Get'em while there HOT

[Sierra79]

The other thing about Ichiro is there is obviously a strong market for his cards from collectors in Japan as well - not just in the good old us of a. I've sold stuff of his on eBay in the past and was surprised by the number of bids coming from Japan.

[JustinD]

Seems to me like the boat has sailed on Griffey. Sales are currently higher than they have been in years because of the HOF speculation.

It's a done deal that he will be elected and ebay will be swamped in Griffey. I think there may be a small premium to make but if you are just now getting on this ship, you are a year late.

Jeter is way overrated and to me a more regional superstar to east coasters. There might be room on some of the more rare rookies (inaugurals, etc.) in the future.

Ichiro sounds like the highest upside I have heard mentioned. Solid pick.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by JustinD

Jeter is way overrated and to me a more regional superstar to east coasters.

+1

I find it interesting that he is being touted by the best SS in history by some. Yet Alan Trammell isn't in the HOF and they have a similar WAR over the same career length.

Trammell WAR: 70.4
Jeter WAR: 71.8

The biggest difference is that Jeter was only a good hitter not a fielder where his WAR number was actually diminished by his fielding. Trammell was a better rounded player.

Trammell - dWAR: 22 / oWAR: 62.4
Jeter - dWAR: -9.7 / oWAR: 95.5

Jeter's low dWAR doesn't even rank him in the top 1000 SS of all time. Where is oWAR does rank 20th. Trammell ranks 34th dWAR and 81st oWAR. To me that is a more rounded player. Fans have a tendency to reward hitting over fielding. Even when people talk about the most undeserving HOF players they are typically talking about players that were better fielders than hitters.

As a final note Trammell ranks 11th in JAWS whereas Jeter is 12th and Trammell's WAR7 (his best 7 WAR years) ranks him at 8th and Jeter is only at 42.2.

Jeter is a HOFer, but he won't be the best SS in the HOF.

[packs]

I don't see how anyone can honestly say that Jeter was a regional superstar. He was the face of baseball. The Yankees were a dynasty and he was the captain of that dynasty. Everyone knew his name and he was the center of attention any time he was around.

[JustinD]

Jeter will be a first ballot HOF, but outside of Yanks fans and the ladies, I think many reasonable people say the numbers don't lie. He's definitely put on a higher pedestal than he would have aquired with the same stats but the looks of Gorman Thomas and playing on the Marlins.

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by JustinD

Jeter will be a first ballot HOF, but outside of Yanks fans and the ladies, I think many reasonable people say the numbers don't lie. He's definitely put on a higher pedestal than he would have aquired with the same stats but the looks of Gorman Thomas and playing on the Marlins.

The numbers don't lie? Jeter is sixth all-time in hits and played on five World Series champions. The only guys ahead of him on the all-time hit list are Rose, Cobb, Aaron, Musial and Speaker.

[bn2cardz]

Nobody has said he wasn't worthy of the HOF, but his fame has been impacted by the team he was on.

His 6th on the hit list was due to his amount of AB he got. He is 7th on the AB career list. His WAR still falls short of being the best SS of all time. Yet his card prices are higher than any other player of the 90s/2000s. 29 players were on 5 WS teams only 5 (Mariano and Jeter will make it 7) are HOF members so that is far from a metric used to determine greatness of a player.

The numbers that speak for themselves are his WAR and JAWS.