Travis Hafner Is A Mediocre Baseball Player

He's so average he has never played on an all star team, or won a major award (even a silver slugger!). The Galdstoner and I have spent some time looking into his stats, so I present a comparison of Hafner to several other perennial MVP candidates over the last three years. (all from baseball prospectus).

EqA 2004; 2005; 2006
Hafner: .326; .332; .349
Manny: .316; .318; .342
Ortiz: .309; .324; .325
Arod: .300; .338; .293
Guerrero .323; .323; .309
Pujols: .342; .344; .349
Bonds .456; .340; .334

EqA is a rate stat, so to include # of PA's, we'll look at BRAA:

BRAA (Batting Runs Above Average)
Hafner: 45; 50; 59 => 154
Manny: 44; 45; 51 => 140
Ortiz: 39; 54; 45 => 138
Arod: 32; 67; 22 => 121
Guerrero 51; 45; 34 => 130
Pujols: 69; 70; 57 => 196
Bonds: 128; 5; 34 => 167

The only one there who has been consistently better is Pujols. But he is in the other league, so they are in competition for nothing other than endorsement deals. So, here are ESPN's listings of his AL ranks this year:

Ranks 2nd in AL in HR (42)	Ranks 2nd in AL in RBI (117)
Ranks 3rd in AL in R (100)	Ranks 2nd in AL in BB (100)
Ranks 2nd in AL in OBP (.439)	Ranks 1st in AL in SLG (.659)
Ranks 1st in AL in OPS (1.097)

Ya, he is clearly not one of the two or three best DH/1B's so as to make the AS team. Or get some sort of award. Maybe they should have the non-Sox or Yankees set of awards. Though, that would undermine the Sox/Yanks centrism that the Galdstoner and I are fighting so hard to perpetuate.