Tim Kurkjian and the greatest SS's

[jhs5120]

Before I respond to anything below, I want to restate; I believe Ken Griffey Jr. was a better player than Derek Jeter, but marginally. I first said it in post 98 and again in 127. Purely from an offensive production standpoint, they are at a very similar level IMO (as I said in post 113) and deserve to be considered equally among the elites. I don't think Jeter is better, but I certainly do not believe Griffey is nearly as far ahead as Jeter as you've been insinuating. That's all I've been arguing.

Excluding the juicers, I think they are both top 5 players of the last 30 years.

No one will argue (especially me) that Griffey wasn't the better hitter, so when I dive into some of the stats below I am going to ignore the metrics that ignore base running (obviously).

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Some more metrics which only consider offensive contribution.

James explains in his book, The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, why he believes runs created is an essential thing to measure:

With regard to an offensive player, the first key question is how many runs have resulted from what he has done with the bat and on the basepaths. Willie McCovey hit .270 in his career, with 353 doubles, 46 triples, 521 home runs and 1,345 walks -- but his job was not to hit doubles, nor to hit singles, nor to hit triples, nor to draw walks or even hit home runs, but rather to put runs on the scoreboard. How many runs resulted from all of these things?[1]

Runs created
Griffey 1,994 (22nd)
Jeter 1,900 (27th)

I love Runs Created, and as you can see above, they were both very close.

Jeter leads all shortstops (even Wagner) in Runs Created. The only other leadoff hitters in front of Jeter are Ty Cobb, Rickey Henderson and Pete Rose - which is pretty impressive since Runs Created is a stat that weighs home runs pretty heavily, so to see Jeter rank so high with less than 300 home runs speaks volumes at the level of dominance in other offensive aspects. The only other player with less than 300 and not previously mentioned was Tris Speaker, who I think batted second?


Offensive Win %
Griffey .663 (161st)
Jeter .597 (42nd active)

Offensive Win % isn't really a metric. Basically, if there were 9 Derek Jeter's in your lineup, how ofter would you win? Well, Jeter was a lead off hitter, so it would be kind of pointless to have 9 lead off hitters on your team. This is basically a metric to determine who has the "optimal" combination of power and speed. Griffey had more speed than Jeter had power, but this doesn't really mean one is worse/better than the other. For comparison; of all players in the league right now, guess who leads in OW%? Cabrera? Pujols? Nope, Joey Votto.

RAR - runs above average (batting + fielding + base running + replacement + positional)
Griffey 778.8
Jeter 759.3

Griffey gets a marginal bump because of fielding, but otherwise, they are near identical. Less the fielding, Jeter might actually be ahead.

Offensive WAR
Jeter 95.7
Griffey 83.8

I added this in just to drive home how similar the two players are. There are three very real and relevant metrics for calculating offensive production above; Runs Created, RAR and Offensive WAR. In all of them it paints the picture that the two players had an almost identical value to their respective teams. That's all I tried to argue in post 98 and that's what my work and your work has pointed to.

Originally Posted by the 'stache

These different metrics take into consideration the players positions, their production with their bats, and with their legs. Time after time, metric after metric, Ken Griffey Jr, even with one injury after another slowing him down for much of the second half of his career, is ahead of Jeter, in many instances way ahead. These are standard and Sabermetric analyses. Griffey creates more runs. He increases win probability better. He just does more.

Half of the metrics you provided do not take into account stolen bases and some include fielding. When you take those out of the equation, it paints a different picture. See above.

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Funny, even though Junior got hurt, a career line with a .284 AVG, 1,662 runs, 630 home runs, 1,836 RBI, 7 Silver Slugger Awards, 10 Gold Gloves and an MVP season...he still had one of the greatest careers in Major League history. If he hadn't gotten hurt, he might have broken all the records. But 6th in home runs, 15th in RBI, 13th in total bases...all while being one of the great center fielders in the game's history...I'd say he did have one of the great careers.

Getting hurt doesn't make you a better player.

Would you take Ken Griffey Jr. in 2003 when he played 53 games and hit .247, or would you take some mid level replacement player? The middle level player. Why? Because the middle level player was better in 2003 than Ken Griffey Jr. Just because an injury made a great hitter bad doesn't mean his bad season was great. Who knows, maybe he was injured because of the level he played at? Maybe Griffey would have had a healthy career if he was a .250 hitter. No one knows so it's pointless to speculate.

Originally Posted by the 'stache

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that nothing I could show you will change your mind. Ken Griffey Jr was the better all around player. Jeter was outstanding, too. Both men will be first ballot Hall of Famers. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

What are you trying to change? I've said at least three times in this thread Griffey is the better player. So congrats. I just think it's very very very close, and everything you've pointed out above goes with that.

Also, I got rid of your rant about the 200 hits. How did that even come up? I agree 200 hits is an arbitrary number (like 50 home runs, or 147 walks), but it was meant to be paired with the batting average statistic I used in the same sentence (that you left out).


Edited to add:

Here is the original list that started this whole Griffey vs. Jeter thing. As I said, I think it's close.

My list for the past 30 years would be:

1. Rickey Henderson
2. Tony Gwynn
3. Ken Griffey Jr.
4. Derek Jeter (very close)
5. Albert Pujols

[howard38]

Jeter has had far more plate appearances batting second than he has leading off.

[jhs5120]

Originally Posted by howard38

Jeter has had far more plate appearances batting second than he has leading off.

I know he batted second most games when Damon played and second for Knoblauch., but I would still consider him a leadoff hitter. Regardless, there is now difference statistically between a leadoff hitter and hitting second.

[Tabe]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

Runs created
Griffey 1,994 (22nd)
Jeter 1,900 (27th)

I love Runs Created, and as you can see above, they were both very close. [/qb]

Jeter had 10% more PAs than Griffey did and still came up 5% short in runs created. The total is relatively close but the accumulation rate is not. Jeter = 1 run per 6.54 PAs, Griffey = 1 per 5.66 PAs. In other words, Griffey created runs 17% faster than Jeter. That's a HUGE difference.

Originally Posted by jhs5120

Offensive WAR
Jeter 95.7
Griffey 83.8

Really all this does is show that Jeter was a lot better than other shortstops offensively - no argument there. Griffey's offensive competition at CF is a lot better than Jeter's offensive competition at SS. And that's even accounting for the positional adjustment included in OWAR.

Offensive players have a number of jobs they're supposed to do but their top two are as follows: get on base and do damage in the process of getting on base. Jeter and Griffey get on base at about the same rate (.379 vs .370) but Griffey does a LOT more damage in getting on (SLG = .538 vs .442). That makes him a significantly better offensive player than Jeter.

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Offensive players have a number of jobs they're supposed to do but their top two are as follows: get on base and do damage in the process of getting on base. Jeter and Griffey get on base at about the same rate (.379 vs .370) but Griffey does a LOT more damage in getting on (SLG = .538 vs .442). That makes him a significantly better offensive player than Jeter.

Exactly.