May not be who first comes to mind. Rally has a good breakdown of the comparison in these comments:
I'll look at Morneau's good years, 2006-2009, and compare to Koskie's best years, 2000-2003.
WAR: CK 16.7 [runs], JM, 14.4 [runs]
Batting: CK 52 [runs], JM 116 [runs] - Big difference here, and batting numbers are going to agree, show the same story if you use baseruns, OPS+, RC, or any of the good numbers. No dispute that Morneau is the much better hitter.
Baserunning: CK average (includes reach on error and avoiding DP), JM -9 [runs]
Koskie was a better baserunner but it's not a big dealDefense (includes turning DP): JM -7 [runs], CK +33 [runs]
This is where Koskie starts to make up ground. You might disagree with this. Perhaps UZR or +/-, more detailed defensive metrics, disagree but I haven't checked. What my numbers say is that Morneau is about an average defender at first and Koskie was an above average defender at 3rd.
Finally, position adjustment Koskie +8 [runs], Morneau -41 [runs]. This is where Koskie pulls ahead.
I don't like to talk much about who or what gets overrated, but Morneau has a lot of things going for him which make it easy to see why his perceived value might be greater than his actual value. His greatest skill--hitting for power--is both obvious and flashy. His first-half OPS is better than his second-half OPS by about 100 points. And by being a great first-half hitter, he has good counting stats below his name on television broadcasts for the large part of the season. First impressions matter, and he essentially makes a good first impression each year and then peters out. He plays a position that the media loves to promote. Every year it seems that there are roughly 10 first basemen on each All-Star team and half of the MVP candidates are first basemen, despite the fact that the vast majority of these guys couldn't possibly play any other position on the field because they don't have that much defensive value.
That 2006 MVP win seems to have really gotten Morneau off the hook for any sort of criticism in the local media. He was supposed to have tons of power, but over the last four years, he's only hit maybe 4-5 more home runs per year than Hunter did in most of his healthy years. He has routinely faded in the second half of the season and at least so far, no one has really raised doubts about how his injury may affect his performance going forward, even though back injuries seem to become chronic more often than not.
Anyway, I think Morneau has been a very good player, but I tend to agree that Koskie was better, at least during the arbitrary period of 2000 to 2009.
I, on the other hand, have no problem talking about how Justin Morneau and all the other gazillion first basemen he is just like are overrated.
I thought it might be Crain.
So if you look at the years 1999-2004, when Koskie and Torii Hunter played together, who was more valuable?
It basically depends on how their defense rates out. Koskie was a much better hitter (116 OPS+ to 99 OPS+) and they were pretty much equal base stealers. Koskie was also much more consistent offensively, never below .815 OPS for a season. Hunter's best season (2002) was as good as Koskie's best, but his first two seasons were pretty bad (73 and 80 OPS+). Torii was a great defender at a top defensive position and Koskie was a very good defender at a less important defensive position. I'm sure some could argue that Torii was the best at his position during that time, which was before the ankle injury. That might make up the differences in the hitting. I'd give Koskie the edge for his consistency and the peanut butter in Big Papi's underwear.
Going by Rally's historical player list, Koskie accumulated 21.4 wins while Hunter had 11.2. They both have the same positional adjustment, but giving Hunter a bonus for playing CF isn't going to reduce the difference much.
The HOF case for Edgar Martinez rates favorably on that page, I see. Huzzah!
For a long time I've felt like Koskie was the unheralded MVP of the team during his tenure. It's nice to have some confirmation.
The next question is who is the Most Valuable Commonwealth Player of the Decade (non-Canadian edition). Grant Balfour? Ryan Rowland-Smith? Glenn Williams?
Glenn Williams has never played in a game in which he doesn't have a hit. That has to count for something, right?
Does he have the record for that, btw? Most career games without a no-hit game?
It's the most consecutive games with a hit to start a career. He just happened to end his career before he went no-hit. The old record was Rocco Baldelli.