Friday, October 2, 2015

Chase Headley & Scott Brosius, Is There Any Comparison?


When the New York Yankees acquired Chase Headley in the summer of 2014 much of the New York Yankees fan base had flashbacks to the late 1990’s and early 2000’s when the Yankees had a third baseman named Scott Brosius. Brosius, much like Headley was advertised as at the time of the trade, was a hard-nosed defensive minded third baseman that would save about as many runs as he would save during the course of a 162-game schedule, a lot. Now that the 2015 regular season is all but over and Headley is preparing his first playoff run with the club, the same stage that Brosius truly became a Yankee with clutch hit after clutch hit, is there still a fair comparison between the two?

BROSIUS:
Year G PA R H 2B HR RBI SB BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
1998 ★ 152 603 86 159 34 19 98 11 52 97 .300 .371 .472 .843 121
1999 133 529 64 117 26 17 71 9 39 74 .247 .307 .414 .722 84
2000 135 519 57 108 20 16 64 0 45 73 .230 .299 .374 .673 70
2001 120 478 57 123 25 13 49 3 34 83 .287 .343 .446 .789 106
NYY (4 yrs) 540 2129 264 507 105 65 282 23 170 327 .267 .331 .428 .759 96
HEADLEY:
Year G PA R H 2B HR RBI SB BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS OPS+
2014 58 224 28 50 8 6 17 3 29 49 .262 .371 .398 .768 118
2015 153 632 74 150 29 11 62 0 49 133 .262 .326 .374 .700 94
NYY (2 yrs) 211 856 102 200 37 17 79 3 78 182 .262 .338 .380 .718 100
As you can see by the simple number comparisons these guys actually had comparable numbers overall with New York. Brosius had a little more power than Headley both in the home run and extra base hit department but across the board they are at least comparable. Headley K's more and Brosius is probably the better defender at this point but you get the point, someone may have had this comparison right a season and a half ago. 

Numbers aren’t everything, as much as that pains me to admit out loud, but the good thing for my sake is that I have seen both play. I hate when players compare All-Stars of the present to All-Stars of the past based on numbers. It was a different game then and a different era and I personally stay away from comparing players to players if I haven’t personally seen them play. Using the eye test alone I can see why the comparisons immediately were made. Headley is a great defender down at third base much like Brosius was and both seem unfazed by the limelight and the big situation. What sets the two apart, besides Headley’s seemingly inability to throw to first base consistently this season ala Chuck Knoblauch, is


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