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Tuesday, December 02, 2003

PAT ON THE BACK

I was running over to BP to test U.S.S. Mariner Dave's claim that Gary Sheffield was just as good as Manny Ramirez over the past three years (too important to leave up to GPA alone), when I noticed that Lyle Overbay was the player of the day. Having just written about Overbay, I was very curious as to what BP would say. Here it is:

Breakout: 16% Improve: 38% Collapse: 33%

The real question about Overbay is why he spent all of 2001 at El Paso. He's often compared to John Olerud by people who have no clue what they're talking about. Overbay's passable defensively, hits singles and line-drive gappers, and will be a solid hitter in the majors. If he can develop another 20 XBHs per season, he could be worth keeping around. Overbay is a Doug Mientkiewicz–type hitter, but doesn't carry the Keith Hernandez or Olerud glove or bat that you need to hold a job and push a team toward a championship as a first baseman without huge power. All he needs is either a little more offense or defense, but he's already a considerably better option at first than Mark Grace at this point.

Needless to say, I was very pleased with myself.

BTW...

Ramirez
2003 .339 GPA, .340 EQA, 131 EQR
2002 .364 GPA, .361 EQA, 112 EQR
2001 .335 GPA, .331 EQA, 117 EQR

Sheffield
2003 .340 GPA, .339 EQA, 133 EQR
2002 .310 GPA, .315 EQA, 96 EQR
2001 .333 GPA, .338 EQA, 121 EQR

Here's how Sheffield did in the three years prior, concidentally, the same age Ramirez was through the 2001-2003 span:

2000 .358 GPA, .349 EQA, 126 EQR
1999 .314 GPA, .317 EQA, 112 EQR
1998 .324 GPA, .335 EQA, 105 EQR

It's actually closer than I expected, and both have missed a similar amount of playing time. But Manny comes out ahead in the end. For $8 M/yr less, however, even with the age difference, I'd gladly settle for Sheffield.

I'm liking GPA more and more, though.

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