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9/26-9/28 Red Sox vs. Yankees Series Thread
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Sept 30, 2014 11:51:43 GMT -5
If Jeter was on any other team besides the Yankees he would be Alan Trammell - i.e. a very good shortstop but not a lock for the HOF. He also probably would've been on 3-4 different teams. Nothing in the world can convince me otherwise of this. He has almost 3500 career hits. He's a first-ballot guy anywhere, anytime.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 30, 2014 12:29:50 GMT -5
I know it's fashionable to knock Jeter, and he has been a mediocre SS for many years, but this guy is a hands down first ballot HOFer. I'd expect he'd get 99% of the vote and only lose out on the look at me sportswriters' vote. 3500 hits, .309 BA. Strong offensive performance for a middle infielder for about 17 years running. Alan Trammell was a really good player, certainly worthy of HOF consideration, but he's no Jeter.
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Post by pedroelgrande on Sept 30, 2014 12:39:05 GMT -5
I've stayed out of this but to suggest Jeter is not a no doubt 1st-ballot HOF is too much. We can look at alternative worlds all you want but the fact remains that he played for the Yankees, played in the post season every year basically. You can talk about what about if he played for the Royals but it didn't happen so I think its moot.
If you want to tell me that he is a bad SS, I'd agree, or that the press over blows his "greatness" I would agree too. But let's not fall into their same trap and take things radically the other way around.
Anyways Pedro is going to the HOF this year. Lets stop the Jeter talk.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 30, 2014 13:35:29 GMT -5
He is no Papi with a career 148 wRC+ vs. career 138 regular season. Wait, I thought playoff performance didn't matter? It's really not that big of a difference for anyone.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Sept 30, 2014 14:07:05 GMT -5
I've stayed out of this but to suggest Jeter is not a no doubt 1st-ballot HOF is too much. We can look at alternative worlds all you want but the fact remains that he played for the Yankees, played in the post season every year basically. You can talk about what about if he played for the Royals but it didn't happen so I think its moot. If you want to tell me that he is a bad SS, I'd agree, or that the press over blows his "greatness" I would agree too. But let's not fall into their same trap and take things radically the other way around. Anyways Pedro is going to the HOF this year. Lets stop the Jeter talk. I agree. His case is not dissimilar to Fisk's and the length of time that guy played. Jeter was so durable, and his discipline so good, that he was on base all the time, just about every year. And he had enough pop that there were a few years where he was one of the most valuable hitters in the game. All that adds up to a strong case. The championships are part of the intangibles that will play a role in his election, and the playoff record cinches it. He was a bad fielder in the latter part of his career, and the last few he's put the gopher population at risk in any park where he's showed up. He was still a helluva player in his prime. The way the press had him doing no wrong even as he cost the Yankees wins is as much on them as it is on him. That he sulked when they wouldn't extend his contract for what he wanted, even though he was no longer worth it, does cast him in a negative light. But it doesn't change what he was in his prime and how long he was able to bring value at the plate. I just means we need saints even when they're no where in sight.
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Post by soxfan1615 on Sept 30, 2014 14:42:57 GMT -5
I've stayed out of this but to suggest Jeter is not a no doubt 1st-ballot HOF is too much. We can look at alternative worlds all you want but the fact remains that he played for the Yankees, played in the post season every year basically. You can talk about what about if he played for the Royals but it didn't happen so I think its moot. If you want to tell me that he is a bad SS, I'd agree, or that the press over blows his "greatness" I would agree too. But let's not fall into their same trap and take things radically the other way around. Anyways Pedro is going to the HOF this year. Lets stop the Jeter talk. I agree. His case is not dissimilar to Fisk's and the length of time that guy played. Jeter was so durable, and his discipline so good, that he was on base all the time, just about every year. And he had enough pop that there were a few years where he was one of the most valuable hitters in the game. All that adds up to a strong case. The championships are part of the intangibles that will play a role in his election, and the playoff record cinches it. He was a bad fielder in the latter part of his career, and the last few he's put the gopher population at risk in any park where he's showed up. He was still a helluva player in his prime. The way the press had him doing no wrong even as he cost the Yankees wins is as much on them as it is on him. That he sulked when they wouldn't extend his contract for what he wanted, even though he was no longer worth it, does cast him in a negative light. But it doesn't change what he was in his prime and how long he was able to bring value at the plate. I just means we need saints even when they're no where in sight. He was a bad fielder his entire career and the intangibles argument is bullshit.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Sept 30, 2014 17:32:11 GMT -5
Eh, he was average-ish defensively for a lot of his prime. Never had good range, but he was reliable on the ones he got to. The thinking that he's "bad" is probably hindsight reacting to how he was overrated as a "good" fielder.
