Vidro

Walker

The above is overall, entire career. Through age 31, though, Walker is the 7th most similar to Vidro. The most similar to Vidro through age 31 are those superstars Carlos Baerga and Jeff Cirillo.

Is Marcus Giles better than Todd Walker?

dunno if he is better, but by golly, he has grit, moxie, and a chin that rivals Dudley DoRight.

As I’ve said before, as hard as it may be to believe, the Mariners front office (and I honestly don’t know if that’s Bavasi or a collective) simply doesn’t understand how to evaluate major league talent, especially when it comes understanding how a player compares to replacement level.

Definitely organization as a whole; this isn’t the first time this has happened.

I know this is only slightly on topic, but what does runs created take into account such that someone with a lower OBP and SLG can create more runs?

Basically RC has an on-base component and an advancement component that are weighted by opportunities (i.e. PA).

So the first culprit could be the relative number of PA’s each player had.

It also depends on which source you’re using for the RC figure. You may have noticed that EPSN, baseball reference and THT will report different values for a given player. This is due to differences in the formula that they use (there are about 14 versions of James’ formula), how they correct RC, and slight differences in the counting stats totals. THT uses the latest version of James’ formula and then corrects RC for team context, park effects and situational hitting. IMHO, it’s the most useful RC value. ESPN and baseball reference don’t correct for park etc as far as I know.

While park effects can contribute to a player with a lower OBP and SLG having a higher RC value with THT, the situational adjustment is likely a bigger contributor IMHO. This is indeed the case when comparing the 2004 RC values of Hank Blalock (.276/.355/.500; PA:713; THT RC: 113) and Adam Dunn ( .266/.388/.569; PA: 681; THT RC: 111).

First while Blalock’s SLG and OBP are lower than Dunn’s, he has about 30 more PA. Their unadjusted THT RC are: Dunn 120; Blalock 107. Interestingly, Dunn has near the extreme in ’04 for negative clutch while Blalock was insane with runners on (near the extreme for positive clutch). So after adjusting for clutch, their THT totals become Dunn 112; Blalock 117. Then team context and park effects are accounted for to yield the final RC values listed above (111 vs 113). So in this case the situational adjustment dwarfed the magnitude of the park effects.

If you compare those to ESPN, you’ll note that for 2004, ESPN credits Dunn with significantly more RC than Blalock.

I mean, a middle reliever is a small price to pay for a veteran DH…