Rod Carew vs. Joe Morgan

[SportFan4Life]

Joe Morgan Stats- http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/morgajo02.shtml

Rob Carew Stats- http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/carewro01.shtml

Who do you think was the better second basemen?

[One Nut Kruk]

Rod Carew by miles.

[xander]

I like Morgan, but Carew had a BA .60 times higher than Morgan.

[nyyfan4life]

Carew probbably. he was an amazing hitter

[Spider Pig]

I'll take ROD. Amazing hitter and he is not annoying like Joe Morgan.

[babalu69]

Carew better hitter and was on the angels.

[xander]

Morgan was the better fielder though, but definitely Carew

[bagwell368]

wow, you guys get this out of a book or something? did anyone ever see both play? Carew was great at hitting the ball. But Morgan worked a lot more walks, and had a lot more power. Morgan also remained at 2B his whole long career (minus 38 games at 4 other positions) . Carew played more games at 1B (where his offense was much less impressive by comparison) then 2B.

Morgan had a low BA on Houston because it was a terrible hitters park and league at the time, looks at OPS+, not raw stats for those years.

Carew .328/.393/.429 - 131 OPS+ - 110th all time MVP shares - 0 GG's - 353/187 SB/CS
Morgan .271/.392/.466 - 132 OPS+ - 31st all time MVP shares - 5 GG's - 689/162 SB/CS

Better "hitter for BA" obviously Carew. Better player and better 2B - Morgan by a mile. And Morgan of course was one of the best base stealers of all time - both in count, and percentage. Carew was talented at swiping Home, which is notable, but had a terrible first step, even though he could run like crazy, so he was coached to death, and always seen as a disapointment at stealing 2B. Then the GG's - 5 of them for Morgan, not a sniff of one for Carew who was below average at 2B.

In fact Bill James has Morgan as the #1 2B all time, and #15 player of all time as of 2001.

Carew is listed at #9 2B - 65th all time with a terse write up about his poor footwork, judgment on bang bang plays and arm. He also says Carew's offense is overrated due to his high BA, and mentioning that Killebrew was a bettter hitter.

Carew is hardly junk, but to seriously compare him to Morgan and find Carew better means you are not looking at the whole picture. In their own time, Morgan was seen as a more valuable player.

Peak you ask?

Morgan's best 5: 187, 169, 159, 154, 149
Carew's best 5: 178, 157, 150, 148, 144

No help there.....

Only as an unprepared and annoying announcer does he not rank....

[07MVPPatBurrell]

he is not annoying like Joe Morgan.

that has a lot to do with who was the better 2B

[flips333]

I hate joe morgan... hate hate hate...and I love rod carew... But Rod carew wasn't really a 2b his whole career... In their prime I take carew. But as a 2b carew couldn't hack it when he lost his speed. So Carew was a better player and morgan was a better 2b

[iam brett favre]

if morgan hit more HR's, i'd say him. obviously he hit much more than carew, but he didnt hit enough to make you say, ok we can look past the fact that morgan only had a .271 average, and carew had a .328 average. in 3 less seasons, carew also had about 500 more hits than morgan. im not taking anything away from joe morgan, i am just saying, in my opinion at least, carew is better.

[quiksilver2491]

Since when has batting average and hits determined the better player?

The better player was Joe Morgan, ****ty anouncer, one hell of a ball player.

[C1Bman88]

As a player, Joe Morgan. As an announcer, I'd take Rod Carew.

[todu82]

Rod Carew.

[bagwell368]

if morgan hit more HR's, i'd say him. obviously he hit much more than carew, but he didnt hit enough to make you say, ok we can look past the fact that morgan only had a .271 average, and carew had a .328 average. in 3 less seasons, carew also had about 500 more hits than morgan. im not taking anything away from joe morgan, i am just saying, in my opinion at least, carew is better.

Again, look at the BA's in the 60's. Carew debuted in what '67, and the offense started to go up for real in '69. Morgan played in that horrible park for more then 1/3 of his career, he probably lost 35-70 HR's there.

OBP and OPS+ as we hopefully all know now are much more important then BA, and Morgan had higher marks in both then Carew. He was also a better defensive player by a good deal, a better base runner by a good deal and had more power - so what's the problem? He also had a higher peak as I pointed out.

500 more hits? Yeah so? Morgan had 1865 BB's - 847 more then Carew.

Also Morgan was a 6.8 RC/G player to Carew's 6.2 - a notable difference.

Carew BtRns 418 BtWin 41.9
Morgan BtRns 461.9 BtWin 46.9

I adjusted Morgan's figure down for the difference in PA's. Morgan has 10% higher batted runs. Adjusted Batting Runs - This is the linear weights method pioneered by Pete Palmer. It is a bit more accurate than Runs Created and also handles differing offensive environments more easily. It is adjusted to the park and league the player played in. It is also relative to league average, so negative values mean they were below average for the league.

Again Morgan is about 10% stronger BtWins - Another Pete Palmer tool, this measures the number of wins a player added relative to the league average hitter.

OWP - offensive winning percentage:

Carew .669
Morgan .702

Every SABRmatrician and almost everybody that saw these guys play will tell you Morgan was better - period. One generally discounted stat should make no difference compared to the avalanche of other facts against Carew when compared to Morgan.

Not only is Morgan the best 2B of my lifetime, according to James he is the best 2B of all time. Biggio for crissakes is better then Carew, and so is Sandberg.

Carew was a poor fielder - unable to master the footwork, or turning of DP's, bad judgement under pressure, and he had a crap arm. As a 1B his offensive value goes down vs. replacement players, and he played more games at 1B then 2B.