“In 1998, after watching McGwire hit two home runs in a double-header at Shea, my friend Eric and I were chilling on his back porch discussing McGwire’s awesomeness.

We agreed that he was the best hitter imaginable, but I argued that his talents were mitigated at least a bit by the fact that he couldn’t even capably defend first base, at least not to the eye.

From there, we speculated on how a team would fare if you could somehow clone Mark McGwire and field an entire team of Mark McGwires. Would nine Mark McGwires score enough runs on offense to compensate for their awful defense and pitching?

It’s an interesting question, but one that can’t be answered.”

Howdy, Tedheads. I’m Patrick “Ted” Flood. I’m temporarily commandeering TedQuarters for this guest post in an attempt to answer the above question.

As a personal aside, I remember my father taking me to the double-header Ted Berg was talking about there. McGwire hit his 50th home run of the season in the day game, his 51st home run in the nightcap. I still have the scorecard — Met greats Hideo Nomo and Masato Yoshii are on the cover . . .

Anyway, I disagree with Ted’s assertion that the McGwire question cannot be answered. Not only do I think we can come up with an answer for how a team of twenty-five Mark McGwires would fare — maybe not a perfect answer, but a decent estimate — but I also believe that we must come up with an answer. I believe it to be the essential question of our time.

So with this guest post to TedQuarters — you’ll need to click through to read so I don’t suck up the entire frontpage — I’m going to try to come up with that answer. About how many games would a team of cloned Mark McGwires (in 1998) win? Continue reading →