Tim Kurkjian and the greatest SS's

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

That you keep going back to point out Jeter's stolen bases, and how he was "twice as productive on the bases", is just silly. He stole on average 17-18 bases a season. That's one stolen base every nine games. 48 players in baseball stole 17 bases last season. I would wager to guess that the 17 or 18 bases those guys stole netted maybe 2 or 3 runs more.

So technically, you're right. Jeter was twice as productive every year with those whopping 17 stolen bases. Griffey didn't need to steal a lot of bases because he figured out if he hit the ball into the seats, he could casually stroll around all the bases at once. And Griffey hitting 40 home runs, which he did a lot, that did have a big impact.

I never said he was the world's best base stealer, but combine 350+ stolen bases with 3400+ hits and it's very impressive. Jeter's longevity tarnished his 162 game SB average. Jeter's best five seasons on the bases were 34, 32, 30, 30 and 27 stolen bases, which is very good.

Productivity can come in the way of power or speed, they both end with the same result.

Just look at the Runs Created stat you showed earlier, Griffey has created marginally more runs. If you look at their stats, Griffey has 400 more total bases and Jeter has 170 more SB's. Griffey got out marginally more than Jeter and struck out more than Jeter, when you factor in all of that, Griffey created the 20th most runs compared to Jeter's 27th. Couple that with Jeter's higher oWAR and they are neck and neck in overall offensive production.