Talk:Fred Dunlap

Bill James' statement
The last sentence of first paragraph quotes and sites as source for that quote Bill James, baseball writer, historian, statistican from his "New Historical Baseball Abstract,"though he was never a star player in a full major league, Dunlap was still considered a good second baseman." The 2001 edition of James' book states, "Never a ligitimate star in a legitimate major league, but a good second baseman and a .275 hitter." I don't question Mr. James' opinion, he is certainly entitled to it more than most, but this quote, even if it is an accurate quote from another edition of the "Historical Abstract," is misleading.  The reader would understandably think that the author of the article, as well as Mr. James, is describing the leagues for whom Dunlap played as being less than legitimate major leagues.  Dunlap played one year for a league not considered "major" league level in 1884, the Union Association and he had his "best" season statistically that year, at least in terms of hitting. This is what James was trying to convey, that Dunlap's career best season was with a substandard, less than "major" league. But for the remaining 11 seasons of his career, he played in the National League, without serious question a major league in the 1880's and 90's.   Also, James' opinion that Dunlap was a "good second baseman" is based upon his proprietary (or at least he invented it) system of statistical analysis of baseball players designed to enable ranking of player's abilities across all eras of baseball regardless of various changes in rules and styles of play. In his system, Mr. James ranked Dunlap as 89th out of the top 100 who have played the position at the major league level, not high on Mr. James' list, but still 89th out of thousands who played the position over 130 years. It should be understood that, while Mr. James is correct within the self-created parameters of his own system of statiscal analysis of baseball, it is not universally accepted (although I do accept it myself), and that there are opinions, for which sources can be cited, that differ wildly from those of Mr. James. Cap Anson in a series of interviews given to newspaper reporters after his retirement in 1897, referred to Dunlap as being nearly equal to Fred Pfeffer, another second baseman who was a teammate and a player under his management at Chicago in the 1880's who Anson felt was one of the two or three best at that position he had ever seen, the other two being Ross Barnes with Boston and Chicago, NL, in the 1870s and early 1880s, and Fred Dunlap, also in the NL of the 1880s. I will make both of the necessary edits when I have completed source verification, and I will follow up with another post on this talk page to summarize the edits. GIMBELZ (talk) 21:04, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Only player to hit .400 in a season with a career batting average below .300
It seems notable that this is the case. Should be noted somewhere in the article. 50.221.227.89 (talk) 01:26, 30 May 2024 (UTC)