensive disadvantage, Jeter is leaving him in the dust. Bastard.

Barra seems to be switching back and forth between total career and career with the NY team. e.g. Piazza/Carter > Posada presumably based on the fact that they were simply better players, but Wright can catch A-Rod based on "Rodriguez's New York years". That obviously isn't kosher, not to mention that it's unnecessary. As long as your criteria is performance with the NY team (thus eliminating the most amazing years of A-Rod, Clemens, Reggie, etc.), I don't think you have to cheat any to get these teams to look about even.

Left out of TFE:

LF: [Rickey] Henderson was considerably better than Cleon Jones

A tough point to dispute.

Yanks since 1962

OF - Roy White 1970 6.6
OF - Bernie Williams 1995 6.1
OF - Mickey Mantle 1962 5.7 (in 123 games)

Big oversight:

OF - Rickey Henderson 1985 9.8

which bumps the Mick off the OF list, and beats out Guidry's 9.3 in 1978 as the top Yanks' WAR since 1962.

A's since 1968... not going purely by WAR, but even there I think all these guys would have THE best season, and also the best "era":

C - Gene Tenace, 1974 to 1976. Early-90's Steinbach is the backup.
1b - Jason Giambi, 1999 to 2001. At his peak was just better than McGwire, and stayed in the lineup better.
2b - Mark Ellis, 2005 to 2008. Honorable mentions: Dick Green, 1969; Tony Phillips had a great WTF year as an A's mostly-2b utility-man in 1986.
3b - Sal Bando, 1969 to 1976. Better overall than Chavez, and Chavez was darn good.
SS - Bert Campaneris, 1968 to 1974. Campy never did get much MVP love, but his best years were better than Tejada at his MVP-eak.
LF - Pick-your-favorite-Rickey!-season. I'd take the early-80's version, although 1990 was his best year in Oakland. Mitchell Page with the WTF in 1977.
CF - Early-80's Dwayne Murphy. Bill North and Dave Henderson were nearly as good, but not quite.
RF - Reggie!, 1968 to 1975. Canseco had one year (1988) nearly as good as Reggie!'s best, but Reggie had a BUNCH of excellent years here.
DH - John Jaha, 1999. Frank Thomas 2006 was probably the most fun, though.

SP - Vida Blue. 1972 is the best season for any Oakland A's starter, and he had a run of good seasons in the mid-70's. So he's somewhere in here.
SP - Tim Hudson, 1999-2004.
SP - Barry Zito, 2000-2003.
SP - Mark Mulder, 2001-2003. Close call between this and early-70's Catfish Hunter - Hunter's 1974 might've been better than any single Mulder season.
SP - Roster space reserved for a one-shot: Kenny Rogers 1998, Mike Norris 1980, Mike Moore 1989. Sorry, Dave Stewart.

Setup/CL - Early-70's Rollie Fingers averaged nearly 2 innings an appearance, 70 appearances a year, with a 135 ERA+.
Dennis Eckersley's 87-92 averaged 1.1 innings an appearance, 61 appearances a year, with a 178 ERA+.
Fingers was used very differently - in 1976, he went 13-11, 134.2 innings with a 136 ERA+, and that season's probably more valuable than even early-90's Eck.

With all these superior players, the Mets must have won a lot of championships over the years. Congratulations.

Come on, it's Mickey ####### mantle. I don't care if 1962 was his last good year. He's easily the best player overall that also played for either team in that time span. What a dumb arbitrary game.

Your comparison rates Posada as an above-average defensive catcher,

No it doesn't - dWAR doesn't work that way any more. Posada's career total is 2.1 dWAR, but he's -60 on fielding runs. dWAR now includes a positional bonus.

I'll say what I always say about catchers: there's no way a guy who fields on average one ball in play every three games or so can give back a significant amount of his value on defense unless he's bad enough that he couldn't possibly be a catcher. An enormous percentage of a catcher's defensive value--probably 90% of it---comes from his ability to play catcher. The difference in the other 10 percent or so is merely window dressing. If he stinks at calling games the bench can call it. If he's bad at framing, so what? Are umpires such dumbasses that they can't see where the pitch crosses the plate? Everytime I see a real "ball to strike" frame job it's fairly obvious and almost never called a strike.

