Mark Teixeira vs. Adrian Gonzalez
In the battle of first basemen, stats rule. In 2011, Mark Teixeira hit a blazing .248, while Gonzalez only mustered a paltry .338. Teixeira's gargantuan efforts led to 39 home runs. How many did Gonzalez have? 27, a number most back-up infielders would be ashamed of. Both had identical .997 fielding percentages, but Gonzalez did it mostly by cheating and through avid use of stunt doubles.
Teixeira is a great teammate, often helping his colleagues with mundane as well as extraordinary problems. Gonzalez, on the other hand, routinely steals things from other lockers in the Fenway home clubhouse. When confronted, he generally blames whatever Make A Wish participant happens to be standing nearby.
Where does that leave us in our analysis? Teixeira wins, but only by a hair. He would have won more handily, but, and in the interest of full disclosure, Gonzalez bribed us.
6 comments:
Teixeira's subpar season resulted in making the Playoffs. Gonzalez's season of a lifetime resulted in, to borrow a time-honored New York work, bupkis. Edge: Yankees, of course, because of the Herman Edwards Rule: You play to win the game. Teixeira wins games.
Teixeira does win games, unfortunately last season those games were usually Scrabble and Mouse Trap.
Last year, I was quite disappointed with Tex. His defense was great. It always is. However, when it was time to come to the plate in "must do something big" situations, he was not that good.
No, he was good at Hungry Hungry Hippos too.
And I agree with that sentiment. I was not very comfortable with him at the plate in a must-hit situation.
I guess Gonzalez bribed the lot of you.
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