Tony Gwynn vs Rod Carew

[Old Sweater]

Years ago I ran a click poll at FB, with Gwynn edging out Carew. These two are the top BA players from my high school days(1967) to my current 72yo.

bWAR/162>Carew 5.3>Gwynn 4.6

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Rk	Player	Age	From	To	G	PA	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	CS	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+	TB	GIDP	HBP	SH	SF	IBB
1	Rod Carew	21-39	1967	1985	2469	10550	9315	1424	3053	445	112	92	1015	353	187	1018	1028	.328	.393	.429	.822	131	3998	216	25	128	64	144
2	Tony Gwynn	22-41	1982	2001	2440	10232	9288	1383	3141	543	85	135	1138	319	125	790	434	.338	.388	.459	.847	132	4259	259	24	45	85	203

[thead] [/thead]

Provided by Stathead.com: Found with Stathead. See Full Results.
Generated 3/19/2025.

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Rk	Player	Age	From	To	G	PA	WAR	WAA	oWAR	dWAR	Rbat	Rdp	Rbaser	Rfield
1	Rod Carew	21-39	1967	1985	2469	10550	81.2	46.1	81.0	-1.7	407	17	26	14
2	Tony Gwynn	22-41	1982	2001	2440	10232	69.1	36.8	67.1	-7.6	403	6	23	6

[thead] [/thead]

Provided by Stathead.com: Found with Stathead. See Full Results.
Generated 3/19/2025.

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Rk	Player	Age	From	To	G	PA	XBH	TOB	TOBwe	Outs	RC	BAbip	RP	BtRuns	BtWins	ISO	AB/SO	SB%	SBatt
1	Rod Carew	21-39	1967	1985	2469	10550	649	4096	4255	6857	1595	.359	2347	420	42.2	.101	9.1	65.4	540
2	Tony Gwynn	22-41	1982	2001	2440	10232	763	3955	4094	6661	1636	.341	2386	439	42.8	.120	21.4	71.8	444

[thead] [/thead]

Provided by Stathead.com: Found with Stathead. See Full Results.
Generated 3/19/2025.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

kind of shocked that Gwynn would beat Carew.. i would probably guess recency bias...

i dont see one place where Gwynn beats carew...

 

[Old Sweater]

kind of shocked that Gwynn would beat Carew.. i would probably guess recency bias...

i dont see one place where Gwynn beats carew...

Recency bias and Gwynn is one of the most popular players ever. Tim Raines has equal bWAR value compared to Gwynn but only got like 5% of the vote.

 

[Old Sweater]

I found my Tony Gwynn vs Rod Carew FB click poll. I misremembered it being much closer.
Gwynn 56-votes
Carew 38-votes
Tie 25-votes

 

[msgkings322]

kind of shocked that Gwynn would beat Carew.. i would probably guess recency bias...

i dont see one place where Gwynn beats carew...

What? Go back and look again

Gwynn has higher BA, SLG, OPS, OPS+ (barely), far more HRs, SB%, hits, far fewer strikeouts...about the onbly thing Carew was clearly better at was defense.

 

[MilkSpiller22]

What? Go back and look again

Gwynn has higher BA, SLG, OPS, OPS+ (barely), far more HRs, SB%, hits, far fewer strikeouts...about the onbly thing Carew was clearly better at was defense.

I will admit I made the comment without looking at the stats. It was all reactionary to my memory of seeing both players stats.

But i don’t look at ops and ops+ for players who have little power. It’s not there game.

Gwynn was an amazing batting average. Probably the best pure hitter in modern baseball history.

But with so little power, he needed a better obp. And he just didn’t walk enough.

Carew was better at getting on base and base running.

Still would take Carew over Gwynn. But will admit it js closer than my post made it sound.

 

[msgkings322]

I will admit I made the comment without looking at the stats. It was all reactionary to my memory of seeing both players stats.

Classic

But i don’t look at ops and ops+ for players who have little power. It’s not there game.

LOL

Gwynn was an amazing batting average. Probably the best pure hitter in modern baseball history.

But with so little power, he needed a better obp. And he just didn’t walk enough.

He had far more power than Carew dude. Look again. His OBP was .005 less than Carew.

Carew was better at getting on base and base running.

.005 better OBP, and worse SB%

Still would take Carew over Gwynn. But will admit it js closer than my post made it sound.

Gwynn was a better hitter but Carew could play decent defense (which Gwynn could not really)

 

[navamind]

What? Go back and look again

Gwynn has higher BA, SLG, OPS, OPS+ (barely), far more HRs, SB%, hits, far fewer strikeouts...about the onbly thing Carew was clearly better at was defense.

Carew played in the deadball era where the league averages were much lower than during Gwynn's careers. Even the 1980s were a much better hitting environment than the 60s/early 70s. Carew played around half of his games at 2B while Gwynn was an average-ish corner outfielder. Even stolen bases were a lot more difficult to come by in the 60s/70s than the 80s/90s

Major League Batting Year-by-Year Averages | Baseball-Reference.com

Major League Batting Year-by-Year Averages, Batting Totals and more on Baseball-Reference.com

www.baseball-reference.com

 

[msgkings322]

Carew played in the deadball era where the league averages were much lower than during Gwynn's careers. Even the 1980s were a much better hitting environment than the 60s/early 70s. Carew played around half of his games at 2B while Gwynn was an average-ish corner outfielder.

Major League Batting Year-by-Year Averages | Baseball-Reference.com

Major League Batting Year-by-Year Averages, Batting Totals and more on Baseball-Reference.com

www.baseball-reference.com

See the post right above this is basically my take, Gwynn a little better hitter (more power), worse at defense. Overall pretty similar ‘greatness’

 

[chappee11]

Ted Williams said that Tony Gwynn was the “best hitter he’s ever seen”. I’m going to defer to Ted on this one. Gwynn was the best.

 

[msgkings322]

Carew played in the deadball era where the league averages were much lower than during Gwynn's careers. Even the 1980s were a much better hitting environment than the 60s/early 70s. Carew played around half of his games at 2B while Gwynn was an average-ish corner outfielder. Even stolen bases were a lot more difficult to come by in the 60s/70s than the 80s/90s

Major League Batting Year-by-Year Averages | Baseball-Reference.com

Major League Batting Year-by-Year Averages, Batting Totals and more on Baseball-Reference.com

www.baseball-reference.com

OK my dad corrected both of us.

I was all embarrassed because I took this post and told my dad Carew was the better fielder LOL...uh, Gwynn won 5 Gold Gloves in right field, Carew only played half his games at 2B because he sucked so they moved him to first base and he DH'd lot after 1973

Gwynn had significantly more power and 8 batting titles to Carew's 7 (which accounts for 'deadball' era as does OPS+

They are really close