Did Ellis Valentine have a better throwing arm than Joel Youngblood?

[roger_that]

I hold no strong opinion either way--saw them both a time or two, probably saw them make a throw or two, but I wasn't keeping track of such things, and never had much of a method for making invidious comparisons.



A guy named Michael Burch just posted on Quora an extensive article that mentions, in passing, the two of them, and compares 100 or so other outfielders with some observations and quotes that I haven't read before. https://www.quora.com/Who-had-the-best-outfield-arm-of-all-timehttps://www.quora.com/Who-had-the-best-outfield-arm-of-all-time Pretty well written, pretty thorough. Worth reading.

[roger_that]

Apparently, you need to scroll down a bit before coming across Burch's extensive article. It's worth the effort.





He discusses quite a few Mets in addition to Youngblood and Valentine. Ashburn, Dykstra, and Brian McRae are all mentioned (as having exceptionally poor throwing arms) and on the plus side he cites (and sometimes analyzes, or tries to) Staub's, Duke Snider's, Alex Ochoa's, Carlos Gomez', Marte's, Jeff Francoeur's, Bonilla's, Bob Bailor's, and probably a Met or two I've overlooked.



The most interesting part of this article, to me, is the absence of any systematic way of looking at outfielders' throwing arms. How do you measure sheer strength, distance, consistency, accuracy, quick release, and then balance all these factors once you've found accurate ways to evaluate all of them? This is one area that doesn't seem to yield to statistical analysis. Yet.



A lot of it is, in other words, anecdotal.

[Edgy MD]

The methodology was driving me crazy. He would eventually make corrections for stuff like career length but only after going on and on and on about total assists without correcting. He acknowledged that earlier baseball figures would have more assists, but rather than find a sophisticated way to adjust for the different approaches of the era, he just picked an arbitrary date and tossed out all data before that.



Some of the best outfield arms don't belong to assist leaders, but to guys who runners were frequently afraid to challenge. He acknowledged that there is data on extra bases taken and not taken, but since it doesn't go back forever, he didn't really work with it.



That said, I largely agree with the Jesse Barfield conclusion. What Dave Parker was for one beautiful day in 1979, Barfield was for about seven years during the reign of Davey Johnson's Mets



On the question of Youngblood versus Valentine, Ellis probably had the National League's best arm when he was with the Expos, and it was still impressive with the Mets, but the discipline and mechanical excellence had gone out of his game by then, while Youngblood was a terrific all-round athlete who happened to play baseball. I would say that Valentine could still put more distance on a throw, but Youngblood was more likely to be on the mark and get his man.

[roger_that]

Yeah, basically a kitchen-sink methodology.



But sometimes there's an interesting mess in the kitchen sink. In 1981, a strike-shortened season, the Mets used three of the greatest throwing arms (according to Burch) in Right Field, Youngblood, Valentine, and Bailor.

[Edgy MD]

Here is an Ellis highlight reel, the real gem of which is him somehow throwing out Dave Concepción attempting to score from second on ground ball hit down the line all the way to the fence. You see where he fields the ball and you would likely conclude that Concepción should have been able to score running backwards.



But nope.



[media=youtube]CQwfvNtAFyk[/media]

[batmagadanleadoff]

There was a famous or legendary "throwing-arm" contest at the work-out sessions for the 1977 All-Star game held at the then new Yankee Stadium between the three outfielders that were thought to have the best throwing arms of the day: Dave Winfield, Dave Parker and Ellis Valentine. Witnesses said that Valentine won the contest without doubt and wowed everybody.

[Edgy MD]

Was that supposed to have been some sort of semi-official thing or just something the National Leaguers cooked up during their workout?

[batmagadanleadoff]

Edgy MD wrote: Was that supposed to have been some sort of semi-official thing or just something the National Leaguers cooked up during their workout?

Nothing "official" about that contest. More like an ad hoc or spontaneous playground sort of thing.

[Frayed Knot]

I remember reading an article about outfield arms (I believe it was part of the S.I. baseball preview issue).

And somewhere in it it talked about how there's good, there's great, and then there's Ellis Valentine.

[MFS62]

The ne plus ultra of throwing arms to me was Roberto Clemente.

I would have loved to have seen a throwing contest between Roberto and Ellis.

Later

[Edgy MD]

It is interesting that a lot of the usual suspects — including Valentine, Clemente, Parker, Winfield, and Dwight Evans — are righthanded-throwing rightfielders. The advantage is generally considered to go to lefties out there, but the real advantage, of course, goes to the guy with a massive arm.



Dwight Evans needs a better publicist, by the way. He and Dave Winfield had very similar careers in pretty much the same era. Winnie went into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot and Dewey never got more than 10%.