There have been few advancements in baseball in the last few years more significant than the emergence of a website called baseball-reference.com. In fact, I have heard more than one writer say that whoever started this site belongs in the Hall of Fame next to the writers and broadcasters and other non-players who have advanced the cause of the game.

I couldn’t agree more.

Baseball-reference.com is the most useful, coolest, most important website I know of for baseball. I couldn’t write this blog without it.

Stats-head live and breath it. Just Google any players name, then the words baseball-reference, and you are in for a treasure trove of data that would floor even Steven Hawking.

It is that cool.

I get my mind blown on a daily basis.

Yesterday, it happened again.

One of the best things they do is give you a player’s stats based on a 162-game average. In other words, if he played every game in a season, based on his performance per game, how would he do?

That is, in my opinion, the fairest way to compare the performance of two players side-by-side.

So, imagine my surprise when I was poking around yesterday and I found this.

Below are the 162-game averages for two players. One is a Ranger. The other is not. The Ranger is one of the least favorite players on the team. The other guy, is one of the heralded young players in the game right now.

I was floored when I realized there isn’t much difference in their stats. But there is a world of difference in their perception.

Can you identify these two players?