A Nort Shote about Yaz and Kaline
I did a poll recently asking readers to choose between Al Kaline and Carl Yastrzemski. Yastrzemski won the poll decisively, 69-31, although they have very comparable career WAR according to both Baseball Reference (92.8 to 96.4, Yaz) and Fangraphs (88.9 to 94.8). Yaz leads in career Win Shares, 488 to 443. I misread their WAR on Baseball Reference and tweeted that Kaline had more WAR; sorry about that. That’s the 7th mistake I have made already this year.
Anyway, this led to some speculation about why Yaz dominated Kaline in the poll despite comparable career WAR, in which the three leading theories were:
a) Recency bias,
b) High concentration of Red Sox fans in my followers, and
c) Fenway Park.
Kaline is actually a little less than five years older than Yaz, so you wouldn’t think that would be a big factor, although maybe it is because Kaline had his best years very young and Yaz not as much. Anyway, while certainly those are all three related and contributing factors, my explanation would be this.
The way in which players have traditionally gained recognition is by meeting statistical benchmarks. Magic numbers. 200 hits, 100 runs scored, 100 RBI, 30 homers, 40 homers, a .300 batting average, a batting championship.
Although Yaz was only slightly better than K--- in career value, he hit these magic numbers many more times. Look at it. Kaline had
· 200 hits once
· 100 runs scored twice
· 100 RBI twice
· 1 batting championship, and
· 7 seasons with a .300 batting average/qualifying for batting title.
That’s a total of 13 star-level batting accomplishments. He never had 30 or 40 homers in a season. Yasztremski had
· 100 runs scored twice
· 100 RBI five times
· 3 batting championships
· 3 seasons with 30 homers, in all of which he also had 40 homers,
· 6 seasons hitting .300 as a regular, plus
· A triple crown, and
· An MVP Award.
That’s 24 star-level magic numbers, counting a 30-homer season as one and a 40-homer season as two. Of course there are other things you can count; Yastrzemski played in 7 all-star games and won 7 Gold Gloves; Kaline played 7 all-star games and won 10 Gold Gloves, so that would be 38 star-level accomplishments for Yaz, 30 for Kaline. Yaz played in two World Series, 14 World Series games; Kaline played in one World Series, 7 games, and that was post-prime although he had a tremendous World Series and his team won, Kaline hitting .379 with 2 homers, 8 RBI in the series. Yastrzemski hit .352 with three homers in 14 World Series games; they both did real good there.
Anyway, I think that is what it is; I think it is that 24-13 edge in "magic numbers" that makes Yastrzemski seem bigger in the public’s mind. Sometimes analysts think that because we shouldn’t put much weight on the difference between 102 RBI and 96 RBI, that that doesn’t make any difference. My point was that even though perhaps this shouldn’t make a difference, it does.