Every once in a while it is fun to play the separated at birth game. You take two similar players and compare them according to the numbers. What’s always interesting is that the reputations for the players involved rarely ever match up to the numbers. This time, I’ll tell you who the players are up front, but we will disguise the numbers to make it harder to tell the difference between the two.

Manny Machado and Nolan Arenado are both highly thought of third basemen. Machado was taken with the number three overall pick in the same draft that saw Bryce Harper taken number one overall. He’s arguably done more than Harper, but you’d be hard pressed to say he has done more than Arenado. Arenado was taken in the second round of the 2009 draft. Baseball-reference.com had Arenado as 30 runs above average as a fielder. Machado was 35 runs above average.

One of the things we’ve discussed in the past are the effects of superlative fielding on a player’s fantasy reputation. Fielding has nothing to do with fantasy, but our overall opinion of a player can affect where a player is drafted. Both players are transcendent fielders at their position.  It is easy to see why fantasy players would overestimate their abilities on the offensive end. Unfortunately, they are two entirely different things. In order to make it interesting, we will look at their standard fantasy numbers on a per 600 plate appearance basis.

I wouldn’t exactly say they were separated at birth, but they are definitely in the same family. Fantasy owners have to consider a lot of things when looking at numbers like this. First, just because these numbers are similar now doesn’t necessarily mean they will continue to be the same. Many claim that Machado has a higher ceiling than Arenado, but then you also have to consider the fact that Arenado plays half of his games at Coors Field.

It’s impossible to parcel it out from here without taking a look at the plate discipline numbers. Those will probably give us a better idea of where these two players are going. There are two kinds of statistics to consider: there are performance statistics and process statistics. The performance statistics include the strikeout and walk rates while the process statistics include the Oswing (swings at balls outside the zone) and contact rates.

So, we see that nothing is ever clear when looking at numbers. On the one hand, Player A has a lower strikeout rate and a higher contact rate than Player B, but Player A has an extremely high rate of swinging at pitches outside the zone. It’s hard to imagine a player like this experiencing success long-term, but some players have managed to make a career of it. Vladimir Guerrero was a famous free swinger and he enjoyed a very good career.

Of course, this isn’t to say that Player B has overwhelming good numbers either. His swing rate on balls outside the zone is below average and both players have underwhelming walk rates. In point of fact, that limits the effectiveness of both players. This is where that fielding prowess rears its ugly head. Overall, both players are among the most valuable at the position, but when you distill the effects of their fielding, they are average or below average.

The first question on everyone’s mind is the identities of Player A and Player B. Based on the numbers we have seen so far, it probably doesn’t make much of a difference. The only major difference we have seen are the swing rates on balls outside the zone. Otherwise, these two players are almost identical on each step. Funny, but I’m sure that these two guys didn’t wind up next to each other on draft day. Manny Machado opened up as the 93^rd ranked player in Yahoo while Nolan Arenado was the 141^st ranked player.

So, in a standard 12 player draft, Machado was selected in the eighth round while Arenado was selected in the 12^th round. Does it look like there is four rounds of difference between these two guys? For those of you dying to know, Player A is Nolan Arenado and Player B is Manny Machado. Yet, when we look at how similar these numbers are, does it really matter?