Anderson vs. Jones

[Emory Eagle]

1 hour ago, Moshagge3 said:

It always bothered me that Elaine still appears to be rooting for the Yankees. She is clapping when the Yankee fans clap and she makes a disappointed face when an Oriole gets a hit.

Ha I was just re-watching it today and thought the same thing.

[Emory Eagle]

1 hour ago, BarclaySouthway said:

If I recall, he clearly beats one into the dirt on the swing, but it results in a foul ball behind the dugout!

That's what I remembered too, I thought he fouled one off right into Kramer. But after another watch I think it's someone else. 

[Frobby]

9 hours ago, BarclaySouthway said:

I don't care what the metrics say,  Brady was a better center fielder than Jones.  Far superior range.  Jones has a better arm, but I think range is more important as long as your arm is more or less average, which Brady's was. 

If you don’t care what the numbers say, I don’t know what to tell you.    If you want to go by subjective criteria, then I cite you to the fact that Jones won 4 Gold Gloves to Brady’s none.   And then there’s the fact that Frank Robinson and Johnny Oates both chose to play Devereaux in center and Brady in left, presumably because they judged Devo to be the better CF.   Brady only became the CF when Devo left town in ‘96.

[Tony-OH]

6 minutes ago, Frobby said:

If you don’t care what the numbers say, I don’t know what to tell you.    If you want to go by subjective criteria, then I cite you to the fact that Jones won 4 Gold Gloves to Brady’s none.   And then there’s the fact that Frank Robinson and Johnny Oates both chose to play Devereaux in center and Brady in left, presumably because they judged Devo to be the better CF.   Brady only became the CF when Devo left town in ‘96.

I thought it also had to do with the fact that they felt left field required more range because it was bigger in Camden Yards. I always thought Devo was a pretty solid CF either way though. Brady was never a great defensive CF. He could make some highlight reel catches, but I remember him not always getting great jumps.

[Frobby]

36 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

I thought it also had to do with the fact that they felt left field required more range because it was bigger in Camden Yards. I always thought Devo was a pretty solid CF either way though. Brady was never a great defensive CF. He could make some highlight reel catches, but I remember him not always getting great jumps.

That’s what I’d say, too.   I will say this: I think Jones in his prime was a better CF than Brady ever was, but Brady maintained his speed to a late age (he’s still pretty fast, from what I hear) whereas Jones has slowed down considerably.   I’d take Brady at age 36 over Jones at age 32.

[ShaneDawg85]

Same position but different players in my eyes since Brady spent more time at leadoff.  Power was expected from Adam Jones, given how his career started it was more of a luxury from Brady.  Brady had the better peak, Jones more consistency, but overall I'd still take Brady.  He was a better all around hitter, far less frustrating than Adam, and his overall postseason performance puts him over the top for me.  The weaknesses of Adam's game were magnified in the short series playoff environment, whereas Brady's skills and assets really shined through.

[Tony-OH]

8 minutes ago, Frobby said:

That’s what I’d say, too.   I will say this: I think Jones in his prime was a better CF than Brady ever was, but Brady maintained his speed to a late age (he’s still pretty fast, from what I hear) whereas Jones has slowed down considerably.   I’d take Brady at age 36 over Jones at age 32.

Agreed. Saying that, I'd also take Brady's offensive game overall. I think Jones was/is a great Oriole, but I'd take Brady if I had to choose one in their primes.

[jamalshw]

I'd take Jones because of the off-field stuff. He's the leader of this team whereas Anderson was typically more of 'the other guy'. On the field, it's very close. At their peaks, it would likely be Anderson, but I'm taking Jones (though I admit it could be recency bias).

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, jamalshw said:

I'd take Jones because of the off-field stuff. He's the leader of this team whereas Anderson was typically more of 'the other guy'. On the field, it's very close. At their peaks, it would likely be Anderson, but I'm taking Jones (though I admit it could be recency bias).

I’ve always thought Jones’ leadership skills were perhaps overrated in terms of actual impact.   Jones has always been very vocal, and a hard worker, but the team had plenty of quieter leaders and I don’t think any one guy really deserves the credit.   I don’t feel like Markakis, Hardy, Wieters, Cruz, Tillman, O’Day et al. were looking to Jones for leadership.   Manny and Schoop were looking more to Hardy.   The bullpen guys looked to O’Day.    So, I see Jones as a leader, but far from the only one.

[Aristotelian]

This may be heresy, but I have a hard time viewing Brady's 50 HR season as untainted, and that accounts for 7 of his career WAR. Jones has the edge in power even counting 1996, even more so if you don't. But Brady has a massive edge in OBP. The O's have won a ton more games in the Jones era and I think that means something. I think I would go for Jones but it's close.

[Ohfan67]

This is a very fun topic. Brady has the edge in peak performance IMO. Brady's 50 homer year and 50 stolen base year, for example, were incredibly fun. On base skills were fantastic. 

 

I try not to think about PED's when I look at Brady's career. If you are fan, then put on the blinders and try not to see a player who had a career OPS of about .650 in over 1,600 plate appearances suddenly blossoming into an All Star with an OPS over .800 at age 28 and maintains excellent production well into his 30's. As Frobby points out, Brady was amazingly "physical" at age 36. I was and still am a huge fan of Brady the player, not so much Brady the executive, but the 90's in MLB were what they were. 

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

This may be heresy, but I have a hard time viewing Brady's 50 HR season as untainted, and that accounts for 7 of his career WAR. Jones has the edge in power even counting 1996, even more so if you don't. But Brady has a massive edge in OBP. The O's have won a ton more games in the Jones era and I think that means something.I think I would go for Jones but it's close.

Have they won more games in the Jones era?    The O’s had winning records in 1989, 1992-94 and 1996-97 while Brady was there, and they had losing records in 2008-11 and 2017 while Jones was there.    I’d guess the overall record during their tenures is pretty close.    

Edit: by my calculation, the O’s were 13 games under .500 while Anderson was here, 45 games under .500 while Jones has been here.   People forget how badly we sucked from 2008-11. We were 103 games under .500 in that span.

[Just Regular]

Obligatory Cumulative WAR by age look.

https://www.fangraphs.com/graphsw.aspx?players=364,6368&wg=2

Jones started earlier and has maintained his big gap, though this year he's matching up with Brady's career year.  Seeing the beginning of Brady's curve is a good reminder of what a late bloomer he was.  I'd guess he's pretty high up the career WAR list of players who didn't get past 1 until their age-27 season.

[DrungoHazewood]

19 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I'll take Brady's all around game, including the OBP skills and stolen bases.  

Adam had the advantage of not having almost 1300 PAs of a .619 OPS to start his career.  At the age of 27 Brady hit .230 with 2 homers and 12 steals.  By the age Anderson established himself as a good major leaguer Jones had appeared in multiple AS games, had MVP votes, had almost 4000 PAs as a good MLB CFer.

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, DrungoHazewood said:

Adam had the advantage of not having almost 1300 PAs of a .619 OPS to start his career.  At the age of 27 Brady hit .230 with 2 homers and 12 steals.  By the age Anderson established himself as a good major leaguer Jones had appeared in multiple AS games, had MVP votes, had almost 4000 PAs as a good MLB CFer.

Fair enough, yet IIRC their WARs have been about the same.

I guess it wasn't clearly defined in the OP, but are we talking about having one of these guys at their peak for a whole season or two?  Or their career.