As many of you may have figured out by now I am an absolute addict and nut when it comes to New York Yankees baseball. I crave information and gratification when it comes to the team and I want to watch them play as often as I can. When I’m not watching I am reading and writing about them and I read an interesting article over on ESPN from Andrew Marchand which was reporting on the Gleyber Torres Tommy John surgery news. In the article Andrew made an interesting comparison that I absolutely love and that I want to expand on a bit since he didn’t. Marchand opines that current Yankees third baseman Chase Headley is “basically the same player” as a former Yankees great Scott Brosius. Let’s compare.
Obviously comparing different eras and different players is
difficult but with the advancement of sabermetrics and advanced statistics you
can get closer than you ever could before with a simple eye test and backyard
discussion. For this discussion we are going to mainly focus on the Yankees
tenures (although you will see some career stats and comparisons thrown in as
well) of both Brosius and Headley to see if Marchand may have been on to
something with his comparison. All stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, big
shout out to those guys.
Brosius spent four seasons in the Bronx and posted a career
.267/.331/.428/.729 slash line with 65 home runs and 282 RBI. Brosius’ tenure
in the Bronx equated to an 8.3 WAR which was more than half of his career 15.7
WAR. Meanwhile Headley is in his fourth year with the Yankees and has posted a
.255/.333/.377/.711 slash as of the beginning of this week with 35 home runs
and 159 RBI. Headley has posted a Yankees WAR of 6.4 which is far less than the
19.4 WAR he posted while he was a member of the San Diego Padres. The numbers
may not be exact but they are certainly comparable. When you mix in the fact
that both play a tremendous third base defense and both have the tenacity
needed to come through in the clutch I can totally see and agree with Andrew
Marchand on this one. Good call, Andrew.
So why do Yankees fans adore and love Brosius yet seem ready
to light their torches and man their pitch forks to get Headley out of town?
The easy argument can be made for the postseason performances of both men. Brosius
was the Yankees third baseman for three of the Yankees World Series
championships during their dynasty years and Brosius came up with clutch hit
after clutch hit along the way, see the 2001 World Series as an example of that
and his postseason career .245/.278/.418 slash with eight home runs and 30 RBI
as evidence of that. Meanwhile Headley has been in just one playoff game with
the Yankees, the Wild Card Round loss to the Houston Astros in 2015. That’s not
Headley’s fault by any means but the Yankees fan base has never been accused of
being reasonable, fair or very patient either. Maybe Headley and the Yankees can
turn that around in 2017. Stay tuned.
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)