Tim Kurkjian and the greatest SS's

[howard38]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

First of all, why was Ichiro's season "one of the best seasons we have ever seen"?

The only two statistics that were exceptional were his 242 hits, and his 56 stolen bases. 127 runs scored is a nice total, but it's nowhere near the best all-time. In fact, since just 2000, there have been 27 seasons where a player scored 127 or more runs scored.

He had 242 hits. That's a really great figure. But he had a whopping 738 plate appearances. Only 24 players in the last 113 seasons have had more plate appearances in a season. So while he was very good, hitting .350, his hits total wasn't anything Earth shattering, either. It was part the product of a great season, and an even bigger part an incredible number of plate appearances.

So while the number of hits he had was certainly great, again, it's nothing mind blowing. And his 56 stolen bases? He had 70 stolen base attempts. That's a fine total, and it's certainly something we don't see as often as we used to. But again, 56 stolen bases is nowhere near the best individual total ever. In 114 games this season, Dee Gordon has 54 stolen bases. And he's only had 503 plate appearances.

So you'll excuse me if I question your claim that Ichiro had one of the greatest seasons in baseball history. No, he really didn't. For the first 50 games the game was played, there were players that were hitting for averages much higher than .350, scoring much more than 127 runs, and stealing more than 56 bases.

The rest of his numbers are actually quite pedestrian. He only walked 30 times. So while he had a lot of hits, he got on base a total of 280 times, which was good for the 11th best total in 2001. Barry Bonds in 2001 got on base 342 times. He had 156 hits, 177 walks, he was hit by 9 pitches. Jason Giambi got on base 320 times. Luis Gonzalez got on base 312 times. Sammy Sosa got on 311 times, and Todd Helton 300. Lance Berkman, Alex Rodriguez, Chipper Jones, Jeff Bagwell and Carlos Delgado all got on base more times than Ichiro, too. And even terrible old Dan Uggla got on base 223 times. He only had 138 hits, but he also had 77 walks, and got hit by 8 pitches.

So, what about the rest of Ichiro's offensive production? 34 doubles, 8 triples, 8 home runs. 69 RBI.He slashed .381/.457/.838.

Dan Uggla scored 97 runs, he had 37 doubles, a triple and 32 home runs. As far as how many times he struck out, 171, so what? An out is an out is an out. One of Ichiro's outs counts the same as one of Uggla's outs. Ichiro made 458 outs in 2001. Uggla only made 396 outs.

So, while Ichiro was having "one of the greatest seasons in MLB history!", he only scored 30 more runs than Uggla. And he drove in 23 fewer runs. That is reflected in runs created:

Runs created (source Baseball America, under more stats)
Ichiro 2001 127
Uggla 2008 100

Runs created per game

Ichiro 7.2
Uggla 6.5

Ichiro, for having one of the greatest seasons ever, wasn't that much more productive than Uggla. Look at the runs created per game. When you consider that Ichiro had 119 more plate appearances than Uggla did, they'd be even closer if with the same number of opportunities.

And one more thing. Dan Uggla is a second baseman. You took a player from what is typically the least productive offensive position in baseball for your comparison.

In summary, not only is Ichiro's 2001 season not one of the greatest of all time, your comparison of Ichiro and Uggla did nothing to show that OPS is a meaningless stat. It is not all encompassing, as it does not take into consideration stolen bases, and there are metrics that do. But OPS is an outstanding metric to determine a player's contributions with the bat. The reason Dan Uggla's OPS 2008 OPS is higher than Ichiro's 2001 OPS is because Uggla thrived in both getting on base, and generating power. Both are vital to team success. Ichiro got on base slightly more often, but his power numbers compared to Uggla's were nowhere close.

You see to get stuck on batting averages, Jason. Batting average is still a good metric. It shows how well a hitter is able to get on base with his bat. But if a player's job is to get on base ahead of the power hitters, which pretty much matches Ichiro's job description, he's only marginally better at that then Uggla. Ichiro hit .350 in 2001, and Uggla hit only .260 in 2008. But Ichiro's OBP of .381 is not a lot better than Uggla's .360. Why? Because Uggla walks a lot. When he's not hitting home runs, he provides value to his team by getting on base. Ichiro's OBP was only 31 points higher than his batting average because he only walked 30 times in 738 trips to the plate. That's actually pretty bad for a leadoff hitter. It wasn't enough to keep him out of the lineup because he was obviously a great hitter at that time. But again, Uggla in 2008 had a higher OPS than Ichiro did in 2001 because he provided more value to his team. Instead of this example your provided showing why OPS is meaningless, it has had the opposite effect. It has done a great job of showing exactly why it is such an accurate metric. You looked at things like batting average and strikeouts while completely ignoring walks. Uggla in 2008 got on base nearly as much as Ichiro, and he provided much more power. So, upon further review, Ichiro's season wasn't as spectacular as you made it out to be, and Uggla's 2008 season wasn't as bad as it was made out to be.

Ichiro's WAR was only 7.7. That's a very good figure, but hardly indicative of a monumental season.

I would add that Ichiro was not even the best player on his own team that year and that the tremendous hype surrounding him helped vault him to the MVP award. Bret Boone, IMO, was the best Mariner that year and should have been the MVP. He may have been using PEDs but that was not an issue to MVP voters in 2001.