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Post by tonyc on Oct 1, 2014 11:06:02 GMT -5
Great article on Jeter vs. Wagner by Goldman. I was well aware that the slider had not been used until after WW2 and of the other factors favoring Jeter: greater and more diverse population to draw from, greater athleticism, velocity, bullpen use and size today. Wasn't so keenly aware of the nutritional differential, but given the smoking, boozing habits of oldtimers, it's not surprising. He does admit Wagner was more dominant on both sides of the ball vs. his contemporaries, but that was a prime point which was underemphasized: While Jeter was something of an average defensive player, Wagner, by reputation, was another Ozzie Smith- who pretty much made HOF on defense alone. In fact, most people don't know that before he was signed, Honus played EVERY position. He was also one of the all-time basestealers. Also, granted it was a presabermetric era, but some early historians felt he was the best all around player ever (I know, I favor Ruth clearly too, and he would have made the HOF as a pitcher). So he makes good points, but I don't know if Jeter would really beat him by a mile, as stated, if Wagner played today (and don't forget he emphasized the nutritional deficiency of Honus' competition, but today Wagner would benefit greatly from the training and nutrition himself).
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 1, 2014 11:13:05 GMT -5
It's a ridiculous article. You cannot compare time periods like that. The argument that says Jeter is better than Wagner probably applies to just about every player playing today. You can only compare players to their peers in the same time periods.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Oct 1, 2014 11:27:21 GMT -5
To me (and then I'm leaving this behind), Jeter's similar to Carl Yaztremski in position in the game ... great players in their primes made better historically by counting numbers because of longevity, lionized by their fan base, but really not in the conversation of the greatest in the game or in the inner circle for their positions. I mean, that's good! No-doubt Hall of Famers ... but it is what it is. No one talks about Yaz as one of the all time greats.
I mean, the details are all different (Yaztremski probably had a higher peak - and 1967 was ridiculous - but Jeter was near the top for longer, Jeter didn't have the power but played SS, etc, etc), but in overall positioning, they seem roughly comparable to me.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 1, 2014 11:51:49 GMT -5
Great article on Jeter vs. Wagner by Goldman. I was well aware that the slider had not been used until after WW2 and of the other factors favoring Jeter: greater and more diverse population to draw from, greater athleticism, velocity, bullpen use and size today. Wasn't so keenly aware of the nutritional differential, but given the smoking, boozing habits of oldtimers, it's not surprising. He does admit Wagner was more dominant on both sides of the ball vs. his contemporaries, but that was a prime point which was underemphasized: While Jeter was something of an average defensive player, Wagner, by reputation, was another Ozzie Smith- who pretty much made HOF on defense alone. In fact, most people don't know that before he was signed, Honus played EVERY position. He was also one of the all-time basestealers. Also, granted it was a presabermetric era, but some early historians felt he was the best all around player ever (I know, I favor Ruth clearly too, and he would have made the HOF as a pitcher). So he makes good points, but I don't know if Jeter would really beat him by a mile, as stated, if Wagner played today (and don't forget he emphasized the nutritional deficiency of Honus' competition, but today Wagner would benefit greatly from the training and nutrition himself). The whole point of the article is that comparing players to their contemporaries across era isn't a valid way to evaluate them. It's like saying that a guy playing D-2 college ball and hitting 150% better than the average player there is a better hitter than a guy in D-1 who's hitting 115% better than average. The fact that Jeter didn't outperform his league by as great a margin as Wagner is actually a point in Jeter's favor, because it shows he played in a far more competitive league. And as far as the "If Wagner played today" arguments, two things. First, one of the things that allowed Wagner to crush his competition was the he was one of the first players who behaved anything like we expect a professional athlete to today. For instance, he did offseason workouts which almost no one else did at the time. Also, he wasn't a chain-smoking alcoholic, which also separated him from a great number of his peers. If Wagner played today, his training and condition would be far less of a factor because everyone does those things today. Secondly, and this is the more important argument, Wagner didn't play today's game. What he might have been isn't relevant to what he was. It's basically as ridiculous as saying that Frank Thomas shouldn't be in the HOF because he wouldn't have been allowed to play if he'd been born in Wagner's day. It's like people who want to put asterisks on Bond's records because of steroids, or the people who actually did put an asterisk on Maris's record because he played more games in a season than Ruth did. You can't re-write history. The events of the past would have been different if conditions had been different at the time, but they weren't. We can only evaluate the things that actually happened, not the ones we imagine might have.
