The poor man's Bill Madlock, which, when you think about it, still isn't too bad.

He blocked Boggs at 3B in Boston for a year or two, though Lansford was a decent hitter himself at the time. Funny that the Sox even traded for Lansford with Boggs coming off a .400 OBP year in AAA. Boggs spent four years in AA & AAA despite a .400 OBP all four years.

When I was seven years old, I got a Tom Seaver Scouting Handbook that had been put out to preview the 1990 season. It ranked all the starters in the majors from best to worst at each position in both leagues. Now, at that time, Wade Boggs would have been a pretty good choice for the best player in baseball. Though 1989 was probably his last year as a really elite player (except for the strike-shortened 1994), I don't think anybody could have really known that at that point. He had led the major leagues in OBP for each of the previous five seasons, and six of the last seven. His OPS+ the last three seasons had gone 173, 168, 143. All while playing a good defensive third base.

The book had Boggs ranked as the second-best third baseman in the American League. Behind Carney Lansford.

Well, Lansford did have a terrific 1989 season; 336/398/405 for a 132 OPS+, along with a solid 37-for-52 stealing bases. So you can see how someone just focusing on the most recent performances might make the argument.

The Red Sox got a 123 OPS+ out of Lansford in two seasons, then traded him for Tony Armas. The guys they gave to the Angels to get him put up a combined 99 over parts of the next few seasons, which was awesome.

This was, of course, a period in which the Angels decided to trade away their future a few times a year. They dispatched Lansford for Butch Hobson and Rick Burleson, which allowed them to trade Dickie Thon for Ken Forsch. Forsch was okay, but Burleson's fragility led the Angels to trade Brian Harper for Tim Foli, because it was so much better to trade Brian Harper on the heels of hitting .350 with power at AAA and sign a 34-year-old Bob Boone coming off a season where he hit .211. And of course there was Tom Brunansky for Doug Corbett and Rob WIlfong, and passing up on both Willie Aikens and Jason Thompson at first ... somehow Gene Mauch made it work, though, and the Angels in the 1980s had their best decade (prior to the current incarnation).

Though 1989 was probably his last year as a really elite player (except for the strike-shortened 1994), I don't think anybody could have really known that at that point.

Apparently Tom Seaver knew.

Was hitting .400 as late as June 5, 1988. Was a Little League WS participant, right?

Was a Little League WS participant, right?

Yep, 1969, IIRC. Our Santa Clara boys lost to Taiwan in the finals, in the era in which Taiwan was winning it just about every year.

So, was Lansford's defense as bad as Bill James claims? DRA has him at 42 runs below average for his career, and FRAA has him at 33 runs below average. Does Win Shares have him as worse than that?

Our Santa Clara boys lost to Taiwan in the finals, in the era in which Taiwan was winning it just about every year.

Did they ever reveal how widespread fudging players' ages was in Taiwanese baseball? It is truly odd their LL teams were so dominant yet they ended up producing comparatively little talent in MLB or even the Japanese leagues.

Did they ever reveal how widespread fudging players' ages was in Taiwanese baseball?

Not that I know of, but it had to be pretty egregious.

IIRC, their was some age-fudging going on that Taiwanese run, but the real secret to their success at the time was sending a team of all-stars from around the country disguised as a local entrant. Those teams had a fascinating impact on Taiwanese society and politics, I wish there was a good English-language book about them.

When I was seven years old, I got a Tom Seaver Scouting Handbook that had been put out to preview the 1990 season. The book had Boggs ranked as the second-best third baseman in the American League. Behind Carney Lansford.

1990 was the first year I played Rotisserie. Carney Lansford was the first player I drafted -- for $24. I thought I had a steal with all those SBs. He didn't earn half that in 1990.

Does fantasy baseball still give a disproportionately large value to SB's or have most leagues shifted to more sabermetric models?

Most leagues still use the standard 4x4, which is hideous to me (although my highest stakes league uses that, I've only been in two years, and the league is 20 years old, give me time . . . )

The league I run (NL only, 14 teams, 24 man rosters) uses the following stats:

Full Categories (14 for 1st, 1 for 14th)

adjOBP (OBP with CS subtracted from the numerator)
Bases Produced (TB+SB)
R
RBI

adjOPSagainst (2*OBPa)+SLGa
ERA
Strikeouts

Half Categories (7 for 1st, .5 for 14th)

Quality Starts
Relief points (2*SV)+RW+H-BS-RL

In this system, a good closer is worth about $15-$20 (not $35-$40), a good setup man is worth $7-$10. We have a $263 cap (we added $3 for the 24th man). We use 11 pitchers, 12 hitters and 1 hitter/pitcher.

Actually I think now the majority of leagues use 5x5.
My 1984-created league even switched to 5x5 in 2003.

Sabrmetretic or not, the degree of difficulty remains the same: acquiring players who are most valuable under a given system.

I didn't realize that many switched to 5x5 Howie . . . interesting. Too bad the fantasy revolution hadn't waited about 7-8 years to get started. I'm sure most of the founders were Bill James fans, and by the mid-80s they would have realized that using W and RBI, and weighting SB and SV so high were very big mistakes.

I should say, using RBI and not R is a big mistake.

Our league has a mix of statheads and casual fans, we left R and RBI in, since they offset each other. But replacing SB w/Runs Scored is the easiest and most basic correction that should be made to standard 4x4 (followed by replacing HR w/TB or TB+SB).

He blocked Boggs at 3B in Boston for a year or two, though Lansford was a decent hitter himself at the time. Funny that the Sox even traded for Lansford with Boggs coming off a .400 OBP year in AAA. Boggs spent four years in AA & AAA despite a .400 OBP all four years.

Boggs had a terrible reputation defensively when he came up. He got his chance to play when Lansford got hurt, and when Lansford came back, it was Boggs who was moved to first base, not Lansford. The Red Sox, at least, believed that Lansford was better defensively.

As for the Seaver thing - Boggs was better in 1989, but not a whole lot better. Also, Lansford is only one year older than Boggs, so it's not like his collapse was easy to foresee. Lansford had finished higher in the 1989 MVP balloting.