George Foster v. Mike Schmidt

George Foster vs. Mike Schmidt

GEORGE FOSTER WEEKEND. If there was only one card that would be associated with Foster it would be his Topps 1977 card. I loved the fact during this time Topps put the All-Star banner on the card which gave the cards a little something special. The blue coloring and design is just awesome. 1977 was also his MVP year.

Between 1975 and 1981 ( a seven year period), Mike Schmidt was probably considered the best baseball player in the majors. However, if you compare his stats to George Foster during this time, Foster was his equal.

                        Schmidt                         Foster

AB                        3646                        3626

Hits                       977                         1077

BAT                     .267                        .297

TB                        2010                        1968

Slug                      .551                        .542

HR                        259                         221

RBI                      707                          749

Runs                     703                         589

BB                       678                          408

SB                        110                         34

Foster hit 30 points higher than Schmidt and drove in 42 MORE runs. Schmidt has him slugging percentage, homers, runs and Base on Balls. However a closer look realizes when it comes to producing runs Foster topped Schmidt during the seven year period.

Foster had 1117 runs produced (R+RBI-HR) in 4034 plate appearances(AB+W) for a .276 average. Schmidt had 1151 runs produced in 4324 plate appearance  for a .266 average. Thus for every 1000 plate appearances Foster produced 276 runs to Schmidt 266.

Also, Foster’s Reds won 635 times to Schmidt’s Phillies. Foster was also on 2 Champions to Schmidt’s 1. However, Foster never got a whiff of the Hall of Fame or even credit as a great player.