Is Bernie Williams The Most Underrated Centerfielder Of All Time?

As the baseball world lusts after Granderson, it made me do a little research about my favorite recent player, Bernie Williams as a point of comparison.  The point is, there is no comparison!  After Griffey, Bernie is one of the best centerfielders baseball has seen since Willie Mays.  In fact, based on OPS+, Bernie is probably in the top 10 of centerfielders of all time since Ruth changed the game.

Why don’t many know it?  We are a nation attracted to bright, shiny objects, to flash performances.  If you stand out in a certain way, then opinions rather than more facts fill in the rest.  Bernie never hit the most homers, or stole that many bases, and only led the league in hitting one year so he got overshadowed by other stars with flash performances and other teammates like Jeter. For example, in 1998-99, Griffey was averaging 50 or so homers a year so obviously he was the best centerfielder in the American League right?  Not so fast! Bernie had a slightly higher OPS+ (on base percentage plus slugging, league-performance adjusted).  Right, Bernie.  Why did he outperform Griffey?  Bernie’s OBP was way over 400 (60 points higher than Griffey’s) while hitting 25-30 homers.  No question, Griffey’s career is better, but Bernie is closer than you’d think and no centerfielder today matches up to either of them.

I like OPS+, because it is a meaningful statistic that balances success (getting on base) with power.  It gives us a rational metric that gets us past the flash performance, the bright, shiny object.  Overall for his career, Bernie’s OPS+ was 125 and averaged around 142 during his amazing run from 1995 through 2002 (higher than Griffey’s for the same years).  If we look at this run (fair to do, as all Koufax had was a 5-6 year run), we see really unparalleled performance.  His median BA was around 320, OBP a little over 400, 26 homers, 102 RBIs, 105 runs and oh by the way, he won 4 gold gloves and the Yankees won the world series 4 times.

How does Bernie’s OPS+ compare to other superstars in center?  Edmonds—well, he definitely gives Bernie a run at an OPS+ over 130.  Makes me wish I had seen him play more. After Edmonds, not much comparison. Andrew Jones? Only a 110. Torii Hunter, big free agent signing: 107. Beltran?  Better at 119, but still not in Bernie territory. Sizemore?  Getting closer at 124, although he is in his peak years so we will have to see how his career unfolds. Granderson? OPS+ of 113.

Watching Bernie was such a treat.  I especially loved how he would “bank the track” as he ran the bases (he was an Olympic-level track star for Puerto Rico).  I remember how he matched Gonzalez homer for homer and clutch hit for clutch hit in the 1996 playoffs.

Will Bernie get into the Hall? He should but probably won't.  But Bernie was really something special.