First, I just want to say one thing here: Just because I'm blogging does NOT mean I have lots of time on my hands. (Paul and Rik, take that.) (Guess I told them!) It's not like I'm talking about relationships or politics or other meaningless garbage here. This is about baseball. This is important stuff. So I make time during my busy day to communicate. If you think it's a waste of time to discuss things like Rocky Colavito's Runs Created factor, then go hang out at the I love LeBron site. Jeez..
Now that our mission has been made clear and validated: Kuenn for Colavito. Gets my vote for one of the top four most controversial trades of my era (56-68 more or less). Others being Brock for Broglio, that mess The Tribe took from KC in exchange for Maris, and Dykes-for-Gordon just on the principle of the trading of two managers.
Would you believe that, by the end of their careers, Kuenn and Colavito were almost of equal value to their various teams? Seems hard to believe, I know. But I've done the homework, I have the data, and I will make my case in the coming days. Just know this: the main difference between them was that fans love sluggers and are indifferent to most great singles hitters, unless they happen to be complete assholes like Pete Rose and Ty Cobb.
Your homework for this weekend is to go look up Kuenn and Colavito on baseball-reference.com and check out how close they are to each other in such categories as games played, on base percentage, Runs Created, GIDP, at bats and hits-plus-walks. You will be quite amazed, I guarantee it, if this sort of crap interests you. Kuenn led the league more times in offensive categories than did the Rock, by the way.
But Don't Knock the Rock. Ever. Not on this site.
No comments:
Post a Comment