RFers with the Most Career ABs

Here are the Top 10 RFs in Capra History as based on Career ABs.

These are probably the most likely candidates for the Capra Hall of Fame based upon their career longevity in RF.

+ ------- + --------------- + ---------- + ---------+ ---- + ------ + --- + --- + --- + ------ + ------- +
| id      | Name            | Career ABs | % ABs RF | r    | h      | 2b | 3b | hr | rbi    | sb      |
+ ------- + --------------- + ---------- + -------- + ---- + ------ + --- + --- + --- + ------ +-------- +
| 1078163 | Santos Flores   | 10689      | 86       | 1900 | 3050   | 670 | 114 | 373 | 1611   | 651     |
| 2614392 | Pep Rapp        | 8111       | 98       | 1251 | 2324   | 378 | 29 | 401 | 1259   | 78      |
| 170488 | Garrett Stewart | 8028       | 90       | 1266 | 2491   | 419 | 45 | 287 | 1180   | 42      |
| 170030 | Clinton Anderson| 9000       | 75       | 1612 | 2599   | 447 | 69 | 667 | 1837   | 155     |
| 641391 | Al Maurer       | 7377       | 91       | 1384 | 2392   | 336 | 26 | 485 | 1381   | 2       |
| 585955 | Alberto Sosa    | 8665       | 73       | 1451 | 2539   | 421 | 56 | 556 | 1666   | 40      |
| 787221 | Matt Kirkland   | 6555       | 88       | 990 | 1792   | 276 | 18 | 383 | 1150   | 9       |
| 2055117 | Alan Greenwood | 6995       | 81       | 931 | 1921   | 294 | 27 | 347 | 1113   | 1       |
| 392081 | Juan Valentin   | 6113       | 93       | 1164 | 1742   | 386 | 73 | 302 | 1008   | 423     |
| 2614515 | Cesar Pulido    | 9299       | 56       | 1583 | 2495   | 343 | 58 | 642 | 1780   | 221     |
+ ------- + --------------- + -----------+ -------- + ---- + ------ + --- + --- + --- + ------ + ------- +

Note that the arguments for Santos Flores are largely centered around longevity, triples and stolen bases. Amongst long-lived RFs he is average at OBP, below average in RC27 and decidedly below average in SLG.

+ ------- + ------------------- + -------- + -------- + --------- +
| id      | Name                | obp      | slg      | rc27      |
+ ------- + ------------------- + -------- + -------- + --------- +
| 1078163 | Santos Flores       | 0.3566   | 0.4740   | 6.619     |
| 2614392 | Pep Rapp            | 0.3528   | 0.4886   | 6.458     |
| 170488 | Garrett Stewart     | 0.3795   | 0.4809   | 6.993     |
| 170030 | Clinton Anderson    | 0.3468   | 0.5761   | 7.422     |
| 641391 | Al Maurer           | 0.4092   | 0.5741   | 9.225     |
| 585955 | Alberto Sosa        | 0.3451   | 0.5470   | 7.148     |
| 787221 | Matt Kirkland       | 0.3438   | 0.4963   | 6.093     |
| 2055117 | Alan Greenwood      | 0.3298   | 0.4732   | 5.723     |
| 392081 | Juan Valentin       | 0.3531   | 0.5202   | 7.246     |
| 2614515 | Cesar Pulido        | 0.3428   | 0.5248   | 6.572     |
+ ------- + ------------------- + -------- + -------- + --------- +

Also, note that Santos Flores was a poor fielding RF. He leads the all-time minus plays at RF. This is not just longevity. Regarding minus plays per inning, he commited:

more than any other RF with at least 10,000 innings in RF (15 qualifiers) and
4th most of RFs with at least 5,000 innings in RF (59 qualifiers) (behind Sherry Young, Javy Mercedes, and Rodney D'Amico)

The best rightfielder of all time is Al Maurer. Based upon the decreasing offense in the current era, Pep Rapp is probably the next best RF.

An outfielder such as Garrett Stewart, who doesn't even warrant mention in HoF discussions might be the best comparison to Santos Flores:

Superior OBP, SLG and RC27.
A similar defender (with only 17 minus plays as compared to 128).

Comments

MN said…

If you backtrack his career to the at bat numbers of the right fielders you've compared him to, at the end of S23 Santos Flores had 9,083 at bats. At the end of S21 he had 8041 at bats. So if you're comparing apples to apples, you'd have to look at where Flores was at those points.
Let's look at S23's Santos Flores first. It's harder to make the hall of fame case when you take away 52 doubles, 9 triples, and 18 stolen bases from Flores's totals. But, he'd be just 7 doubles behind Hal Randall for most all-time, tied for third in triples (5 behind the leader), and would move only negligibly in stolen bases. He'd only have 2,645 hits, which is impressive but not a standard for hall of fame status based on voting in the past.
What does Flores gain? He's now a .291 hitter, .364 OBP, .495 SLG. Only Al Maurer from that list is better at both OBP and slugging. Defensively, Flores loses 34 of those minus plays going that far back. So, when you compare these guys with a similar number of at bats, Flores looks a lot better.
At the end of S21, Flores loses 14 more minus plays, 55 doubles, 7 triples, 21 home runs, and 55 stolen bases (good production over two seasons). So in 8,043 at bats, he'd have a line of .293/.366/.506. So if you want to make the case for Al Maurer in the hall of fame, you can do that, but I don't think you've proven Flores doesn't belong.

(math notes:
942bb 96hbp 2645h=3683 10121
2645 h 618 2b 105 3b 340 hr 4493/

833 bb 91 hbp 2354 h 3278/8965
2354 h 563 2b 98 3b 319 hr)

September 2, 2013 at 12:33 PM