Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:38 am
This has been a very interesting thread. Since I raised the question of Wells vs Larkin at SS, I decided to take a look at how they had actually performed offensively and defensively in a series of leagues. I decided to look at this year's 140M team in the Barnstormer tourney, since those leagues are publically available. I chose 140M leagues since the salary cap is high enough that in most leagues, both SS will be used.
Anyway, let's look at offense first. The list below shows the OPS records for Wells vs Larkin in this year's 140M tourney. There are 14 teams, so it's a decent size sample
Wells/Larkin OPS
.855/.829
____/.880 (L only)
.932/.820
.864/.802
.823/.875
.843/.836
.791/.852
.826/.822
.842/.787
.848/___ (W only)
.915/____(W only)
.928/.819
.797/.750
___/____ (neither)
Overall, as expected, Wells's hitting is better. In the 12 leagues in which he played, Wells topped .800 OPS 10 times. He topped .900 OPS 3 times. His two worst showings were .790+. His best was .932.
Larkin topped .800 OPS 9 times in his 11 seasons. His other two seasons were sub .790. He never topped .900 OPS. His best was .880. Wells had the higher OPS in eight seasons, sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. Larkin was better in 2 seasons.
And, as expected, Larkin's defense is better. Comparing defensive performance took several more steps. So after comparing two seasons, I stopped. I found that fielding results seemed to be pretty consistent
So here are the two teams I checked.
Wells: 119 DP X=224/184 -missed 40 plays
Larkin 137 DP X=199/175 -missed 24 plays
Wells 97 DP X=193/153 -missed 40 plays
Larkin 134 DP X=195/172 -missed 23 plays
Larkin had more DP--in one case +18, and in another case an impressive +37. And Larkin missed fewer plays, in the first case 16 plays and in the other 17. Instinctively, I feel that the stronger DPs may be more important than the missed plays.
So, it's kind of a "you pick 'em." Is Wells' higher offensive potential worth more to you, or is Larkin's consistently superior defense more valuable?
And for the record, when it comes to my own decision about whether to trade Wells or Larkin for the pitcher, I seem to have done better by keeping Wells. This is in a 200M league. Here are the results after 123 games. First OPS
Wells .926/ Larkin .768
Defense
Wells 75 DP X=136/103 -33 missed plays
Larkin 75 DP X=146/128 -18 missed plays
I'm not sure why the DPs are equal. In this case, I'd take Wells with equal DPs and with 15 more missed plays, given Wells's significant offensive edge, but I think I may have just been lucky this time around. Over the long haul, I now think Larkin may indeed be the better choice, but in any given season it could go either way.