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Post by tonyc on Oct 1, 2014 11:59:41 GMT -5
Brian,
I think that's a good way to look at them too, although, as you mentioned the SS factor would play big, since there are so few of them who had great long term hitting stats, largely because of the way they were used for most of baseball history until the last few decades.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 1, 2014 12:28:56 GMT -5
Great article on Jeter vs. Wagner by Goldman. I was well aware that the slider had not been used until after WW2 and of the other factors favoring Jeter: greater and more diverse population to draw from, greater athleticism, velocity, bullpen use and size today. Wasn't so keenly aware of the nutritional differential, but given the smoking, boozing habits of oldtimers, it's not surprising. He does admit Wagner was more dominant on both sides of the ball vs. his contemporaries, but that was a prime point which was underemphasized: While Jeter was something of an average defensive player, Wagner, by reputation, was another Ozzie Smith- who pretty much made HOF on defense alone. In fact, most people don't know that before he was signed, Honus played EVERY position. He was also one of the all-time basestealers. Also, granted it was a presabermetric era, but some early historians felt he was the best all around player ever (I know, I favor Ruth clearly too, and he would have made the HOF as a pitcher). So he makes good points, but I don't know if Jeter would really beat him by a mile, as stated, if Wagner played today (and don't forget he emphasized the nutritional deficiency of Honus' competition, but today Wagner would benefit greatly from the training and nutrition himself). The whole point of the article is that comparing players to their contemporaries across era isn't a valid way to evaluate them. It's like saying that a guy playing D-2 college ball and hitting 150% better than the average player there is a better hitter than a guy in D-1 who's hitting 115% better than average. The fact that Jeter didn't outperform his league by as great a margin as Wagner is actually a point in Jeter's favor, because it shows he played in a far more competitive league. And as far as the "If Wagner played today" arguments, two things. First, one of the things that allowed Wagner to crush his competition was the he was one of the first players who behaved anything like we expect a professional athlete to today. For instance, he did offseason workouts which almost no one else did at the time. Also, he wasn't a chain-smoking alcoholic, which also separated him from a great number of his peers. If Wagner played today, his training and condition would be far less of a factor because everyone does those things today. Secondly, and this is the more important argument, Wagner didn't play today's game. What he might have been isn't relevant to what he was. It's basically as ridiculous as saying that Frank Thomas shouldn't be in the HOF because he wouldn't have been allowed to play if he'd been born in Wagner's day. It's like people who want to put asterisks on Bond's records because of steroids, or the people who actually did put an asterisk on Maris's record because he played more games in a season than Ruth did. You can't re-write history. The events of the past would have been different if conditions had been different at the time, but they weren't. We can only evaluate the things that actually happened, not the ones we imagine might have. I'm not even sure what your argument is because you're going both ways. But Wagner also wasn't going to baseball camps getting trained by professionals from the age of 4. And then there's the Dead Ball era, when Jeter wouldn't have been able to bitch about called strikes on every pitch he didn't swing at and take advantage of one of his biggest strengths in walking. We could argue that Bogaerts would be better than Wagner using these same arguments. It's ridiculous.
