Tim Kurkjian and the greatest SS's

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

You will never convince me that a guy that hits a bunch of singles is better than one of the best home run hitters in baseball history. Why? Again, and I have to keep mentioning this. Griffey Jr was hurt for almost the entire second half of his career. That is why the numbers are close. I give Jeter credit for staying healthy, especially playing shortstop, but at his best, Ken Griffey Jr blows Jeter out of the water.

OPS is the be all, end all of offensive metrics, if you ask me. The game of baseball is about scoring runs. To score runs, and win, people need to get on base, and there needs to be power to score runs. OPS is power + on base percentage. OPS + is a combination of those two things adjusted for the parks the player played in.

The very highest OPS + Jeter has ever had was a 153 in 1999. He was tremendous. He hit .349 with 24 home run (career high), 219 hits, 37 doubles, 9 triples, 19 stolen bases. He scored 134 runs, and for the only time in his career, eclipsed 100 RBI (102).

Ken Griffey's best OPS + was in 1993, 171. He matched that again in 1994. If you look at his highest OPS + seasons, he has 5 seasons above 153. Jeter's second best OPS + is 132 in 2006, the season everybody seems all hot and bothered about him getting cheated out of the MVP. Ken Griffey Jr had 12 seasons that were better than Derek Jeter's second best season.

Now, here's something interesting, and it shows why the numbers are closer than one would think. Look at both players for their lowest OPS + seasons. Jeter had 4 seasons below 100.

You looked at 162 game averages. Well, on a 162 game basis, Jeter's average OPS + is 116. Griffey Jr's is 136.

I ran a report on Baseball Reference for career OPS +. The only parameter I included was careers with over 7,500 at bats. 182 batters between the years 1901-2014 had 7,500 at bats. Ken Griffey Jr's 136 OPS + was 34th highest of all-time. That is his composite, the healthy years and the years with injuries all rolled into one. Derek Jeter's 116 OPS + is 100th on this list. And that seems about right for Jeter. Barry Larkin, who was a comparable player, has the same 116 OPS +. Robin Yount is at 115. Ken Griffey Jr is sandwiched between George Brett, Reggie Jackson, Gary Sheffield, Vlad Guerrero, Al Kaline and Fred McGriff. Steve Garvey, Lou Whitaker, Adrian Beltre, Gary Carter and Ryne Sandberg surround Jeter.

Just for giggles, I reran the test again, lowering the at bats requirement to 5,000, and had the list ran for the first ten seasons of a player's career. n other words, when Griffey was actually healthy. Of course, Jeter was also in his first ten seasons. Ten years in, Jeter was a .315 hitter with an .848 OPS, and a 120 OPS +. So, his numbers are a little higher, but not remarkably so.

But look at Griffey Jr. When he is healthy, there is no comparison between him and Jeter. None. On a list of 173 hitters who had at least 5,000 at bats in their first ten seasons, Jeter is 68th. Certainly an improvement. But Griffey Jr jumps all the way up to 13th. The only hitters who had a higher OPS + in the first ten years of their career: Ted Williams, Albert Pujols, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Johnny Mize, Jeff Bagwell, Henry Aaron, Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Ed Matthews and Miguel Cabrera. Griffey is ahead of Frank Robinson, Ralph Kiner, Chuck Klein, and Al Simmons.

Before the injuries set in and slowed Griffey down, there was absolutely no comparison offensively between Ken Griffey Jr and Derek Jeter. Griffey Jr's 150 OPS + is superstar level.

To put this another way...Derek Jeter's best ever single season OPS + is 153, again in 1999. For the first ten seasons of his career, Griffey's OPS + was 150. For a decade, Griffey Jr's play was at the same level of Jeter's best ever season.

One last thing. 356 stolen bases in 20 years, and 2,707 games hardly qualifies as a crap ton. When you are 170th on the all-time stolen base list, you haven't stolen a crap ton of bases.

I explained above why OPS+ is not an appropriate metric when comparing a slap hitter with a power hitter. Power hitters usually have higher slugging percentages and will generally have higher on base percentages, so their OPS+ will always be higher. If you want to compare Griffey with Bonds, use OPS+. If you want to compare Jeter with Rose, use OPS+. But if you want to compare Griffey with Jeter, OPS+ isn't appropriate.

Proof: If Player A hits 200 singles and then steals second, third and home every time he would probably be considered the greatest player in baseball history, but his OPS+ would be worse than Dan Uggla hitting 30 home runs and batting .230.

You're right, if Griffey was healthy he would have had one of the best careers in the history of the sport! But he didn't remain healthy If Jeter wasn't injured in 2013 and didn't have the burden of playing an extra 158 post season games, maybe he would have had another couple 200 hit seasons. But he won't

Offensive WAR takes into account everything OPS+ takes into account PLUS stolen bases and the position you play. Jeter's best years were marginally better than Griffey's best. Jeter's career numbers were marginally better than Griffey's. They are near identical! I'm not even saying Jeter was the better player (I ranked Jeter lower than Griffey previously in thread!) I'm just saying they are damn near close.

More proof OPS+ is useless!

In 2001 Ichiro won the MVP, ROY and took the country by storm, posting one of the best seasons we have ever seen! He had 242 Hits, 56 Stolen Bases, ONLY 53 Strikeouts, 127 Runs Scored and a .350 Batting Average! Ichiro's OPS+ was 126

In 2008 Dan Uggla had a year that Dan Uggla always has. He had 138 hits, 5 stolen bases, 32 home runs, 171 STRIKEOUTS (HOLY $HIT!) and a .260 batting average Dan Uggla's OPS+ was 126

If you think those two seasons should be compared in any way then this discussion is pointless.