Vladimir Guerrero and Bobby Abreu were direct contemporaries. Vlad-The-Elder was born in February of 1975, in the Dominican Republic, while Abreu was born eleven months earlier and a few hundred miles south, in the city of Maracay, Venezuela.
Both men reached the majors in 1996, and were full-time players by 1998. Both men were primarily rightfielders. Both were big men with some agility, at least early on. Guerrero’s career finished in 2011, while Abreu stuck around a little longer, playing in the majors in 2012 and 2014.
We’ll start there:
|
Name
|
Years
|
Games
|
Plate Appearances
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
1996-2011
|
2147
|
9059
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
1996-2012, 2014
|
2425
|
10081
|
We have two players whose careers have a similar length. Abreu tacked on a couple years worth of plate appearances at the end, but they were both durable players in their prime. Abreu player 150+ games every year from 1998 through 2010, and Vlad was nearly as reliable.
Both men collected about 2500 hits. Looking at the breakdown of their hits gives us some separation:
|
Name
|
H
|
2B
|
3B
|
HR
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
2590
|
477
|
46
|
449
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
2470
|
574
|
59
|
288
|
Guerrero has a significantly advantage in homeruns…449 to 288. Abreu cuts into that advantage a little bit with one hundred more doubles and a few triples, but…a dinger is a dinger. Vlad hit many more dingers than Abreu. Bobby is going to have to catch up.
Vlad was a famous bad-ball hitter: he is in the small circle with Yogi Berra and perhaps Pablo Sandoval as one of the player who swung at a lot, and made good contact. Because he could make contact, he didn’t walk too much.
And Abreu walked a LOT.
|
Name
|
Walks
|
IBB
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
737
|
250
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
1476
|
115
|
I included the count of intentional walks because it shows the distance between them in a brighter contrast. Guerrero collected 487 unintentional walks. Bobby Abreu nearly tripled that, tallying 1361 unintentional walks.
Abreu makes up some more ground on baserunning:
|
Name
|
SB
|
CS
|
SB%
|
FG BsR
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
181
|
94
|
65.8%
|
-49.8
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
400
|
128
|
75.7%
|
34.9
|
Vlad, who came a homerun of becoming baseball’s second 40-40 player in 2002, was decently fast in his younger days: he had long, strong legs and big hips, and he could accelerate quickly. He wasn’t a good baserunner, however: to get to forty stolen bases in 2002, he had to pace the league in caught-stealing, with twenty.
That ‘FG BsR’ is short-hand for FanGraphs’ Baserunning runs. They estimate that Guerrero lost his team some fifty runs on the basepaths, while Abreu netted about 35 runs. That seems right. Abreu didn’t seem fast, especially not late in his career, but he could catch a pitcher from time to time.
So you have one player who smacks a lot of homers from the middle-of-the-order, and another player who doesn’t hit as many homeruns, but who draws a walk, can nab a base, and won’t make a lot of mistakes. A look at the Runs Scored and RBI totals for both men:
|
Name
|
Runs Scored
|
Runs Batted In
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
1328
|
1496
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
1452
|
1366
|
Guerrero drove in more runs. Abreu scored more. The numbers are bizarrely in parallel.
Guerrero was the better hitter, of course: home runs have massive value. The two men’s triple-slash lines, and their Weighted Runs Created Plus (a slightly more advanced version of OPS+), borrowed from FanGraphs.
|
Name
|
BA
|
OBP
|
SLG
|
wRC+
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
.318
|
.379
|
.553
|
136
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
.291
|
.395
|
.475
|
129
|
As defensive players, both men are underwhelming, though each won one Gold Glove. Guerrero had a terrific arm, though he was wild. Abreu had better range, but neither player was Mookie Betts.
|
Name
|
Assists
|
Errors
|
FG DEF Runs
|
BB-REF dWAR
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
126
|
125
|
-115.0
|
-10.0
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
136
|
73
|
-141.3
|
-10.9
|
Two advanced metrics here: FanGraphs DEF, which measures defensive runs saved against average, and Baseball-References’ Defensive WAR. FanGraphs rates Vlad as the slightly better defensive player – granting that ‘better’ is a stretch – while Baseball-Reference rates it as a draw.
On the counting side of the ledger, I was surprised that Abreu collected a few more assists than Guerrero. Abreu also made significantly fewer defensive errors than Vlad.
Adding in league and park contexts, the metric du jour – Wins Above Replacement – credits them as similar players:
|
Name
|
FanGraphs WAR
|
B-R WAR
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
54.5
|
59.5
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
59.8
|
60.2
|
Baseball-Reference rates it as a near-tie, while FanGraphs gives Abreu the edge over Guerrero.
What about peak seasons?
The different versions of WAR come up with different answers for each player’s best season.
Baseball-Reference says that Vlad’s best year was 1998 (7.4), while FanGraphs prefers his 2002 season (7.1). Interestingly, Gurrero’s 2004 AL MVP season does not rank as one of his three best seasons by either site.
The same thing happens with Abreu, with FanGraphs crediting 2000 as his best season (6.9), while Baseball-Reference prefers 2004 (6.6) and 1998 (6.4) as Abreu’s best years.
