Baseball's Complete Players : Ratings of Total-season Performance for the Greatest Players of the 20th Century

In 1980 George Brett batted .390 on his way to the American League's most Valuable Player Award.

In the same season, Mike Schmidt clouted 48 home runs and hit a respectable .286, garnering the National League's MVP.

But while Schmidt's season is remembered as just one good year out of many, Brett's accomplishment is considered a post-World War benchmark.

So who really had the better year? According to Michael Hoban's calculations, using what he calls the Hoban Effectiveness Quotient (HEQ), the answer is Schmidt - and it's not close.

The HEQ is baseball's first objective total-season statistic.

Unlike percentage-based measures, which represent nothing more than proportions (batting average, for instance, indicates the proportion of hits relative to outs), the HEQ gauges a player's actual productivity for a given completed season, factoring playing time into its formula. The manual ranks players and Hall of Famers by offensive production, defensive reliability and overall score (HEQ-offense + HEQ-defense); redefines "Hall of Fame" numbers; compares the pre-1950 trends to those of the era afterward; considers the seasonal merits of MVP and Gold Glove Award recipients; and sizes up the Hall of Fame candidates.