Tim Kurkjian and the greatest SS's

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by Tabe

That's a bit of a stretch, I think. He's a career .308 hitter with a .465 slugging % in the playoffs. Those are fine numbers, to be sure. But they pale next to Carlos Beltran (.333 & .683), Ruth, Gehrig, and (I'm sure) many others I'm forgetting. Jeter has very impressive totals - all-time leader in PAs, hits, doubles, triples, 3rd in homers, etc - but those are all the result of his having played a full season's worth of games in the postseason, not because he was particularly great in the postseason. In fact, in all the numbers that measure a player's RATE at doing something (average, OBP, slugging, etc), Jeter isn't in the top 10 in anything.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/po..._batting.shtml

I would definitely include Jeter as one of the all time greats in post season history. Unfortunately, he won't rank in the top 10 in any postseason metric because there are so many players with smaller sample sizes than Jeter has had.

An example! Do you know who leads all players in post season OPS? The great Willie Aikens does! He has played in 12 post season games, but man did he shine

Derek Jeter has played virtually one full season (158 games) and has put together numbers that are better than his 162 game averages! That's pretty damn impressive!


Hits
Regular Season 162 Game Average: 205
Playoff 158 Game Total: 200

Runs
Regular Season 162 Game Average: 115
Playoff 158 Game Total: 111

Doubles
Regular Season 162 Game Average: 32
Playoff 158 Game Total: 32

Home Runs
Regular Season 162 Game Average: 15
Playoff 158 Game Total: 20

RBI
Regular Season 162 Game Average: 77
Playoff 158 Game Total: 61

Stolen Bases
Regular Season 162 Game Average: 21
Playoff 158 Game Total: 18

Walks
Regular Season 162 Game Average: 64
Playoff 158 Game Total: 66

Batting Average
Regular Season 162 Game Average: .311
Playoff 158 Game Total: .308

On Base Percentage
Regular Season 162 Game Average: .379
Playoff 158 Game Total: .374

Slugging Percentage
Regular Season 162 Game Average: .442
Playoff 158 Game Total: .465

OPS
Regular Season 162 Game Average: .821
Playoff 158 Game Total: .838

The fact that Jeter was able to play at such a constant level (and even slightly higher level) than he normally played during his career with such a huge sample size speaks volumes! When you even consider the stronger pitching matchups in the playoffs and the level of pressure, it's absolutely astonishing!

I'm not saying he was the best postseason player all time, but he is certainly up there.