Over/Underpriced HOFers

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

BTW, Ichiro's seven year Japanese career is even more impressive:

BA-.359, 17 HR, 74 RBI and 28 SB on average

I saw both play and I would rather have Ichiro on my team.

Those numbers are impressive for Japanese baseball. However, I doubt Ichiro was seeing anybody like Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson in Japan.

You could take Ichiro, that's fine. I don't have any problem with your preferring one player to another. But saying Clemente would be "an afterthought" if Ichiro had played his entire career in America is simply ridiculous.

[cyseymour]

The trouble is that Japanese baseball is like AA ball. Comparing its stats to the majors is useless, unless you believe that Saduharu Oh is truly the greatest baseball player of all time.

Everything is babble but if you look at it, Ichiro had the advantages on the basepaths and Clemente was a better defender. But Clemente still produced at the plate much more than Ichiro.

It wasn't just steroids that made Ichiro's era more offensive than Clemente's - Clemente was facing off against a higher pitcher's mound which made it much more difficult for the batter as you are picking up the ball from a sharper angle.

But the metrics say that Clemente was a much better hitter. It is as simple as that.