Wednesday, April 30, 2008

#399 Tim Wallach



Why this card is awesome: Because this card is another nice demonstration of how stupid the game-winning RBI stat was. Andre Dawson, who famously won the 1987 NL MVP despite the Cubs being a last-place team, managed to tie for first place in GW RBI. This could happen only if Dawson had a simply incredible, probability-defying season, or if the stat was not really a very good measure of much anything. Dawson had a great year, no doubt, but I'm still going with the second explanation.

I also like the shot of Wallach wearing the batting helmet. It's a nice card for a somewhat underrated player.

7 comments:

Jim said...

I know Tim Wallach was never cool, but where is his "cool stat"??

Andy said...

I mentioned on the first all-star card that I'm skipping cool stats for just the all-star cards. Don't worry--Wallach will get his cool stat when we come to his regular-issue card.

Jim said...

Oh yeah, I guess the Juan Samuel list got me thinking cool stats were back

Uglee Card said...

The one-eared helmets have a wonderful awkwardness to them.

Mr. Schwartz said...

The SAVE is just as stupid of a stat as the GWRBI.

Andy said...

Mr. Schwartz--I would say personally that the save is a moderately flawed statistic. Certainly not all saves are created equally, and there are many times when a ballgame is won or lost in an inning other than the last. But GWRBI was a terribly flawed stat by comparison, where the credited GWRBI was often totally meaningless in the outcome of the game.

All baseball stats are flawed to some degree. The famous cliche that a hit "will look like a line drive in the box score" tells you all you need to know about that.

Stack22 said...

" Jim said...I know Tim Wallach was never cool,"

That statement is entirely inaccurate. Tim Wallach was, is, and will continue to be very cool.

I think Jim owes everyone, and especially Tim Wallach, and apology.

http://timwallach.blogspot.com/