Tim Kurkjian and the greatest SS's

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Lemme let you in on a dirty little secret. Come up close, don't wanna say it too loud:

Power hitters are a LOT more valuable than slap hitters

The job of slap hitters is to get on base. OBP measures that yet you discount it for sluggers because they "walk more often". So what? Isn't that kind of the job? Get on base? And home runs are waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more valuable than singles. That's just a fact.

OPS+ is absolutely a fair comparison between guys, regardless of whether they are slap hitters or power hitters.

Ugh. This is painful.

While we're in close and whispering, let me share a little known secret with you.

A hitters job is to help win games.....

If your job is to get a great OPS+, Griffey is a stud.
If your job is to help win games, Jeter is a tad bit better.

It's great that OPS+ measures a players park adjusted OPS (yay?), but I would think a stat that measures overall offensive production would be a bit more relevant.

I provided several examples PROVING OPS+ is a terrible metric! But here's another one!

Player A: Gets 200 singles and no walks in 600 at bats (a.333 batting average, .333 OBP, .333 Slugging%). Player A steals 2nd base, 3rd base and home every single time (so 600 stolen bases that year). Player A is widely considered the greatest baseball player to ever live, because if you can bat .333 and steal 600 bases, you ARE the greatest player who ever lived. Player A should have an OPS+ well below 100 (probably in the 70 to 80 range).

Player B: An average power hitter (I always use Dan Uggla as an example). He has a around 20-25 home runs, a .240 batting average, maybe a .300 OBP and a .450 slugging percentage. He doesn't garner even an all-star selection at how mediocre his year is. His OPS+ would be around 110.

HONESTLY, which player would you take? OPS+ is absolutely useless.

If a metric cannot tell the difference between what would be the greatest baseball player in the history of the sport and some mediocre power hitter, then how useful could it possibly be?

Edited to add: OPS+ is useless comparing two fundamentally different players, but can be a good guide in comparing very similar hitters (such as Jeter vs. Ichiro, or Bonds vs. Griffey).