Pete Rose vs. Tony Perez

[nerfan]

Assume they played their entire career on your team. Which would you pick, Pete Rose or Tony Perez?

I would pick Pete Rose because he played a longer overall career and was probably a model of consistency that Hank Aaron could look up to. (though not a model of overall baseball...). If I had a 20-season career of the 1970 version of Tony Perez, I would definitely pick him. But Rose performed with a better on-base percentage for a longer period of time and I would pick him.

[538280]

Rose. Perez was a slightly better hitter than Rose, but only very slight, and Rose has the versatality to play whereever we need at an okay level. I tend to think Perez is underrated though. I think he's legit HOF.

[milladrive]

This is a no-brainer for me. A Rose is a Rose is a Rose. :)

[brett]

Rose. Perez was a slightly better hitter than Rose, but only very slight, and Rose has the versatality to play whereever we need at an okay level. I tend to think Perez is underrated though. I think he's legit HOF.

If Perez had only been a first baseman, I would say that he was in no way legit. You put him in and you make a decent case for Mattingly and Clark who I think are a) not legit, and b) borderline.

Perez had just 4 140 OPS+ seasons. It is a little strange that he stayed at third through '71 which was actually his first real solid defensive year there, and then moved him.

Anyway, for a straight up Vanilla first baseman, I'm looking for an OPS+ of around 140+ for 8000+ plate appearances.

[hellborn]

I'm not the biggest Rose fan in general, but you've got a guy who's going to bang out 200 hits a year, give 100% at whatever position he is sent to, take no quarter on the basepaths, generally attempt to terrorize any opposing players he sees as being weak (like Tom House), and bang out some 2Bs and take some walks...well, that's pretty hard to replace.
There have been a lot of good players like Perez, but not too many like Rose. Not to say that having Perez wouldn't be a fine start for a team in itself...

[538280]

If Perez had only been a first baseman, I would say that he was in no way legit. You put him in and you make a decent case for Mattingly and Clark who I think are a) not legit, and b) borderline.

Perez had just 4 140 OPS+ seasons. It is a little strange that he stayed at third through '71 which was actually his first real solid defensive year there, and then moved him.

Anyway, for a straight up Vanilla first baseman, I'm looking for an OPS+ of around 140+ for 8000+ plate appearances.

Perez stands up pretty well as a 1Bman for career value though, not many have his longevity. I think among primary 1Bman he's right with Murray and Anson for games played for primary 1Bmen. By WS he's 9th in career for 1Bmen. He also has some pretty valuable peak seasons when you consider he was playing 3B for a lot of time. The 122 OPS+ also makes him look a lot less impressive than he should look IMO because he hung around a long time as an only average (but still average still has value so it goes to his credit) player. The comparison you see with Gil Hodes IMO doesn't make any sense. Not only did Perez play about 700 more games than Hodges, but he was JUST as good a hitter through that time (122 OPS+ to 120 for Hodges). Through Hodges' career length he was a better hitter (133 to 120), AND he has MUCH better peak seasons and he played 3B for a good part of his career. Perez is ostensibly superior to Hodges.

[KCGHOST]

Hmm, Rose has a WARP3 of 160+ and Perez doesn't even reach 110. Shouldn't be too much thinking going on here.