Olerud was a very good baseball player for a while, and a very good Fantasy Baseball player for 2 years, but you are right - too much of his value is locked up on doubles.

1993 he was great - 10.9 FBHOF pts, 4th best 1B, 15th best batter
1998: .354 AVG, 91 R, 22 HR, 93 RBI, 2 SB - 7.8 pts, 6th best 1b, 40th best batter
2002: .300 AVG, 85 R, 22 HR, 102 RBI, 0 SB - 5.5 Pts, 12th best 1b, 67th best batter
1999: .298 AVG, 107 R, 19 HR, 96 RBI, 3 SB - 5.3 Pts, 14th best 1b, 78th best batter
1997: .294 AVG, 90 R, 22 HR, 102 RBI, 0 SB - 5.1 Pts, 13th best 1b, 74th best batter

He was up against McGwire, Galarraga, Bagwell, F Thomas, Helton, Giambi, Palmeiro, Thome, Delgado, etc. Some good fantasy players who racked up the counting stats.

Teix has a LONG way to go. Using the 10 pt FBHOF score as a gauge, Teix has only 1 FBHOF worthy season - 2005 (.301, 113 R, 43 HR, 144 RBI, 4 SB, 13.2 Pts).

The rest of his seasons really aren’t anything special for first basemen or any power hitter. An average of 88 R, 32 HR, 102 R, 2 SB really isn’t that special by today’s standards.

OK - for Donnie Baseball and the Creatine Kid. First, remember that the 5 year peak makes up 95+% of a players peak. Second, lets look at their rankings by year. Here are their rankings among first basemen during the 5-year peaks:

Mattingly: 1, 1, 2, 3, 3 - Average = 2.0
McGwire: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 - Average = 3.0

among all batters

Mattingly: 1, 2, 5, 14, 18 - Average = 8.0
McGwire: 4, 12, 12, 24, 30 - Average = 16.4

So, first point is that Mattingly was ranked significantly better over his 5 year peak.

This is all well and good if you buy into the methodology I use. Maybe you don’t, and if that is the case, who cares how my rankings come out, right?

So - a bit on the methodology. Again looking at peak years, here are the underlying point totals for each category. Tough to display in comments, so, the first number is Mattingly’s the second is McGwire’s in each case

AVG: 20.8 vs. 5.4
R: 13.9 vs. 13.8
HR: 12.4 vs. 22.5
RBI: 17.8 vs. 15.9
SB: -1.2 vs. -2.1

Really, it comes down to the fact that

A) Mattingly was an incredible average hitter, while McGwire was actually not that good.

B) McGwire was a much superior home run hitter, but it is not as if Mattingly was a stiff with the long ball.

C) And RBI wise, they were about the same, but Mattingly’s peak average of 119 is a bit more impressive than McGwire’s average of 125 when considering the era.

The final proof - forget the math, look at the raw numbers. Holding stolen bases aside because I am lazy and they are about equal (it hurts Mattingly a bit anyways), here is the average rank that each finished in all stat categories. Meaning, in 1984 Mattingly finished 2nd in Batting Average and 6th in RBI. Add these rankings up for each stat in the peak years and it’s a BLOWOUT.

Mattingly’s average rank in 12.2. McGwire’s is 24.7! Crap man, that is a huge difference. And it is no back-office mumbo jumbo with standard deviations and calculated league minimums, it is straight ranking among their peers of the time. Just to remove all doubt, here is their average ranking in each category. Again, Mattingly’s first, followed by McGwire’s:

AVG: 6th vs. 67th
R: 22nd vs. 20th
HR: 16th vs. 1st
RBI: 5th vs 10th

Not sure how anyone can argue with this now.

Want to move Kershaw while his stock is high. Playing for this year, who would you rather have: Kershaw or potential targets Javy Vazquez Maine Cabrera Verlander Harden? h2h 5×5 thx