Yu Darvish vs. Bryce Harper

I’m an Oakland A’s fan…I haven’t seen a top hitting prospect in a decade + come through the pipeline…seen many aces though.

I’d take Harper for the next five years over Darvish for the next ten.

whoa now. I like Harper more than Darvish, but that right there is a bit over the top.

Pitcher influence single games, for sure, but they do it once every 5 days. Position players do it nearly every game, on both sides of the ball (you only refer to offense).

Pitchers do nothing for run scoring, they only factor into run prevention. So that means a mximum of half the game, once every 5 days. Then, on the run prevention side, you also have defense, which is almost totally position players.

So when you break it down, the argument just doesnt hold water

Ask the Red Sox how past durability affected Tazawa.

A guy like Roy Halladay or Clayton Kershaw, pitching to every batter and so involved in every play for 230 or so half-innings, was involved in WAY MORE individual plate appearances than even the most everyday of everyday players, to the order of (ballpark) 850-950 to 650-750. Even factoring in defensive plays that position players are involved in (most of which are routine, very few of which are as involved as the pitcher-batter dynamic), at most it breaks out about even. And WAR calculations would tell you the same thing.

Pujols’ WAR over that period was historic. There was only 2 other players in history with a ten year period that had a WAR within 7 of his total for that time.

seriously?

and Darvish to Doc? seriously?

Pujols is, by far, the greatest hitter on the planet - especially over that ten year period. Roy Halladay is one of several pitchers who are in the conversation for the best pitcher in the game over that time period. I would be interested in seeing how many players each had within 10% of their total WAR over that period.

But, regardless, if you look a the last two years, 4 of the top 10 per year in WAR have been SP’s. And, if you look back a few years, before our offensive outburst, pitchers consistently right with hitters in WAR. From 1992 - 2000, 8 out of 9 years a pitcher was in the top 2 that year in WAR. 3 of those years, a SP was number 1 overall. That was a particularly good time for pitchers, yes. But, we are ending an era that was particularly (for several reasons) skewed towards hitters.

Over the last two years, pitchers had 40% of the top 10, and if we go back to the 1990’s, pitchers were almost equally represented in the top 2 positions. Not to mention, over the past 3 years, we have had two pitchers in the top 2 overall for their respective years. I don’t see any argument in the statistics to the effect that an ace SP is significantly less valuable than a top flight bat.

How players “age” is totally individual so I don’t think you can make the generalization.

Darvish is past the “injury nexus” and his delivery is repeatable, if not silky smooth, so there’s little reason to think he’s more likely than Harper to get derailed by injury.

Trying to remember if Harper vs Trout was as funny but I suspect not.

I was disappointed when John specified that Harper’s decade didn’t start right away.

The way I see Darvish’s value to Texas, if they win a WS this year or next, the team benefits in other ways for the rest of the decade.

That sort of value could only be matched by Harper if Washington competes and even then, Texas has a head start in reaping the benefits of being a winner.

10 to 1 in favour of Harper is staggering…..it’s much much closer in real life value in my opinion.