Monday, February 15, 2010

Tim Raines vs. Kenny Lofton

There has been some discussion recently on whether or not Kenny Lofton should make the Hall of Fame. I am not going to try to figure that out. But it was pointed out that Lofton actually has a slight edge in WARP over Tim Raines, who, as many believe (including me), should be in.

But one thing I thought was interesting was how their relative values would change if we tried to estimate their offense based on their lineup slot (mostly leadoff).

A few years ago I estimated how many more runs various leadoff men were worth if you evaluated their stats based on their lineup position. Here is the link:

Evaluating Hitters Based on Their Lineup Slot.

Lofton was about 2.2 more runs better per season than his stats would indicated once you took the fact that he was a leadoff man into account. But Raines was 3.9 runs better. If you project that out over 16 seasons, Raines gains 27 runs relative to Lofton or about 2.7 wins.

No comments: