A Twitter throw down happened yesterday between two baseball guys known for saying choice things online.
Rather than just resort to just making assumptions, I'd like to do a deeper dive into the stats. It will be a bit more difficult comparing a hitter to a pitcher, but we will carry on. First a look at Aubrey Huff's career.
In 12 years, Huff had a decent career. His WAR and stats are propped up by 3 great years with MVP votes: 2003, 2008 and 2010. He had a few injury shortened years, but basically put up an average of 1.5 WAR per year. A couple of negative years, and a couple of years with a WAR under 1. When he was good, he was good, but overall only put up 4 years of a 3 WAR or better. Pretty uneven.
Now a look at Bauer:
Bauer is obviously still pitching. He's been in the league 8 years, but only started 8 games in the first two. Looking at the WAR, He's been worth about 3 WAR per year the last 4 years in a row. Furthermore, his 17.4 WAR averaged over his 8 years is 2.2, significantly higher than Huff. Assuming things stay their course, Bauer should pass up Huff in WAR within the next two years. That makes me clearly think that Bauer's the better player.
But wait, Huff has a retort.
Huff says several other things that indicates he's not thinking things through entirely, essentially dismissing advanced stats. And his retort is true, he does have two rings while Bauer has zero. As if a team's accomplishments can be attributed solely to Huff. So let's look at playoff stats:
So Huff's not a great playoff hitter. He had the one good World Series in 2010, and then the rest were under .700 OPS rounds. And really, he deserves a lot of ring credit for that one out he made in the 2012 World Series. Bauer's been a bit uneven, but has a respectable 3.81 ERA in the postseason. He hasn't been great, but has showed up. I'm not sure these stats give on guy a major advantage over the other.
All things considered, I'm taking Bauer over Huff in a fantasy draft. His WAR per year average and consistency is much better than hoping for Huff to have a great year 33% of the time. Plus Bauer isn't a trash human who makes humor over sex trafficking or hardcore racist comments.
Yeah, I'm taking Bauer.