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Post by tonyc on Oct 1, 2014 12:46:27 GMT -5
Fenway,
I agree with both of your points, and yet one of the beauties of baseball, vs. some other major sports where the defense is harder to statistically quantify (football, hockey) is that with enough curves and sabermetric adjustments you can make more of a cross era comparison, which granted going this far back is challenged.
I hope it's not too indulgant, but this passage in a book I read 40 years ago is too colorful to not share describing the signing of Honus: "I looked at him and he had a feather in his cap, arms down his legs and real bowlegged knees, I laughed and he did too..I asked about his baseball and he said he played on a team with his brothers, as he threw a stone so far down the train tracks my eyes popped out. His friend said, Mr. what Honus didn't tell you is his brothers team beat everyone else around. I asked him what position he plays, and surprised he said, of course all of them."
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 1, 2014 12:51:07 GMT -5
The point wasn't that Wagner had the same training regimen as modern players. The point was that Wagner's offseason training was far, far advanced of what almost any of his contemporaries are doing. In present baseball, there are a few players who may slack in the offseason, but no player has a regimen that is far-and-away more rigorous than anyone else's.
And of course players in the early 20th century never complained to umpires. Do you really think that Derek Jeter's high walk rate is because he bitched about called strikes? Really?
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 1, 2014 13:35:18 GMT -5
The point wasn't that Wagner had the same training regimen as modern players. The point was that Wagner's offseason training was far, far advanced of what almost any of his contemporaries are doing. In present baseball, there are a few players who may slack in the offseason, but no player has a regimen that is far-and-away more rigorous than anyone else's. And of course players in the early 20th century never complained to umpires. Do you really think that Derek Jeter's high walk rate is because he bitched about called strikes? Really? I think it's because he took a lot more pitches than he ever would have in the Dead Ball Era.
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 1, 2014 15:25:30 GMT -5
Why? His walk rate is about the same as Wagner's. And a 6'3", 200 pound player with 10+ homer power would have been pretty fearsome in those days.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 1, 2014 16:45:43 GMT -5
We could argue that Bogaerts would be better than Wagner using these same arguments. It's ridiculous. I'm prepared to argue that.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 1, 2014 16:47:26 GMT -5
The point wasn't that Wagner had the same training regimen as modern players. The point was that Wagner's offseason training was far, far advanced of what almost any of his contemporaries are doing. In present baseball, there are a few players who may slack in the offseason, but no player has a regimen that is far-and-away more rigorous than anyone else's. And of course players in the early 20th century never complained to umpires. Do you really think that Derek Jeter's high walk rate is because he bitched about called strikes? Really? Depends, does punching a guy in the face count as a complaint?
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 1, 2014 17:09:16 GMT -5
Depends. If the umpire didn't deserve it then it's a complaint. If the umpire deserved it then that's just good, gritty base ball.
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nomar
Veteran
Posts: 10,787
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Post by nomar on Oct 1, 2014 18:11:54 GMT -5
If Nick Punto wasn't playing back then, I have a hard time believing it was gritty baseball.
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Post by onbase on Oct 1, 2014 19:19:22 GMT -5
So this has become the Jeter thread?
I don't hate him, I just think he's gotten too much media attention without being anything but a good hitter and able to stay out of trouble in NY. Should he be in the Hall of Fame? Of course; he has all those hits and all those years, and all those MFY financed post season appearances. I question whether the "durability" was a function of inability to make plays that might have gotten him hurt. One ego driven, ill-advised, unnecessary dive into the stands does not alter that. Should he be a first ballot of Hall of Famer? Sure, why not, y'all have discussed that. Should he get there on a higher percentage of votes than Pedro? No bleepin' way. But he probably will.
Apologies if this is too much of a baseball fan post and not a sufficiently analytical one.
