One of best discoveries of Bill James, father of sabermetrics, was the concept of “old player skills”. It was, ironically, more of a scouting insight than a statistical one (though he found support for the concept in the numbers), and like many of Bill’s best insights, it is a concept that is completely understandable without any reference to numbers at all.
To explain “old player skills” think of former Brewer first baseman Prince Fielder. The hefty slugger could drive a baseball like few others, but his size and general lack of athleticism limited him to first base only.