I'll never stop believing these things. Call me Murray Chass like if you want, but take your catcher dWar and get off my lawn.

Inaccurate, confusing (best individual seasons or career with team?), and biased article.

dWAR is severely flawed, as so many defensive metrics are. Just look at oWAR and OPS+ for a quick and dirty.

Piazza and Carter were past their primes with the Mets and Jorge was a better hitter during that time period. Randolph or Cano own Alfonso. Barra said Afonso was abetter baserunner, thus better on the whole.
If he says Mattingly is just a tad over Keith, how about Tino, Giambi, or even Teix?
Williams over Beltran is easy in terms of hitting.
Not gonna get into the RF or LF mess.
Derek > Reyes in career value and peak. Not sure why Mets fans still can't get over that.
Wright can't eclipse A-Rod's MVPs or power.

SP - Vida Blue. 1972 is the best season for any Oakland A's starter, and he had a run of good seasons in the mid-70's. So he's somewhere in here.

In Blue's case, you mean 1971. In 1972 he was 6-10 with a 102 ERA+. In 1971 he won both the CYA and the MVP.

Quick look seems like that Cub team might have the highest WAR but it might also have the most 4-man rotation years where a starter gets a bigger fraction of their team's value. If a postulated "replacement team" is worth 40 wins, the assignment is to find a team that can generate 122 WAR pro-rated to their hypothetical playing time (e.g. if your five starters throw 32 starts at 7 IP average, and your four killer closers share the rest...after all, you are always holding a lead), you can manage the first 162-0 (nice that the timeframe was 1962 so no shorter seasons except strike ones). Don't forget your DH. Bench gets 0 WAR.

Turn your papers over and....start.

Lots of one year wonders there.

Yeah, but a Cubs "career" team ain't too shabby: Plug in Hundley/Davis/Soto at C (this is pretty weak), Grace at 1B, ummm .... Madlock at SS (we're gonna slug our way to a title! ... there are no good SS options for the Cubs so Kessinger I guess) and Monday in CF. Even limited to Cub time, a rotation headed by Fergie, Reuschel and Maddux ain't shabby. Add Z and I'm somewhat surprised to see that Hands accumulated over 25 WAR with the Cubs to take the #5 spot from Wood/Sutcliffe (would take a healthy Wood). A bullpen with Sutter and Smith ... and maybe Prior stays healthy in the pen. :-)

Makes me wonder if any other team has had 7 starters in the last 50 years with 20+ WAR for the team. That top 5 combined for about 190 WAR. One answer of course is the Dodgers with 9 starters with 20+ WAR (Kershaw about to make it 10) although the top 5 is pretty much a wash (RIP Bob Welch, surprise #5 for the post-expansion Dodgers edging Fernando 30.6 WAR to 30.4 and in 50 fewer starts).

Back to the lineup: Santo, Sandberg, Williams and Sosa are all 55+ WAR with the Cubs and Grace is at 41. The rest is filler but that's a pretty amazing core.* Looking at WAR, looks like Jody takes the C job easily (15 WAR). WAR hates hates hates Monday's defense (-76 Rfield) but he did have 19 oWAR in 3000 PA -- a mini-Bernie! And SS is even more of a pick-n-mix than I realized -- Dunston 7.9, Kessinger 7.8 and DeJesus 7.5. DeJ has the best OBP but Kessinger was my favorite player as a kid so he gets the job. (On a per PA basis, Jose Hernandez should get the job actually -- 5.3 WAR in about 3 full seasons of work.)

The Cubs also have two of the worst "careers". Biittner apparently put up -1.5 WAR in 1700 PA (never seemed like he got that much playing time) and Jerry Morales checks in at -2.1 in over 2800 PA. Jerry Morales -- worst Cubs CF of the last 50 years which is really impressive when you think about it.

