Okay, so here’s the deal. Today I wanna talk about something I messed around with a while back: John Olerud and Rickey Henderson. Sounds random, right? Well, it kinda is, but stick with me.
Basically, I was bored one weekend and started thinking about baseball stats. I’m not some super-serious sabermetrician or anything, but I do like to see what kinda weird stuff I can dig up. So, I remembered John Olerud – that first baseman who always wore a helmet. I always wondered how good he actually was. And then Rickey Henderson popped into my head, the man of steals. I figured, why not compare ’em?
First thing I did was jump online. I went straight to Baseball-Reference, you know, the go-to spot for baseball nerds. I pulled up Olerud’s stats first. Man, that guy had a sweet batting eye. High on-base percentage, good average, decent power. He wasn’t a superstar, but he was consistently good for a long time. I started dumping all his stats into a spreadsheet. Yeah, old school, I know. I like seeing the numbers laid out in front of me.
Then I grabbed Rickey Henderson’s stats. Holy cow! The guy was a machine! Stolen bases through the roof, obviously, but also a great hitter, got on base a ton, and even had some pop. His stats are just insane, comparing them was eye opening, I copied all of it to a different sheet so I could put them side-by-side.
Alright, so I had all this data. Now what? I started looking for some common ground, some way to compare these two guys who played completely different positions and had totally different skill sets. That’s where it got interesting. I thought to myself, “What if I just look at their overall offensive production?” I needed a way to boil it all down to one number.
So, I started messing around with some different formulas. I tried OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging), that’s a pretty standard one. But it felt too simple. Then I stumbled upon something called wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created Plus). It’s supposed to be a more complete measure of a player’s offensive value, adjusted for the ballpark they played in. Perfect! That was exactly what I wanted. I found a wRC+ calculator online, punched in all the numbers, and started comparing.
What I found was pretty cool. Olerud, while not as flashy as Henderson, was actually a really valuable offensive player. His wRC+ numbers were consistently good throughout his career. Henderson was obviously better, but Olerud held his own. It just kinda showed me that there’s more than one way to be a great player. You don’t have to steal 100 bases a year to make a big impact. Being a consistent, high on-base guy can be just as valuable.
Here’s what I did step by step:
- Started with curiosity: I wondered about Olerud and Henderson.
- Data gathering: I scraped their stats from Baseball-Reference.
- Spreadsheet time: I organized the stats in a spreadsheet.
- Finding the right metric: wRC+ seemed like the best fit.
- Number crunching: I used a wRC+ calculator to compare them.
- Insights: Olerud was more valuable than I initially thought.
It was just a fun little project, but it made me appreciate both players even more. It also reminded me that you can find interesting stories in baseball stats if you’re willing to dig a little deeper. Maybe next time, I’ll compare a pitcher to a designated hitter. Who knows?
Hope you guys enjoyed hearing about my little adventure. Let me know if you have any cool baseball stat comparisons you’ve done!