We can look at seven-year peaks:
|
Name
|
FanGraphs 7-Yr
|
B-R Seven-Year
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
38.2 ('98-'04)
|
38.5 ('98-'04)
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
41.5 ('98-'04)
|
38.8 ('99-'05)
|
FanGraphs says that both players peaked between 1998 and 2004, with Abreu eking out ahead of Guerrero. Baseball-Reference likes Abreu’s 1999-2005 peak a little more, though the gap is narrower between the two players.
We can add Win Shares to our discussion:
|
Name
|
Career Win Shares
|
Seven-Year Peak
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
324
|
182 ('98-'04)
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
356
|
191 ('98-'04)
|
Win Shares views Abreu as the better player. The metric agrees with FanGraphs that each player peaked between 1998 and 2004, and Win Shares finds Abreu’s peak to be slightly more impressive.
As for best seasons, Win Shares says that Abreu’s best season was 2004, when he tallied 33 Win Shares. He had other seasons of 29, 28, and 27 Win Shares, three years at 26, and five seasons in the 20-25 range. Thirteen years of 20+ Win Shares.
Guerrero never quite catches Abreu: he posted two 29 Win Share seasons (2000, 2007), two 28’s, two 27’s (including his MVP season), and three years with 20-25 Win Shares. Nine years of 20+ Win Shares.
Of course, Guerrero laps Abreu in the metric of public opinion, by a considerable margin:
|
Name
|
AS Games (Starts)
|
Silver Sluggers
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
9 (7)
|
8
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
2 (1)
|
1
|
Guerrero played in nine All-Star games, seven as a starting outfielder. Abreu played in two contests (including one where he took home the Home Run Derby trophy). Guerrero won eight Silver Slugger awards to Abreu’s one.
And Guerrero did much better in the MVP vote:
|
Name
|
MVP
|
MVP Top-5
|
MVP Top-10
|
Yrs w/Votes
|
|
Vladimir Guerrero
|
1
|
4
|
6
|
12
|
|
Bobby Abreu
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
7
|
Guerrero received ballot support for the league’s MVP in twelve different seasons, and in half of those years he was judged as one of the ten best players in the league. Bobby Abreu’s highest finish was 12th, when he had a good (though not great) first year with the Angels in 2007.
And Vladimir Guerrero was selected to the Hall-of-Fame by the BBWAA in his second year of eligibility, with 92.9% of the vote. Abreu hit the ballot last year, collecting just 5.5% of the vote.
* * *
I guess this is where I’m meant to make a grand declaration about Bobby Abreu. I’ve dragged you along far enough: it’s time to make a point.
Except I don’t really have a point to make; I just wanted to share the numbers. Our best objective tools of understanding baseball players say that Bobby Abreu’s value is very comparable to - and perhaps slightly ahead of – the value that Vladimir Guerrero brought to his teams. That math seems coherent: if there’s daylight between them, it isn’t much, and I don’t know who’s ahead.
I’d say, too, that my subjective experiences of both players echo the popular consensus. I first got a chance to see Guerrero play in Coors Field, when I was wandering around as a young man, trying to figure out what to do with my life. Aimless in Denver, I bought a ticket from a scalper and watched the Expos take on the Rockies so I could see Vlad Guerrero. He didn’t disappoint.
I can recall a handful ofmoments in my life as a fan where Vlad Guerrero shows up at the center. A few years after that gray day in Denver, I was a teaching assistant at a public school in Brighton, Massachusetts. The third game of the 2004 ALDS was scheduled for a Friday afternoon, and all of the teachers made plans to head to the local bar after the kids were safely loaded onto the buses.
The Sox were up for most of the game, and then late in the game the score was closer and the Angels loaded the bases, and Vlad was up, and I swear to you that everyone in that bar - all of the faithless townies who remembered Dent and Buckner and probably Pesky holding the ball - knew what was coming. At least Vlad didn’t make us wait too long.
I probably saw Bobby Abreu play in person once or twice, but I’m not sure when. I have no distinct memories of him. I remember him as an underrated player, as a player lost in the shuffle during a period of insane statistics. He didn’t stand out significantly. I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see him.
I have sometimes wondered what the point of the Hall-of-Fame is. In the past, I very much felt that it had an obligation to honor people in a way that reflected some objectivity. If you are greater than X, you should go ahead of him. I used to get upset that Jim Rice was in the Hall-of-Fame and Dwight Evans wasn’t.
I’ve lost much of that righteous energy. Now I think of the Hall-of-Fame as an institution served with preserving a collective memory.
Certainly, Dwight Evans looms considerably in my memory, but so does Jim Rice. So does Don Mattingly, and so does Lou Gehrig. I really liked Jack McDowell as a kid, and Julio Franco. David Ortiz: I must think about one David Ortiz memory or another every couple of days. That is my remembering, but mine isn’t the only one. Jim Rice wasn’t any better a player than Evans, but his place in the collectively memory is perhaps more significant than Evans’.
And Vladimir Guerrero has a significant place of the broader collective memory, more so than Bobby Abreu. Maybe that reflects an ignorance on the part of fans and writers, maybe it reflects on the characteristics and traits of each player, and maybe it is just a matter of dumb luck. Maybe it is all of that, all muddled together.
But I am okay with it. I hope Abreu gets serious consideration for the Hall-of-Fame: his career deserves it, and it would be a shame if he were to get lost in the shuffle. But if only one player gets to be remembered in bronze, I think the writers picked the right man.
David Fleming is a writer living in southwestern Virginia. He welcomes comments, questions, and angry counter-arguments here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com.