*Only 73 players post-expansion with 55+ career WAR and the Cubs have 4 guys who did it with the team.

The Twins have a lot of funny players on their list (most WAR in a single season)

C - Joe Mauer
1b - Rod Carew
2b - Chuck Knoblauch
3b - Corey Koskie
Ss - Zolio Versalles
Lf - Shane Mack
Cf - Kirby Puckett
Rf - Bob Allison

SP - Bert Blyleven
SP - Johan Santana
SP - Frank Viola
SP - Jerry Koosman
SP - Kevin Tapani

In Blue's case, you mean 1971. In 1972 he was 6-10 with a 102 ERA+. In 1971 he won both the CYA and the MVP.

Yes.

Makes me wonder if any other team has had 7 starters in the last 50 years with 20+ WAR for the team

This includes pitchers, but at the end of the 2006 season, the Yankees had seven players -- Posada, Jeter, A-Rod (just barely), Williams, Pettitte, Mussina, Rivera -- each of whom had contributed at least 20 WAR to the franchise at that point.

Actually, the best player overall that played for either team in that time span was Alex Rodriguez, who was basically tied with Mantle in Pennants Added before this season began, and has now passed him.

1st base: Mattingly was a very good hitter and probably as good a fielder as Hernandez, but the difference is slight.

How does something like that even get written? Is Mattingly remotely in that same stratosphere as Hernandez defensively?

SS: Jeter, of course, at shortstop, but at their respective peaks, not so much over Reyes as you might think.

Another doozy. I'm not a Jeter fan by any stretch of the imagination, but has Reyes ever put up a full season on par with Jeter's third best season?

Makes me wonder if any other team has had 7 starters in the last 50 years with 20+ WAR for the team

Cardinals
C Ted Simmons 42.7
Joe Torre 21.0
hm Tim McCarver 19.1
1b Albert Pujols 85.5
hm Mark McGwire(18.2)
Keith Hernandez 32.9
ss Ozzie Smith 62.8
3b Scott Rolen 24.7
hm ken boyer 17.4(54.4---career in st louis vs '62 onwards)
Lf Lou Brock 39
Cf Jim Edmonds 36.4
Cf Curt Flood 40.2
CF Willie McGee 23.2
CF Ray Lankford 35.3

I'm not sure if that is what you meant, if you meant at the same time, that is going to be an awfully high bar to reach.

An enormous percentage of a catcher's defensive value--probably 90% of it---comes from his ability to play catcher. The difference in the other 10 percent or so is merely window dressing. If he stinks at calling games the bench can call it. If he's bad at framing, so what? Are umpires such dumbasses that they can't see where the pitch crosses the plate?

How do you explain the results of Mike Fast's framing study?

Red Sox, from 1962 on, best single season WARs for convenience, from bb-ref:

How does something like that even get written? Is Mattingly remotely in that same stratosphere as Hernandez defensively?

Looking at the way most of the modern defensive stats see it, no. They all have Hernandez as historically great defensively (as he was seen at the time), and Mattingly as being slightly better than average (significantly worse than he was seen at the time).

When they were both in New York, I remember them being viewed & talked about in the (New York) media as fairly even defensively. Mets fans thought Hernandez had the better glove, Yankee fans thought Mattingly did.
Hernandez has the most gold gloves of any first baseman with 11, but Mattingly is second with 9.

The reality was that Hernandez was better with the glove, probably significantly, but that wasn't the overwhelming perception 25 years ago, and Barra strikes me as the kind of guy who wouldn't get much past the perceptions of 25 years ago.

Looking at the way most of the modern defensive stats see it, no. They all have Hernandez as historically great defensively (as he was seen at the time), and Mattingly as being slightly better than average (significantly worse than he was seen at the time).

