Fantasy Baseball Cafe Forums

by **Arlo** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 7:46 pm

Hmm... how long before Ralph Houk's championships are mentioned? :-D

by **LCBOY** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 7:57 pm

Pogotheostrich wrote:
LCBOY wrote: And if you look at the Yankee teams of that era, they didn't look that great on paper. There was only three HoFers on those Yankee teams, Yogi, Mantle, and Whitey Ford.

HOF Berra also played with
Dimaggio 47-51
Rizzuto 47-56

Ok you got me there. I didn't get my point across clearly. What I was trying to say was HoF players in their primes. Joe D/Scooter are really more a part of earlier Yankee Dynasties. When most fans think of the 1950s Yankees they think of Yogi, Mickey, and Whitey, not really Joe D or the Scooter. With all do respect to the Scooter, he really isn't a HoF player, but that is another debate. Please no hate mail! }:-)

by **LCBOY** » Fri Oct 17, 2003 8:25 pm

I put a lot of weight on many things, stats, MVP voting, winning, etc. I'll have to check the stats again. But Yogi won THREE MVP awards. I am not saying that Yogi had a higher "peak value" but a higher "career value". Bench lead his league in several offensive categories including HR and RBIs several times. Very few catchers have done that. But over a career Yogi is more valuable because Bench didn't age well. But in Bench's peak seasons he was more dominant than Yogi. I look at MVP voting because this is where "intangibles" will show up. For instance if you have a player who hits .260, 10 HRs, and 60 RBI but finished in the top 5 in the MVP voting that means something. That means that on the spot observers believed that this player had valuable qualities that didn't show up in the stats. So I ask myself how many time was a player a viable MVP candidate?

Here are the top 10 MVP voting finishes for Yogi and Bench

Yogi
1950-3rd
1951-1st
1952-4th
1953-2nd
1954-1st
1955-1st
1956-2nd

Bench
1970-1st
1972-1st
1973-10th
1974-4th
1975-4th

For seven straight years Yogi finshed in the top four in MVP voting. It is obvious that Yogi was on of the top 2-3 players in the American league from 1950-56. Johnny Bench just isn't in the same league when it came to season to season consistency. But it is also obvious that Bench's peak seasons were greater than Yogi's. But if I had to have one catcher for an entire career it would be Yogi.

Some people might say that Yogi was "helped" becasue he was on great teams but so was Bench. Look at Bench's MVP type seasons. In those five years the Reds won:

1 World Series
3 NL Pennants
4 NL Western Divison titles

So the Reds finished 1st in four of the five seasons listed above (The Reds finished 2nd in 1974 winning 98 games!).