So most of us think Lofton is pretty good. He played 17 seasons and had a 107 OPS+ over a ton of plate appearances.
But those number sell short just how good Lofton was.
Let's start with defense. Lofton put up 11.5 dWAR over his career. Over 1992-1999, he had 11.3 dWAR alone. Here are the most fielding runs in baseball over that period:
Rk | Player | Sean Smith of BaseballProjection.com">Rfield | Age | Pos | Tm |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Robin Ventura | 119 | 24-31 | *5/36D | CHW-NYM |
2 | Ivan Rodriguez | 114 | 20-27 | *2/D | TEX |
3 | Kenny Lofton | 109 | 25-32 | *8/D | CLE-ATL |
4 | Brian Jordan | 100 | 25-32 | *98/7D35 | STL-ATL |
5 | Andruw Jones | 99 | 19-22 | *89/7 | ATL |
6 | Sammy Sosa | 98 | 23-30 | *98 | CHC |
7 | Luis Gonzalez | 92 | 24-31 | *7/D83 | HOU-TOT-CHC-DET-ARI |
8 | John Valentin | 80 | 25-32 | *65/4D | BOS |
9 | Mark Lemke | 71 | 26-32 | *4/5 | ATL-BOS |
10 | Royce Clayton | 69 | 22-29 | *6/5 | SFG-STL-TOT-TEX |
Lofton was simply one of the best defenders to ever play.
With his defensive contributions, Lofton's career WAR was 65.3, which is 80th among position players.
Here are all the players since 1901 to average at least 0.16 runs scored per plate appearance, minimum 8000 PAs:
Rk | PA | R | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Jeff Bagwell | 9431 | 1517 |
2 | Barry Bonds | 12606 | 2227 |
3 | Ty Cobb | 13068 | 2246 |
4 | Kiki Cuyler | 8098 | 1305 |
5 | Jimmie Foxx | 9670 | 1751 |
6 | Lou Gehrig | 9660 | 1888 |
7 | Charlie Gehringer | 10237 | 1774 |
8 | Rickey Henderson | 13346 | 2295 |
9 | Rogers Hornsby | 9475 | 1579 |
10 | Kenny Lofton | 9234 | 1528 |
11 | Mickey Mantle | 9909 | 1676 |
12 | Willie Mays | 12493 | 2062 |
13 | Mel Ott | 11337 | 1859 |
14 | Alex Rodriguez | 10634 | 1824 |
15 | Babe Ruth | 10617 | 2174 |
16 | Larry Walker | 8030 | 1355 |
17 | Ted Williams | 9791 | 1798 |
Pretty fine group, huh? Granted, Lofton benefits from playing during a high-offense era, but notice that there are just a few contemporaries of his.
The card is 1992 Pinnacle #582. It's quite striking since it's almost all black, but it's a nice card. It's got an action photo on the front and a nice posed shot on the back. It's short on decent stats, though...
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