Inside the numbers

Hitters vs. Sluggers











Happy blogging,



  1. tomatalk

    Interesting post. Back before the Barry Bonds explosion (I’m not going to get into the “merits” and PEDs speculation) a friend of mine and I had a long running debate about who was the better hitter: Tony Gwynn or Barry Bonds. I was the defender of Gwynn. and I took that stance as much as anything to stir up debate. Bonds’ late 90’s and early 2000’s seasons kind of made that a moot argument, but there are certainly reasons to value the hitters in baseball. Gwynn, at the time, was a guy I defended for many of the things you mentioned.
    I would say that defining K’s as a “big factor” might be a bit misleading though. Prince Fielder’s well on his way to having 140+ k’s this year. Hanley Ramirez has several 120 K seasons under his belt. If you K a ton and only provide power with no secondary skills that can be a problem. A guy like Adam Dunn who takes a ton of walks though does provide a decent amount of added value. For example, Dunn and Hanley both have a career OBP of .383. And because Dunn K’s a lot, he generally avoids the GDP. His career high in GDP’s is 12 (granted some of that is just opportunity), but Pujols who is an absolutely amazing all around hitter has had more GDP’s than that in every season but one (and he’s already got 11 this year). Use of RC is an excellent way of comparing guys, but opportunity means something there as well. Anyways, wasn’t meaning to say anything negative…..very good article and got me to thinking about my old Gwynn/Bonds debate.

  2. raysfanboy

    I think that one of the best pure sluggers out there right now is Adam Dunn. If you look at the guy’s numbers, nobody comes close in OPS. At least over the last 4 years or so. He hits it deep, or he gets walked. Or, true to his slugger moniker, he Ks.

    Best hitter, Pujols. I say this reluctantly since I do not like the Cardinals. But Pujols is in another world as a hitter.

    Great post.

  3. juliasrants

    I agree 100% with you Ben. I would much rather have a hitter. Too often the players (and the fans) forget that baseball is a game of one base at a time. If you have 3 or 4 guys in a row in your lineup that can consistently move runners over 2 or 3 bases, you will win a lot of games!


  4. orangebirds

    I, myself am a hitter, so I would go with the hitter Ben. A hitter can get the job done ALL of the time. He is the main man. Keep posting, and please check out my latest post, It has 54 comments, and it is about Cal Ripken Jr. so please comment

  5. Jane Heller

    Really good post. I guess the best of all possible worlds is a player who’s both a hitter and a slugger. Pujols seems to be that player. Steroids aside, I’d have to put A-Rod in that category in 2007, when he had 50+ homers and 150 RBIs, plus he stole a lot of bases. But since then, I’d go with Pujols.

  6. thatbaseballguy

    Great post. I keep trying to tell my friends and such that certain people don’t belong in things like the home run derby… cough cough Brandon Inge… and you agree in general that hitters are different than sluggers.

  7. brownson20

    Nice perspective. Fans flock to the ballpark to watch the long HRs and runs, so a slugger has his place in any lineup; but most solid teams are built with several key hitters. Personally, both hitters and sluggers are welcome on my team–and each has their critical role. Being a Braves fan, the last few years have left me praying for a slugger. Batting .310 is great for the top of the lineup, but it took 3 consecutive hits to drive in a run at times. Personally, hitters with a little speed (or a lot of speed) are those players I’ll never get tired of. You mentioned Victorino (despite being a Braves fan), one of my favorites to watch. Get on base, steal a base, or score from first on a double–gotta love those guys. Nice post.

  8. diamondgirl55

    hey thanks for commenting! :] oh man I agree, Inge getting (or the lack of) 0 homeruns was a liiiiiiiiiiiittle sad. I live in Detroit right now though, and I was able to give a lot of people at work some sh*t which was pretty fun, hehe :]
    Great post, I love it!

  9. raysfanboy

    I know this if off topic, but I agree with you about Figgins. That guy is awesome. He is sometimes inconsistent, and always hurt (I used to have him always on my fantasy team–not this year, though, and look what happened!). But when he is right, he can change a game all by himself. And a cannon for an arm. The guy is solid.


    Haha, alright Joey. If you want that then with the players above it would go Pujols (2), Fielder (16), Ichiro (18), Morneau (20), Ramirez (49), Youkilis (63), Crawford (73), Howard (93), Pena (125), Dunn (163), Victorino (165). Victorino really let me down. I would think he would contribute more than that.

  11. sjbravos

    I think hitters are better for building a team, but sluggers are tough to come by. Most teams have at least one good hitter on their team but not many have a true slugger on their team.

  12. bobdawg25

    Thanks for the comment yesterday.

    I have to go with hitters being better for the team…There are more hitters out there that have tons of power, they just go unnoticed. Robinson Cano is the perfect example of this, here is a guy that has .330 – .350 potential and if you put the ball down and in on him he drops the head of the bat on the ball to drive it out. However he isn’t going to strike out 150 times every year and he will get on base, which is often more important than hitting a solo home run. Hitters are what make teams better in the long run, you need men on base to score runs, you can’t win every game with a 3-run homer.


    I would probably put him in the freaks section that can do it all. There are probably a handful more players that can be put in that category but I only chose a few. If you were wondering he ranks 19 overall in runs created. I think Citi Field is really going to hurt his power numbers in the future though.

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