1969 & 1996 Five HOFers QF3 : Milk vs Sushi

[CitySushi]

Personally, I hate pure power offenses, and will almost always vote against them, unless they are against another pure power team. There are some positions I don't mind pure power (4-7), but unless your players bring more than power to the plate I'll generally dislike it. Even with these lineups, it would be hard to think that you would get more than 2 HRs per game against the type of pitching that they'll be facing. Unless you can produce runs in other ways, you can be sure that no matter how many fingers your player hit, I'll always think your team will only produce 2 runs consistently. Home runs are the most overrated statistic in baseball.

Now, granted, very few build teams the way I do.

Yeah, but the logic that my team was simply a pure power hitting team only is a bit of a stretch. It's not like I had a team full of Adam Dunn's who are hit or miss. My guys all hit for solid average as well. On top of that Mays, Robinson and Jackson all had good speed on the base paths as well. It's not always about hitting dingers its about those extra base hits to drive in runs. If all they hit was homeruns, that would be a solid argument but here are their numbers 3-7

Willie Mays: 3,282 hits, 2,062 runs, 338 sb's, .302 BA
Rafael Palmeiro: 3,020 hits, 1,663 runs, 97 sb's, .288 BA
Frank Robinson: 2,943 hits, 1,829 runs, 204 sb's, .294 BA
Reggie Jackson: 2,584 hits, 1,551 runs, 228 sb's, .262 BA
Ernie Banks: 2,583 hits, 1,305 runs, 50 sb's, .274 BA

Compare that with say Juan Gonzalez who was in the heart of Milk's order
1,936 hits, 1,061 runs, 26 sb's, .295 average

There's a huge difference in my guys being able to "manufacture" runs by getting those extra bases hits and their underrated speed. Not stolen bases, just speed.