All-Time Greats Comparisons: Reggie Jackson vs Willie McCovey

[3and2Fastball]

Have a little debate going on here among family members and I hoped some of you knowledgeable folks could chime in.... we were looking at comparing these 2 great power hitters and wondering which player you would prefer if you were assembling a team of Hall of Famers and you needed a power hitting LHB corner outfielder, who would you take between McCovey & Jackson?

 

The first instinct for a lot of people is to say Jackson right away based on his World Series highlights and he hit more HR's (563 to 521).

 

Neither were exactly Gold Glove caliber defenders but in general in their prime Jackson was a better defensive player and McCovey was really more of a 1B than an OF, but he did play OF, too, thus this discussion/debate based on a hypothetical assembling of a team.

 

Jackson struck out a lot more. In fact I believe Reggie has the MLB all-time SO record. McCovey got on-base more too (career .375 to .356), and McCovey had a better career OPS too (.889 to .846)..... and it is believed that McCovey's power numbers were hurt by a career playing in San Francisco

 

The argument for Jackson when looking at the numbers is that Jackson had a steeper decline after age 35 and in his prime Jackson was better than McCovey in his prime, though I'm not sure that is cut and dried....

 

thoughts on this? thanks

[3and2Fastball]

By the way --- obviously there were better power hitting LHB corner outfielders that those 2 (Ruth, Musial, Williams etc). The debate discussion was that if Jackson & McCovey were the 2 available and you needed to take one, which would you take?

 

My cousin who is a Giants fan likes to point out that McCovey has a better post-season BA (.310 to .278) and post-season OBP (.410 to .358) and post-season OPS (1.101 to .885) than "Mr October" and that it is not McCovey's fault that he only played in 8 post-season games in his career as opposed to Jackson's 77 post-season games and 4 rings

[BrewersSuperCollector]

I would take Reggie. He shined in the tough spots when the spotlight was on him.

[RockCoCougars]

if you were assembling a team of Hall of Famers and you needed a power hitting LHB corner outfielder, who would you take between McCovey & Jackson?

 

McCovey was mostly a 1B, so I'd say Jackson hands down. Everything else being equal, I'd take Jackson as a hitter too. It's kind of interesting that offenses were down in MLB during both of their peaks, but McCovey didn't really do much the last several years of his career.

[1992casey]

This depends on whether you want to look at an entire career or look at a player during the stretch that got him his Hall of Fame induction. I'd tend toward the latter, but it's easier to get started with career stats.

 

For questions like this, I usually begin with OPS+. Notice that I said "begin," not "end." The big thing that OPS+ offers is that it's adjusted for the era in which a player's career occurred. A downside is that it carries the same flaws as OPS, mainly that OBP isn't given enough weight.

 

In this case, however, McCovey and Jackson each had OBPs that were 42% of their OPSes. That conveniently evens things out somewhat.

 

McCovey had a career OPS+ of 147 (47% above average). Jackson's was 139 (39% above). At first glance, as RockCoCougars says, McCovey seems to have had more substandard seasons late in his career when compared to Jackson. So my initial conclusion would be that McCovey was the better offensive player during his "good" seasons.

 

I'd ignore strikeouts. When computing a player's value, they mean little. Strikeouts come into play when developing strategy for specific game situations.

 

Stolen bases can probably be looked into, but with these guys, I'd say they're basically meaningless. Jackson stole more bases, but his SB/CS ratio was right at the 2:1 break-even point. The total impact would have likely been the same had he not run at all. McCovey didn't steal or get caught enough to bother thinking about it.

 

I'd also ignore batting average. OBP and SLG tell us more in regard to a player's value. Besides that, OBP and SLG each include BA anyway.

[JimH5]

Not sure how much of the argument is based on being an outfielder. That part would be the only thing that would make me take Jackson over McCovey.

 

While Jackson was a marginal outfielder, he was at least capable of fielding the position. McCovey only played OF because Orlando Cepeda blocked him at 1B. When the Giants traded Cepeda away, McCovey never played there again.

 

Other than that, I'd take McCovey every time. He was a more productive hitter.