That is the perception I had growing up also. I mean Hernandez wasn't as good defensively in New York as he was in St Louis, and yet it was still clear he was better than Mattingly. Mattingly was always second tier, and compared to the likes of Olerud and Clark as the echelon below the standards that Keith Hernandez set. I guess not living in New York, and living in a time before the East coast sports network took hold to the degree it has now, that I thought most of the county felt the same way as I did about the two defensively.

Yeah. If you're just comparing time spent in NY, you're comparing Hernandez' decline phase with Mattingly's prime. And defense is a young man's game. - Brock Hanke

How does something like that even get written? Is Mattingly remotely in that same stratosphere as Hernandez defensively?

Not even in the same ZIP code.

It's hard to explain to people who didn't actually see it, but Hernandez could take over a game defensively, in a way I suspect few 1b ever have.

Mattingly was a legendary figure almost immediately in New York. The reasons for this are complex but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Mattingly was the archetypal understated, elegant ballplayer who hustled, played hard, played almost every day for a few years and didn't make backpage headlines over controversies. He stood in stark contrast to the Bronx Zoo era, and to generations of Yankee fans fed on the legends of the past, he seemed a cross between Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig.

Mattingly was voted the best player in the game by his peers, and this title became sort of the active version of Joe D's "Greatest Living Ballplayer." Of course, the real best player in baseball was his teammate, Rickey Henderson, but you would never know that by listening to Yankee fans or beat writers.

#47 is true, Hernandez was easily the best fielding first baseman I've ever seen. In a game where there was a lot of one-run strategy, his defensive prowess made him an absolute monster.

Mattingly was a legendary figure almost immediately in New York. The reasons for this are complex but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Mattingly was the archetypal understated, elegant ballplayer who hustled, played hard, played almost every day for a few years and didn't make backpage headlines over controversies. He stood in stark contrast to the Bronx Zoo era, and to generations of Yankee fans fed on the legends of the past, he seemed a cross between Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig.

Mattingly was voted the best player in the game by his peers, and this title became sort of the active version of Joe D's "Greatest Living Ballplayer." Of course, the real best player in baseball was his teammate, Rickey Henderson, but you would never know that by listening to Yankee fans or beat writers.

Of course Rickey was one of the greatest ballplayers of all time, period. But because of the specific nature of Mattingly's decline, the point of comparison is going to be restricted to the two years (1985 and 1986) that they were teammates and both healthy for the whole year. Before that, Henderson was an Athletic, and after that Mattingly's back was giving him persistent problems. No team's fans are going to view a player like Mattingly in strictly objective terms. Look at Cal Ripken's treatment in Baltimore, even though his last HoF level year was in 1991. Look at Ernie Banks in Chicago, whose career after he turned 30 was but a shadow of its former self.

During 1985 and 1986, if you're simply going by WAR, Rickey was better in 1985 (9.8 to 6.4) and Mattingly was slightly better in 1986 (7.1 to 6.2). But while Mattingly's major contributions were in the triple crown categories** with a few spectacular defensive plays thrown in, Rickey's most distinctive values came in walks and stolen bases. Throw in the intangibles that you mention, add the fact that Mattingly was homegrown, and there's no particular reason to think that Yankee fans' reaction was all that out of line, even though when you go beyond those two years there was little objective basis for it.

**Mattingly led the AL in RBI and TB in 1985, and in six different batting categories in 1986.

The Phillies single-season leaders since 1962 aren't terribly shabby:

C Darren Daulton 6.7 1992
1B Ryan Howard 5.0 2006
2B Chase Utley 8.8 2008
3B Mike Schmidt 9.5 1974
SS Jimmy Rollins 6.0 2007
LF Greg Luzinski 5.0 1978
CF Lenny Dykstra 8.8 1990
RF Johnny Callison 7.7 1963

SP Steve Carlton 11.7 1972
SP Jim Bunning 8.7 1966
SP Roy Halladay 8.5 2011
SP Cliff Lee 8.3 2011
SP John Denny 7.1 1983
RP Tug McGraw 4.6 1980
RP Brad Lidge 2.3 2008