He’s been the best player on that team, easily, for the last 3 seasons. 2007, Rollins won the MVP, but Utley out WAR’d him 8.0-6.7 (in about 25% less PA’s as well, with equal PA’s, Utley would’ve beat him out 3:2). In 2008, Howard was the MVP candidate, but it would be criminally insane to say Howard was superior in any facet of the game outside of “September superclutchiness” than Utley. And FWIW, while Howard was bumbling along to start the season, Utley opened 2008 with a 1.195 OPS in April (higher than Howard’s September OPS), while playing GG level defense in a much more important spot. Rollins was also sub-par for himself with a .724.

Like, I hate saying crap about Howard and Rollins. Both are very good players. But Howard/Rollins type players vs. Utley types are the perfect example of what’s wrong with simple “observation”, when you’re spectacular in 1 or 2 aspects of the game (for Rollins, speed and defense, for Howard, power), your abilities can be overrated; in turn, when you’re excellent in all aspects (Utley), you can get a little lost in the fact of more attention-grabbing teammates (once again, not Howard and Rollins’ fault that people think they’re a little better than they really are, Rollins is probably the 2nd best SS of the decade anyway).

Cole (Los Angeles)

Hi Joe Morgan, is Chase Utley the greatest second baseman of all time?

Joe Morgan (11:10 AM)

I don’t try to compare people to the past, because the game is different today that it was years ago. Today, the parks are smaller, the balls are livlier and the pitchers aren’t as consistent. I have always said that Chase Utley is a special, special hitter. I’ve been fortunate enough to do Phillies games on Sunday Night Baseball and he’s hit home runs during those games. And I have said that he’s the best hitting second basemen in the game. There are guys that hit more home runs than him, but he’s a special hitter.

I just want to know how one can qualify to be an analyst when they ignore figures like OPS+, WPA, EqA, wOBA, and the great work people and groups like Bill James and Baseball Prospectus have done in statistical standization across eras (did you know Babe Ruth’s HR production relative to his era in 1927 would’ve been equal to an era of 2.923% of PA’s resulting in HR would list him at 71 HR? In a 154 game season? I think that sentence made sense but I’m not sure. Go look at his DT card, I like numbers, not writing).

But since baseball prospectus does have translated batting stats, let’s take a looksy:
Hornsby: .334/.397/.671, .336 EqA
Utley: .292/.387/.526, .307 EqA

So Hornsby kicks his ass offensively. BUT, remember that when Hornsby played, the defensive spectrum went as 1B-LF-RF-2B-CF-3B-SS-C-P. Hornsby was basically a slightly more rangy 1B, and even when defense wasn’t nearly as valuable from a 2B, he was slightly below average in his career (-17 FRAA). Utley, playing when 2B defense is way more valuable, thanks to Double Plays, is a +35 FRAA. So let’s look at their age 26-30 years in WARP-3 terms:

Hornsby: 44.2
Utley: 40.4

Okay so maybe he’s not the best ever, but, wow that’s close. How Utley can play in a huge market and be the 4th or 5th most recognized player on his own TEAM is beyond me. Well, maybe he used to be, doubt he’ll be now.

still, even a mediocre pitcher with a great lineup against a great pitcher witha good lineup probably should win more than ~=25% of the time.

then again, maybe not as gaudin is awful and an all-bullpen game has knock on consequences. what i would like to do is to isolate what portion of that 12-35 is due to the shortened rest and what portion is various and assorted forms of noise.

I have a moderate amount of technical know-how, but on something this complicated I dont trust my own work enough to attempt it solo.

A more intriguing option may have been a “bullpen game” in which Girardi utilized the depth of the Yankee relief corps. But that has its own risks.

The problem is that if you start Gaudin and/or do a bullpen game and still lose game 5, Burnett is thoroughly capable of imploding on full rest in game 6. See: ALCS.