Tim Kurkjian and the greatest SS's

[the 'stache]

Originally Posted by jhs5120

This has to be the most absurd thing I have ever read.

Why, because Ichiro's season didn't end up being the monumental barn burner that you thought it was?

WAR has become a pretty accurate indicator of a player's performance for a season. Do you want to know where Ichiro's 2001 season fell among the greatest individual seasons in Major League history?

110th. There have been 109 individual seasons that were better than Ichiro's 2001 campaign.

Ichiro hit for a really good average. But it's nothing that Tony Gwynn and Wade Boggs didn't do on a semi-consistent basis. Tony Gwynn hit better than .350 seven times. Wade Boggs hit better than .350 five times.

Nothing that Ichiro did in 2001 set a new bar. He hit for a high average, and he had a spectacular number of plate appearances. That is why he had so many hits. I'm not knocking him. That's a lot of hits. But of his 242 hits, 50 were for extra bases. He hit 192 singles.

His 127 runs scored, while quite good, is never going to be a legendary figure. It didn't even lead the league in 2001.

And then there's his 56 stolen bases. Good total, but hardly transcendent. There have been 155 seasons of more than 56 stolen bases.

So again, where did Ichiro have one of the greatest seasons of all time? He hit a crap ton of singles. He stole a good deal of bases. He scored a bunch of runs. He played great defense.

Is that better than Ted Williams 1941 season when he hit .406? What about Joe DiMaggio, same season, when he hit in 56 straight? Better than Miguel Cabrera's Triple Crown last season?

Is anybody 50 years from now going to bring up Ichiro's 2001 season as one of the greatest seasons of all-time? Maybe. Probably not.

So if my post is that absurd to you, maybe you just need to rethink some of your notions about the history of baseball.