Top 32 tournament Reese vs Boudreau

[obxyankeefan]

Top 32 players ranked by BRWAR(as of 6/18/15).

Shortstop Bracket is:

1 H Wagner 8
32 N Garciaparra 0

16 PW Reese
17 L Boudreau

8 B Dahlen
25 A Fletcher

9 L Appling
24 D Bancroft

4 G Davis
29 O Vizquel

13 B Larkin
20 J Sewell

5 R Yount
28 V Stephens

12 A Trammell
21 J Tinker

3 C Ripken JR
30 T Fernandez

14 E Banks
19 L Aparicio

6 O Smith
27 J Rollins

11 D Jeter
22 B Campaneris

2 A Rodriguez
31 R Peckinpaugh

15 J Cronin
18 J Glasscock

7 B Wallace
26 M Tejada

10 A Vaughan
23 J Fregosi

 

[obxyankeefan]

Pee Wee Reese Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com

Lou Boudreau Statistics and History | Baseball-Reference.com

 

[navamind]

Boudreau.

 

[obxyankeefan]

Reese is the original Intangibles

 

[calsnowskier]

Judging the bat, there is no comparison. Boudreau is CLEARLY the better player. And they were contemporaries, so there is no "era argument" to get in the way.

Unfortunately, there really is no way to judge defense from players from a stat sheet, so we are left with anecdotes and general legend. The problem with this is that one player played in New York while the other played in Cleveland. Not a fair comparison.

My final comparison piece is a bit odd, but it did strike me. One player had a 3-year gap in the heart of their career while the other did not. Why didn't LB go to war?

I am going to hold off my vote hoping for some more discussion.

 

[obxyankeefan]

Looking it up...Boudreau was classified as F-4 for arihtis in his ankles making him ineligible for service.

 

[calsnowskier]

Did some further research...

No brainier.

Boudreau was denied service in the military due to arthritis in his ankles from playing basketball. Reese was an error-making machine (the only metric available). Boudreau won the World Series while a player-Manager and winning the MVP in 1948.

 

[iowajerms]

Went with Pee Wee

 

[MilkSpiller22]

went peewee... this was the toughest of all votes for me... they were similar defensively(dWAR)... Boudreu had a better OBP, which is the most important stat by a NON power hitter IMO, but had 2000 less PA... a .14 difference is not large enough to make up for that 2000 more PA...

Reese was also a better baserunner with more speed...