If you could go back into time to 1980 as a baseball GM.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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if you look at the first 1/2 of the careers, it is Ripken by a long shot. but the downside of each career was pretty similar.

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That's not right. Gwynn's "downside" was that he was injured, yet still productive in his final two seasons. Ripken posted OPS+ numbers 93, 89, 95, and 73 in four of his five seasons as a 3B, while missing half the season in his one good year.

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but, injuries count, especially if you are doing a career retrospective to figure out who was more valuable.

if you start at their age 31 seasons (which is abritrary) Ripken basically played 10 years and averaged 5.71 in terms of warp3. Gwynn played 9 (if you throw out his final 2) and averaged 6.1. Ripken was productive for a bit longer, but on average Gwynn was better in these post 31 years. so it nets out as "pretty close".

but Ripkens pre-31 years were much better.

[Clarkmeister]

So, basically, the only reason you all pick Ripken is because he just happened to play in an era where the shortstops all really sucked? At least, that's my understanding of why his warp3 is so much higher. Am I understanding it correctly? I'm not saying it's wrong, btw, just making sure that I correctly understand that without position scarcity in his era that he would be considered less valuable than Gwynn.

[Jack of Arcades]

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lol at this being debated. its ripken, and no kids its not even close.

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Capone is winning this thread as he's the only one who has brought any stats to the table other than "omgzz not close" and "ripken was a great/average/below average fielder IMO".

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VayaConDios won the thread with the first reply.

ripken warp3 career: 170 or so
gwynn: 120 or so

if i asked you who would you pick if you were the GM of an NBA team 10 years ago, tim duncan or tracy mccrady, would you actually provide stats?

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Even ignoring career WARP for a second -

Cal Ripken has two of the greatest seasons of all time per WARP. We're talking, Ruth/Bonds/Williams level.

Or, to compare VORPs - Gwynn's highest VORPs are:

1987: 81.1
1997: 66.2
1994: 61.3
1986: 51.8
1984: 42.4

Ripken's highest:
1991: 94.8 (#1)
1984: 86.0 (#1)
1983: 78.4 (#1)
1986: 58.7
1988: 55.7

Ripken had the top VORP total in the league three times. The closest Gwynn came was in 1987, when he still trailed Alan Trammell by 15 runs.

(I think I might make a chart comparing their VORP by year)

Onto defense:

The best freely available defensive stat is Chris Dial's ratings. It's basically an adjusted Zone Rating, and it comes out very close to proprietary data that uses PBP data. Dial rates Ripken as the best shortstop in the AL. In fact, Ripken saved a whopping 25 runs with his glove in 1991. Ripken was good enough that even when he got old, he was still able to be good shortstop thanks to his defense.

Ripken had a better peak and a better career. He played a more important position and, from all evidence, played it very well. Plus he was, of course, extremely durable.

[APXG]

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lol at this being debated. its ripken, and no kids its not even close.

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Capone is winning this thread as he's the only one who has brought any stats to the table other than "omgzz not close" and "ripken was a great/average/below average fielder IMO".

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VayaConDios won the thread with the first reply.

ripken warp3 career: 170 or so
gwynn: 120 or so

if i asked you who would you pick if you were the GM of an NBA team 10 years ago, tim duncan or tracy mccrady, would you actually provide stats?

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Ya, I mean Ripken has like 5 world series titles more than Gwynn, and the Orioles completely dominated during his era.

[Triumph36]

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So, basically, the only reason you all pick Ripken is because he just happened to play in an era where the shortstops all really sucked? At least, that's my understanding of why his warp3 is so much higher. Am I understanding it correctly? I'm not saying it's wrong, btw, just making sure that I correctly understand that without position scarcity in his era that he would be considered less valuable than Gwynn.

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the position scarcity still exists now, and will continue to exist. Sure, a replacement shortstop is probably proportionally better now than in the 80s (vs left fielders), but I'm still taking Ripken, even though I like Gwynn more.

[Jack of Arcades]

2007 SS: .731 OPS
1991 SS: .647 OPS

2007 RF: .791 OPS
1991 RF: .734 OPS

Adjsuting for "inflation," the RF figures are about the same. So yeah, the gap has closed a little, but not by much.

[Kneel B4 Zod]

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So, basically, the only reason you all pick Ripken is because he just happened to play in an era where the shortstops all really sucked? At least, that's my understanding of why his warp3 is so much higher. Am I understanding it correctly? I'm not saying it's wrong, btw, just making sure that I correctly understand that without position scarcity in his era that he would be considered less valuable than Gwynn.

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well a SS is always going to be more valuable than a corner outfielder in terms of defense. if you are just considering hitting, then Gwynn was much better. but the gap between a SS and corner OF is huge. in todays terms this is maybe like comparing Manny Ramirez to Derek Jeter. Manny is a better hitter, by a good margin, but Jeter is more valuable (at least for the last few seasons)

[VayaConDios]

I didn't meant to come across as an ass, but as sublime and others have pointed out, all of the advanced metrics value Ripken's career and peak values much higher than Gwynn's. Unless someone has a credible argument that those metrics somehow systematically undervalue Gwynn, there isn't much of a debate to be had.

[APXG]

Both Gwynn and Ripken are amongst the most overrated "stars" of all time, so the answer depends on how much you value the consec. games streak that has little relevance to on-field performance.

Comparing each guy to replacement players is a flawed Ripken argument b.c. it doesn't take defense into account, which was significantly more important than offense at the SS position during that era. Thus, most players with offensive talent who were not top notch defensively simply played other positions. Ripken is an exception, but that still doesn't give a reason to use offensive vorp as a multiplier for his very mediocre(when compared to superstars) general offensive stats. If one used offesive+defensive combined vorp, Ripken would not stand out nearly as much, and even less so if you weighted defense heavier than offense, which is what was done at SS during the era.

Maybe I would choose Ripken also, but it wouldn't be because of statistical on-field performance. Based only on stats, Gwynn has an edge b.c. he had truly impressive BA and BA+steal numbers that stood out amongst ALL offensive players of that era, not just those at his position. None of Ripken's stats or even his best season would stand out if he wasn't specifically a SS.

For example, stick Torii Hunter at SS and the only difference would be longevity, intangibles, etc. He'd definitely be an above average defensive SS simply due to defensive talent, and have avg. per season offensive numbers pretty close to Ripken's.

[Case Closed]

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"If you could go back into time to 1980 as a baseball GM" would you intentionally make your team suck so that you could draft Barry Bonds?

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Yeah, I think I would do that. Then sign him to some crazy 15 year contract or something.