All-Star break with "The Captain"
 

Is there any chance Derek can go on one last tear, and end up catching Tris Speaker for 5th Place all-time in hits?

Why are we so fascinated with numbers in baseball?

Enjoy the game tomorrow.

john d. guzze

Probably because they are an attempt to measure the un-measurable, the intangible quality of one player compared to another.

No. He's been pretty bad this year, and it's a joke he was voted to start the All Star game.

He should hang it up after this year.

I would be happy to get 92 hits out of my shortstop by the all star break. I know the guy gets a lot of plate appearances, but there are few people I would rather have at the plate when I absolutely need a run. The guy is clutch and he will be missed. Oh, by the way he went 2 for 2 of the best the national league had to offer.

Bill generally isn't very funny (even in person, I've heard), but I think he's joking.

Funny, ha ha or funny like a clown?

maybe funny 'smells bad'?

I've been told that dry humor actually starts to rot when it gets too dry.

I can be funny when funny is called for. I'm just providing my opinion here. If you don't agree with me, that's ok.

Jeter hasn't been on his game this year. I'm not taking a personal swipe at Jeter. What I am saying, however, is that voting him to start the All Star Game is indefensible. I apologize if he's your favorite player or something, but in 2014 he is simply not an All Star. He's ranked 12th in WAR for all American League shortstops. If he decided to hang it up two years ago when he was really playing well, I'd have voted for him myself. But this year, Jeter has played in 83 games, and has 371 plate appearances, and his WAR is 0.5. Basically you could pull any shortstop from AAA, hand him a glove and a bat, and they'd perform as well as Jeter has this year. I understand that doesn't take Jeter's intangibles into consideration, but he's just slowing down. It happens to all the great ones eventually.

The All Star game is supposed to recognize excellence, is it not? People are already paying tribute to him each time he visits a city for the last time, did we really have to turn the All Star Game into one more Jeter love fest, too?

Jeter has been great throughout his career, and he's absolutely a Hall of Famer. I like Jeter. But if the best defense for him deserving an All Star birth this year is "well, he's got 92 hits", that's not very persuasive at all. There are five other shortstops in the American League with 92 or more hits. And if we're looking at numbers alone, again, there have been 11 other guys playing shortstop in the AL that have done more than Jeter. Shouldn't one of those guys that actually played better than Jeter deserve the recognition?

Jeter hit .272 in the first half. Jose Reyes hit about the same at .273. He hit 7 home runs to Jeter's 2. He hit 19 doubles to Jeter's 9. He scored 51 runs to Jeter's 31. And while Jeter stole 6 bases in 7 attempts, Reyes stole 17 in 18 tries. Jeter's OPS was .647 to Reyes' .738. Now, Reyes didn't have a gangbuster first half, but I think he was a better choice than Jeter. But the main point here is that we're not talking about Jeter or Reyes being voted in as a third shortstop. Jeter started.

If they wanted to make him an honorary captain or something, I've got no problem with that. But the All Star Game is supposed to recognize the best players in each league that season. Jeter has made the All Star team a million times before because he deserved to make them. The guy has been a great hitter, a good defensive catcher, and he's everything you could hope for in a team leader. He doesn't make a lot of noise, but he doesn't get in trouble either. He leads by example day after day. He's out there playing every single day. He rightly belongs in Cooperstown. I just don't think he deserved to be there this year. And, if he hadn't announced he was retiring after this year, he wouldn't have been voted into this game.

You take Reyes, I'll take Jeter. All day long and twice on Sunday. We can agree to disagree. Jason

Wow. Perhaps my initial response wasn't actually dry humor as I intended, but was instead accidentally correct.

I'm sorry, Scott. I'd been going on very little sleep when I made that post. Please accept my apology.

That's nice of you Bill, but no need - I got too dry with my humor.

~:)~ <== the new 'dry humor' emoticon, for those in the know.

Yes, but not just excellence this season.

HOFers at the end of the line have been honored with All-Star game inclusion for a half century. Stan Musial was an All-Star in his last season in 1963, at age 42. Mickey Mantle too his last season in '68. Willie Mays, Al Kaline and Carl Yastrzemski also come to mind. And then of course there's Cal Ripken, who started the ASG in his final season at age 40 in 2001, a season where he ended up hitting .239 and with a negative WAR. These all-time greats are put on display one final time so frequently that I hardly believe you can call Jeter's selection indefensible and a joke, unless you believe similar mockeries are made every few years.

I confess to being an unabashed Jeter fan--BIG TIME--, and thus acknowledge a proclivity for bias. Still, I hardly believe the baseball world or a large part of its fan base was denied a chance to watch "excellence" by leaving Alexi Ramirez and his 8 HR, .279 batting avg. on the bench for the first few innings, or leaving a shortstop with similar numbers off the roster altogether.

"The Captain"
 

2 hits away from tying "Captain Carl Yaz".

Then what do we do, one respected site has Honus Wagner listed at 3,420 and the one that counts in Cooperstown has him listed at 3,430?


john-

"The Captain"
 

Derek Jeter has just passed Captain Carl Yaz with his 3,420 hit.

10 to go to tie our world famous baseball card, "Honus Wagner.


john

This thread got me to looking at Jeter's numbers a bit more closely. I have to say he has had a better career than I thought.. I knew he had the hits but his other numbers are strong too. I would have thought Barry Larkin's numbers through the prime of boths careers would have went Larkins way but thats not the case. My apoligies to overlooking Jeter, I probably did that due to my extreme hatred of the Yankees.

tied for 6th place
 

"The Captain"

Has tied Honus Wagner for 6th place all-time in hits, 3,430 according to Elias Sports Bureau the official scorer for MLB.

I just received that book in the mail, pretty impressive.

john-

Passed Honus Today
 

All-time for shortstops.