Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
Andre Dawson- I am amazed at the amount of people that support Jim Rice yet dont support Dawson. Dawson was clearly not only the better player (by a large margin) he had a better career. Dawson was one of the few players in baseball history to be able to transform his game as he aged from one that depended on speed to one that stressed power as his legs gave way. He won a rookie of the year award, won a MVP award, was 2nd in the voting two other times, won 8 gold gloves, stole over 300 bases, won 4 silver slugger awards, hit 438 HR's, 500 2b's , almost 100 3bs (98), had 2774 hits, 1373 runs, 1591 rbis's, and his numbers match up very nicely with hall of Famers, Billy Williams, Al Kaline, Tony Perez, Dave Winfield and Ernie Banks.
Another penalized by spending his best years in Montreal. In my mind he belongs.
[.
|
In his prime Dawson was the better defensive player by a large margin...but offensively he was not close. I don't know how ball park plays into that...but Rice was 20 points higher career average...30 points higher career OBP and 20 points higher career slugging. Dawson was a power hitter from day one. He hit 19 as a rookie which in the mid 70s was a decent number and was hitting 25 by his second year. His game was not speed based ever. He was a power hitter who could run in his Montreal days. I don't think he transferred his game...he simply improved his power naturally as he aged and as his knees fell apart he lost his speed. He had enough power to be a plus offensive power if he had no speed at all...the speed early in his career was just a bonus and yes, Rice never did have that.
If you want to call Dawson a better player I have no problem with that...by a large margin is laughable. I honestly don't know how much a liability Rice was in left field if at all. Rice was a far superior offensive player as the numbers verify however...and I'm not sure how much of that was ballpark influenced. All phases of the game, I'd agree Dawson was better, but I think Rice was better by a pretty large margin with the bat which is why I prefer Rice as a HOFer more than Dawson though I think both are pretty questionable.