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Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Moises Alou
Moises Alou was a great hitter throughout his career, and good fielder (in his prime). But his career was derailed by injuries, small and big.
Imagine if you will if we add just two years to his career. Very modest years. Two years that totals less than 1200 at bats (1188 to be exact), with 318 hits. That’s a batting average of only .268 (compared to his actual career of .303). While in his career 37% of his hits went for extra bases, we’ll give him only 32%. We give him 61 doubles, 5 triples, and 37 HR over those two years. His SLG for these two years is a modest .421 (compared to his actual career of .516). We’ll also give him no walks and no hit batters and no steals. Something that is extremely hard to do of course. Anyway, so in these two years, he has a .268 batting average, .268 OBP, and .421 SLG. That looks like Juan Uribe as a hitter. And we’d be putting him in the outfield. His wOBA is a puny .284 (compared to his career of .362). We’ll also give him 140 runs scored and 164 RBI.
Yes, we’ve given him a very poor two years of hitting. This new Moises Alou would end up with a career 8225 AB, 1249 runs scored, 2452 hits, 4129 total bases. A .298 batting average and .502 SLG. Those numbers are identical to the career of… Jim Rice. Identical as in exact. In addition, Alou would end up with a .356 OBP compared to Rice’s .352 and 106 SB to Rice’s 58.
Yes, Alou played in a higher run environment than Rice, but not that much higher. B-R.com says the difference is about 7% in runs, or about 3% in rate stats. Considering we gave Alou 0 walks rather than a more modest 100 walks, that pretty much exactly cancels out.
And Alou was a better fielder and better runner. And had the great post-season. He was more feared than Jim Rice as a hitter, though those who wish to romanticize (or lie, same thing) would beg to differ.
And Alou did all this while hobbled with injuries, from before he even hit the major leagues. A broken-down Moises Alou was better than Jim Rice.
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