All data is taken from Sean "CHONE" Smith's excellent Historical Wins Above Replacement (WAR) site. So who are these guys?

The answers are probably not too surprising if you think about it.

All this data is through 2008 -- keep in mind it is just their 10 best seasons.

One of these players is a legend in his own time, at least to his own fanbase and local media... some of whom are fairly prominent.

The players are in different leagues.

The gap on the chart obviously favors one player over the other, but their reputations with most people is probablly the opposite.

Both have had down years in 2009 compared to their expected production, although one has been far better than the other so far this season.

Here's the clincher: one of them has a longstanding reputation as a "clutch" hitter.

Have you guessed it yet?

Here's the answer:

I know it's hard to read, but if you click on it, you'll get a full version. It's obviously David Ortiz and Lance Berkman (just the 10 best seasons for Ortiz). Of you just leave their WAR totals aside (29.1 for Ortiz and 43.2 for Berkman) and were to just look at their peaks and valleys in abstraction, or perhaps in chronological order, you'd think they were about equal. This sort of graph, which compares their 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. best seasons to each other, makes it abundantly clear that Berkman has been a far superior player. He has the best season of the two according to Rally's data, and his second, third, and fourth best seasons are  all better than Ortiz's second best season (which is equal to Berkman's second-best season). Rally's WAR includes just about everything -- baserunning, park, and even league-difficulty adjustments, so the "yeah, but Ortiz is in the tougher league!" issue has already been taken into account.

But maybe Big Papi's just getting shafted for being primarily a DH? Here's another graph (including all the years of their career through 2008, the difference isn't that big) breaking it down by categories:

[Click on the image for a larger version. Note that these are runs above/below average, except for the "replacement" or "playing time" category. Ijsut wanted it all on one graph]

Ortiz has about 400 fewer PAs total through 2008, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't think given 400 more PAs,  he would have been 112 runs above average better. You can also see that despite lesser playing time, he gets 24 more runs due to the difference in league difficulty. Still, Berkman is superior in everything... wait, except fielding! Maybe Papi has been ripped off... Ah, but look at the positional adjustments together with the fielding. it reflects Ortiz being a DH most of his career, and thus not  having as much of an opportunity to be terrible in the field. Berkman's at -21, but that's over 10 seasons, and includes his early years when he played now just the outfield, but plenty of center field as well --955 innings in CF in 2002!

I'd be remiss if I didn't do a chart with Hall-of-Fame lines for Jeff, who asked for them in an earlier installment of this series.

Neither guy looks like he's worthy of the Hall, at least as Jeff worked is out in the article linked above. But, contrary to what I suspect many would believe if asked, Berkman's much closer than Ortiz, who isn't particularly close. Berkman might have a shot if he rolls of some monster years late in his career, but that seems pretty unlikely. Ortiez is coming around this season, but, well...

David Ortiz was a great hitter for a few years on some outstanding teams. Lance Berkman was at least as good a hitter, and a far more valuable player. It's interesting what a numerous fan base, a cool nickname, more talented teammates, and fawning tributes penned by Peter Gammons and the Bill Simmons can do for a player's image, isn't it?

I said "Interesting," not "surprising."