Quote:
Originally Posted by dgo71
OK, my quick glance wasn't accurate, but Kent is still at the top of the leaderboard in many important areas.
HR - 1st with 377
Doubles - 4th with 560
Hits - 12th with 2461 (ahead of Whitaker marginally, ahead of Grich and significantly ahead of Randolph)
OPS - 6th with .855 (behind Ryan Schimpf who has 89 career games and Ross Barnes who played in the 1880's...others ahead of him are Hornsby, Gehringer and Jackie Robinson - pretty good company)
SLG - 3rd at .500 (again behind Jackie and the apparently HOF-bound  Ryan Schimpf...)
5 All-Stars, 4 silver sluggers, 2000 NL MVP with 3 other Top 9 finishes.
Not taking away from Grich or Whitaker because I could definitely get behind their enshrinement as well (Randolph not as much) but Kent has more than enough on his resume to garner much more consideration than he's getting. I really think the biggest knock on him was the fact that nobody really liked the guy. Media and teammates alike were all pretty consistent in feeling he was a jerk and that's coming back to haunt him, which is a shame really because it shouldn't be a popularity contest. If he had those stats with Kirby Puckett's personality he would've been a first ballot guy. |
You say the biggest knock is his personality, but I gave you legitimate stat ones. You are comparing him to other 2nd basemen, but he could have very well ended up at 3rd and then his offensive stats would just be good not great. His numbers only look good when you end the statement with "for a second baseman". You can't take a good batsman and put in at a position where other's weren't as good and base it off of that. If you are going to compare him to other 2nd basemen it is best to compare his full performance and his defense didn't hold up.
As I mentioned before his numbers were inflated by Bonds who in the six years walked 840 times (159/162 games).
Giants years (900games) .297 BA/ .368 OBP/ .535 SLG
All other years (1333games) .286 BA/ .348 OBP/ .477 SLG
His per 162 game numbers don't hold up when he wasn't with Bonds either:
Giants 184 hits / 32HR/ 19.62 ABperHR / 124 RBI
Other Teams 169 hits/ 24 HR/ 25.11 AB per HR/ 96 RBI
All of his awards and noteworthy seasons come from that 6 year stretch with the Giants. Move him to another position or to another team and we wouldn't even be talking about him.