With all of the people overly excited with the prospect of Adam Laroche being traded I thought I'd do a little fanpost on Adam since I'm sure there won't be any shrines set up by fans commemorating his time spent with the Bucs. Adam may be one of the most hated players in Pirates history and for reasons that continue to escape me. I've read numerous blogs where posters consantly suggest we should "dump" Laroche for a bag of balls or flat out release him because any replacement would surely perform better. Well, everyone calling for the end of the Adam Laroche tenure in Pittsburgh may soon get their wish, but I caution you all to be aware of the fact that this team will not improve simply by subtracting Adam from the lineup and replacing him with someone on our roster. Plain and simple we will be a weaker team offensively and defensively. So before he is gone I would like to conduct a little history lesson because I believe that Adam is the best Pirate's first baseman since Willie Stargell ended his career there. Hope you all enjoy the post and I'm interested to hear everyone's comments.
AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO AVG OBP SLG OPS
1982 - J. Thompson: 550 87 156 32 0 31 101 101 107 .284 .391 .511 .902
1983 - J. Thompson: 517 70 134 20 1 18 76 99 128 .259 .376 .406 .782
1984 - J. Thompson: 543 61 138 22 0 17 74 87 73 .254 .357 .389 .746
1985 - J. Thompson: 402 42 97 17 1 12 61 84 58 .241 .369 .378 .747
1986 - S. Bream: 522 73 140 37 5 16 77 60 73 .268 .341 .450 .791
1987 - S. Bream: 516 64 142 25 3 13 65 49 69 .275 .336 .411 .747
1988 - S. Bream: 462 50 122 37 0 10 65 47 64 .264 .328 .409 .737
*1989 - S. Bream: 36 3 8 3 0 0 4 12 10 .222 .417 .306 .723
1990 - S. Bream: 389 39 105 23 2 15 67 48 65 .270 .349 .455 .804
1991 - O. Merced: 411 83 113 17 2 10 50 64 81 .275 .373 .399 .772
1992 - O. Merced: 405 50 100 28 5 6 60 52 63 .247 .332 .385 .717
1993 - K. Young: 449 38 106 24 3 6 47 36 82 .236 .300 .343 .643
*1994 - B. Hunter: 233 28 53 15 1 11 47 15 55 .227 .270 .442 .712
*1995 - M. Johnson: 221 32 46 6 1 13 28 37 66 .208 .326 .421 .747
*1996 - J. King: 453 69 30 24 1 17 80 51 74 .287 .357 .457 .814
1997 - K. Young: 333 59 100 18 3 18 74 16 89 .300 .332 .535 .867
1998 - K. Young 592 88 160 40 2 27 108 44 127 .270 .328 .481 .809
1999 - K. Young: 584 103 174 41 6 26 106 75 124 .298 .387 .522 .909
2000 - K. Young: 496 77 128 27 0 20 88 32 96 .258 .311 .433 .744
2001c - K. Young: 449 53 104 33 0 14 65 42 119 .232 .310 .399 .709
2002 - K. Young: 468 60 115 26 1 16 51 50 101 .246 .322 .408 .730
2003 - R. Simon: 307 34 84 14 0 10 51 12 30 .274 .305 .417 .722
*2004 - D. Ward: 293 39 73 17 2 15 57 22 45 .249 .305 .474 .779
2005 - D. Ward: 407 46 106 21 1 12 63 37 60 .260 .318 .405 .723
*2006 - S. Casey: 213 30 63 15 0 3 29 23 22 .296 . 377 .408 .785
2007 - A. Laroche: 563 71 153 42 0 21 88 62 131 .272 .345 .458 .803
2008 - A. Laroche: 492 66 133 32 3 25 85 54 122 .270 .341 .500 .841
2009 - A. Laroche: 230 37 60 21 1 9 32 36 55 .261 .357 .478 .835
*Years in which 1B AB’s were split over two or more players due to platoons, injuries or trades. In each case I chose the player with the most G’s played at 1B with the exception of 1989 when numerous players were rotated in and out of the position over the year so there is no significant split. Bream was the hands down starter so I just left his stats in there.
Below are Adam's numbers in Atlanta.
Atlanta:
2005 - A. Laroche: 451 53 117 28 0 20 78 39 87 .259 .320 .455 .775
2006 - A. Laroche: 492 89 140 38 1 32 90 55 128 .285 .354 .561 .915
Next is a look at the career numbers of the three best offensive 1B over the last 25 years: Kevin Young, Jason Thompson and Adam Laroche.
AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO AVG OBP SLG OPS
Career - Young: 3,897 536 1,007 235 17 144 606 336 882 .258 .324 .438 .762
Career - Thompson:4,802 640 1,253 204 12 208 782 816 862 .261 .366 .438 .804
Career - Laroche: 2,552 361 693 188 6 120 418 273 601 .272 .341 .491 .832
Now let's take a look at how the each performed during their Pirates career. I didn't have access to all the information to accurately state this next section (I got sick of researching stats) so I excluded statistical outliers for Thompson and Young. I eliminated season stats in which the players had less than 250 AB's. In Adam's case I left in 2009 even though he was below 250 AB's because the other players have accumulated a lot more AB's over their careers than Adam has to date. I then took an overall average of each player's OPS during their stay in the Burg. This is not exact for the reasons mentioned but my exclusions/inclusions hurt my argument more than help it. In Thompson's case it did hurt him slightly. In 1981 he had an OPS of .898 in 223 AB's. Had I left 81' in it would have raised his Pitt. career OPS to .815. In Young's case the season's I excluded he had less than 200 AB's in each season and the stats would have pulled down his OPS.
Pirates Career:
OPS
Young: .773 slightly overstated from outlier exclusion
Thompson: .794 slightly understated from outlier exclusion
Laroche: .826 slightly understated from outlier inclusion
As you can see Laroche has a better OPS than both Thompson and Young. The best offensive season for the three players is listed next:
Career Years:
OPS
Young: .909
Thompson: .902
Laroche: .915
Unfortunately Adam's best season came while he was in Atlanta. His best for the Pirates was last year when he had an OPS of .841. However, I have a suspicion that 2009 will be his best year given his nice start in April and his numbers in June to date. Adam has a 1.034 OPS in June and he is just getting going.
So, decide for yourself who is the best Pirates 1B since Willie but given the revolving door at the position over the last 25 years it is amazing how under appreciated Adam Laroche is. It's baffling. The numbers above are simply offensive stats; I didn't even mention defense. Without spending more hrs looking up defensive metrics I'll just say that from my memory alone I don't believe that Thompson or Young were known for their defense at first. I could be wrong. Either way, we will miss Adam when he is gone...believe in that!
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.
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