Grab yer flame-retardant underwear
Bumped back from Wednesday, due to all that “pitchers and catchers report” mad excitement… But it also seemed appropriate to finish off the ‘Players We Love’ row on Valentine’s Day!
Day #2 results
Day #2 was a discussion of “Loved by fans, average player,” and in the end it came down to a battle between Craig Counsell and David Peralta. In the end, the recs favored Counsell by a 12-10 margin, but I would not be surprised to see Peralta make another appearance further down the grid. There were others who received enough support to turn red, but ended up well back: Mark Grace, Matt Williams, Geraldo Perdomo and Ryan Roberts all finished in the 5-6 rec range.
With regard to Counsell, it’s interesting, because in his time here overall, he was above average by bWAR. His total figure of 4.9 bWAA is actually more than Christian Walker managed (4.8), in six hundred fewer games! Though fWAR values Craig considerably lower: Counsell produced 12.7 bWAR, but only 9.3 fWAR, which would bring him much closer to average (about 1.5 fWAA if my math is correct, across six seasons). And as chwalter noted in his submission comment, a lot of Counsell’s bWAR – 5.5, around 43 percent of the total – came in one stellar season. Craig’s next-best was less than half that, 2.6 bWAR, and the rest were all below two. I think it’s fair to say that for the majority of his time in Arizona, “average” was not an unfair word – although “underrated” might be as applicable.
Adding him in, here’s yer grid:
Helpful links:
Day #3: Loved by fans, bad player
I fully expect this one to be contentious – there’s a reason I picked the thumbnail for it that I did! Because some people have an aversion to being told that anything or anyone they like, actually sucked. This applies whether you’re talking about music, movies, food choices, partners, political affiliations, or whatever, and it’s understandable. The difference is that, in sports in general, and baseball in particular, we have a bevy of numbers which can be used to provide a more objective assessment of merit than in many fields. But it’s still gonna hurt. Therefore, take any criticism of a player impersonally and do not react otherwise. It will probably help if you pretend they played for the Dodgers instead of the D-backs. 🙂
In case you need a reminder, this is how it works.
- Go to the comments section.
- If your choice is already mentioned there, give it a “rec”.
- If your choice is NOT mentioned, leave their name as a new comment, and make your case for them.
- One nomination per comment
- Duplicate nominations will get deleted.
- Whoever gets the most recs wins the square. I’ll used my executive power to decide any ties.