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Post by dcsoxfan on Oct 1, 2014 21:54:52 GMT -5
To me (and then I'm leaving this behind), Jeter's similar to Carl Yaztremski in position in the game ... great players in their primes made better historically by counting numbers because of longevity, lionized by their fan base, but really not in the conversation of the greatest in the game or in the inner circle for their positions. I mean, that's good! No-doubt Hall of Famers ... but it is what it is. No one talks about Yaz as one of the all time greats. I mean, the details are all different (Yaztremski probably had a higher peak - and 1967 was ridiculous - but Jeter was near the top for longer, Jeter didn't have the power but played SS, etc, etc), but in overall positioning, they seem roughly comparable to me. Brian, I don't often disagree with you, but there is actually a strong case that Carl Yastrzemski was one of the most underrated players in baseball history. He was truly dominant in his prime. However, because his best years coincided with baseball's second "dead-ball era" -- a time when there were human beings capable of posting a 1.12 ERA for a whole season -- most people tend to view him in the way you described. The first person I saw make this case was, surprisingly, Thomas Boswell; however on this occasion, he appears to have got it right. According to Baseball Reference, Yaz compiled 96 WAR over his career. You can't do that without a considerable period of dominance.
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Post by tonyc on Oct 2, 2014 10:09:33 GMT -5
Hi Dc,
Yaz is the reason why I took abuse and grew up as a passionate Sox fan living in NY (a dangerous thing in Yankee stadium in the late 60's/70's when not just the teams fought, but fans). However I will disagree. First, the points in his favor- his prime was amazing, and people don't even often cite his incredible '70 season, which rivaled '67. Also, yes, a number of his prime years were in that 60's- early 70's "dead-ball" era. Also, he was one of the greatest defensive left fielders of all time, and drew a nice number of walks. Points against- the latter half of his career was in an era not as defensively skewed, and during his career he mostly had a bunch of decent to solid- but not dominant types of seasons. Keep in mind that WAR is a very flawed stat in this context- it merely measures value above replacement, and if you put in more years where you are an above average player you'll pile on more points than someone who is brilliant but doesn't put in quite as many years. I had noticed this phenomenon when looking at a bunch of hall of fame and also modern close to HOF players, seeing that some who fit the endurance type description were skewed too far in their favor over some that were trully more dominant and had good but not great longevity.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Oct 2, 2014 12:14:31 GMT -5
To me (and then I'm leaving this behind), Jeter's similar to Carl Yaztremski in position in the game ... great players in their primes made better historically by counting numbers because of longevity, lionized by their fan base, but really not in the conversation of the greatest in the game or in the inner circle for their positions. I mean, that's good! No-doubt Hall of Famers ... but it is what it is. No one talks about Yaz as one of the all time greats. I mean, the details are all different (Yaztremski probably had a higher peak - and 1967 was ridiculous - but Jeter was near the top for longer, Jeter didn't have the power but played SS, etc, etc), but in overall positioning, they seem roughly comparable to me. Brian, I don't often disagree with you, but there is actually a strong case that Carl Yastrzemski was one of the most underrated players in baseball history. He was truly dominant in his prime. However, because his best years coincided with baseball's second "dead-ball era" -- a time when there were human beings capable of posting a 1.12 ERA for a whole season -- most people tend to view him in the way you described. The first person I saw make this case was, surprisingly, Thomas Boswell; however on this occasion, he appears to have got it right. According to Baseball Reference, Yaz compiled 96 WAR over his career. You can't do that without a considerable period of dominance. I actually don't think we disagree ... I think Yaz is underrated and Jeter overrated in the current conversation; it's basically why I brought them up together like this. I do think Yaz's record in the late 60s is an underrated period of dominance, but he really didn't approach that after that, and his record in the 70s is more good than great. I don't think Jeter ever approached the same peak, but he was better for longer than Yaz was and played a premium position. I think they're both really, really good players, great players, obvious Hall of Famers. It's just that one (Jeter) is being lauded as an all-time great, and the other (Yaz) is mostly forgotten. [edit to add: "forgotten" is too strong a word for Yaz ... he's still remembered as a solid player. I really mean "never talked about as a great player"]
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