Lou Brock 1968 Card

It seems to me considering his overall career we should have a better option for this HOF player. His best seasons were in the late sixties and the 1964 card when he was with the Cubs doesn't cut it. The 70 and 74 Cards are OK but they never get used. His peak years were in the MID Sixties. His 1967 and 1968 cards would be a better option. The 1968 card he led the league in doubles and triples and was 6th in the MVP voting. The 1967 card he flashed some power and was an All Star selection and was 7th in MVP voting.

I think Lou Brock deserves a Card that someone would actually consider using.

mmm... Lou was just not that good. Led league in errors for outfielders throughout most of his career and was mostly a sub .800 OPS for a LF with a multitude of being thrown-out attempting to steal. Rickey Henderson had 50% more steals with the same number of throw outs stealing bases. Tim Raines consistently out hit him, there are just a lot better outfielders than Lou Brock.

Now if they would make a card based on his post season performance, where his reputation was earned he'd be 10 million +

mmm... Lou was just not that good. Led league in errors for outfielders throughout most of his career and was mostly a sub .800 OPS for a LF with a multitude of being thrown-out attempting to steal. Rickey Henderson had 50% more steals with the same number of throw outs stealing bases. Tim Raines consistently out hit him, there are just a lot better outfielders than Lou Brock.

Now if they would make a card based on his post season performance, where his reputation was earned he'd be 10 million +

You must be a Cubs fan!

https://sports.theonion.com/panicked-sabermetricians-forced-to-rethink-entire-sport-1819575232

[quote="gkhd11a"]https://sports.theonion.com/panicked-sabermetricians-forced-to-rethink-entire-sport-1819575232[/quote

Love the Onion's Satire. The Mad Magazine for adults.

mmm... Lou was just not that good. Led league in errors for outfielders throughout most of his career and was mostly a sub .800 OPS for a LF with a multitude of being thrown-out attempting to steal. Rickey Henderson had 50% more steals with the same number of throw outs stealing bases. Tim Raines consistently out hit him, there are just a lot better outfielders than Lou Brock.

Now if they would make a card based on his post season performance, where his reputation was earned he'd be 10 million +

Your point is well taken. Yes I was hard pressed to find a .800 OPS. From 65 thru 1979 I just managed to find one above .800 OPS. That was in 1971 where he managed to walk 76 times. I have to agree with your assessment here.

I've actually used his 1974 card for DH'ing a few times. Bulletproof, plus AAA stealer at a reasonable price.

There are some dimensions of player performance that just don't translate into sabermetrics or the SOM paradigm. As an avid Cardinals fan for 55 years, I will say that Brock's greatest asset was the extent to which he disrupted the pitcher's concentration and the defensive alignment whenever he got on base, giving the hitters who followed him a greater advantage over the opposing pitcher. That's an offensive weapon that adds to the overall team performance but is not captured by his OPS, his base stealing percentage, or any other statistic. I think Jackie Robinson brought this same kind of offensive dimension to the Dodgers. He wasn't a great base stealer but he was a disruptive force whenever he got on base.

Otherwise, Brock was a good hitter but certainly not great. And he was a liability in the field. His range was limited, especially considering his speed. And his arm was atrocious. Every time an opposing batter got a hit to LF with men on base, Cardinal fans cringed. I remember being at Busch Stadium one day when Brock charged a soft single with a man on second and threw a rainbow 20 rows behind the first base dugout. I think his throwing arm was the most erratic than any regular OFer I've ever seen.

Brock averaged a 118 OPS+ for the 9 seasons from 1964 through 1972. That stat doesn't include SB value. Don't forget, his peak years corresponded with the era of overpowering pitching that resulted in the lowering of the pitcher's mound and the introduction of the DH.

But SOM's stat model doesn't really account for different eras very well, since their batter cards operate on the differential between the batter's stats and the league averages. Look at it this way.

In 1968 he had an OPS+ of 124, his OPS was .746. Dividing .746 by 1.24, the implied league average OPS was .602, and he was 144 OPS points above average.

In 2017, Corey Seager had an OPS+ of 125, with and OPS of .855. Dividing that by 1.25 gives an implied league OPS of .684; Seager was 171 OPS points above the league average. That, on a strat card, is equivalent to 18 singles above average for Seager, and only 15 singles above league average for Brock. Those 3 hits are worth about 600K in salary.

Of course that still doesn't make Brock an impact player, but another reason for that is the total devaluation of the stolen base in most leagues due to the heavy usage of power parks. And the third reason for that is that he wasn't really an impact player in his era, he just stole a lot of bases, legged out a lot of doubles, was a liability in LF, and ran the bases rather poorly.

Other regular LF's in the NL in 1964 included Billy Williams, Rico Carty, Tommy Davis, and Tommy Harper. Also appearing there was a young Willie Stargell. Of course, Brock mostly played RF that year. His competition there included Aaron, Clemente, and Frank Robinson.

In 1968, the story is much the same. Brock actually led LF's in bWAR that year, but was the 5th overall outfielder, behind Aaron, Clemente, Mays, and Felipe Alou. And Billy Williams, Cleon Jones, Dick Allen, and Alex Johnson all had 3-5 WAR seasons (Brock checked in at 5.8.)

Bottom line, he was a good but not great player, and is in the HOF for his counting stats, especially his 3000 hits and 900 SB's. His BBREF fielding advanced stats are not kind, with a net -51 runs. He had several years of +8 or +9 early in his career, but from 1970-1972 he was never better than -10.

Lou Brock was a really strange player. His best year was 1964, but he only played 103 games -- .348 BA, 146 OPS+. One can argue '67 or '68, more time played. He led the league in caught steals 7 times, sure due to the fact he was stealing a lot of bases. Never took more than 76 walks in a season, and was a below average fielder. But he hung on long enough to get 3,000 plus hits. Consistent over time, but not great at any point. in SOM, I've used him in a pinch as a DH in a platoon situation.