Is 3000 hits a big deal or overrated?

[rats60]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

if he changed his approach that was his fault. good hitters hit good bad hitters hit bad. and true the game changed (and we tend to understand that dead ball era baseball was a totally different game) but stats are stats, player's should get credit for what they did and not given special privileges because confirmation bias makes us want to make them better than they were. Ichiro hit 5 % above avg for his career. This is a fact. power matters.

This must be some sort of new math that makes no sense. Ichiro is a lifetime .314 hitter. That is a lot higher than 5% above average. One of the most difficult things to do is hit a baseball and Ichiro was one of this best. The only guys better the last 50 years, Vladimir Guerrero, Roberto Clemente, Kirby Puckett, Miguel Cabrera, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn.

[the 'stache]

Who is more valuable? A player who hits .314 with a .700 OPS, or a hitter who hits .297 with a .950 OPS?

Power matters. There is more to hitting a baseball than batting average. Ichiro has no power to speak of, and his ability to get on base, beyond hitting singles, is sorely lacking. That's why he's only 5% above average. OPS + factors in OBP and SLG, and adjusts for ballpark factors.

Ichiro hit .314 (.3136).
Hank Greenberg, right below him on the all-time average leader board, hit .314 (.3135).

Ichiro had 3,878 total bases in 9,573 at bats. A .405 SLG.
Hank Greenberg had 3,142 total bases in 5,193 at bats. A .605 SLG.

Greenberg had the same average, lifetime, but brought incredible power to his game. And a home run always trumps a single.

That's not all. Ichiro walked 620 times in 10,339 plate appearances. He has a .357 OBP career.
Greenberg walked 852 times, or 232 times more in 4,241 fewer plate appearances (6,098 PAs total). His career OBP was .412.

Ichiro's career .762 OPS is only 5% above league average for his career.
Meanwhile, Greenberg's 1.017 OPS is 58% better than league average for his career.

Two .314 career hitters. Ichrio with a career 60.0 WAR (58.1 fWAR) in 2,455 games played. Greenberg with a career 57.5 WAR (61.1 fWAR) in 1,394 games played. Those WAR metrics take everything into consideration-hitting for power and average, OBP, speed, fielding.

Who would you rather have?

Originally Posted by rats60

This must be some sort of new math that makes no sense. Ichiro is a lifetime .314 hitter. That is a lot higher than 5% above average. One of the most difficult things to do is hit a baseball and Ichiro was one of this best. The only guys better the last 50 years, Vladimir Guerrero, Roberto Clemente, Kirby Puckett, Miguel Cabrera, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs and Tony Gwynn.

[1952boyntoncollector]

correct 'Stace, hits just because they are hits doesnt make you an all time great cause you can hit .295 and get 200 hits. Total bases accounts for power and walks which Ichiro does neither.

To have 3000 hits yet not have 4000 total bases really says something in terms of lack of power and getting walks. I appreciate your use of real numbers.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by the 'stache

Who is more valuable? A player who hits .314 with a .700 OPS, or a hitter who hits .297 with a .950 OPS?

Power matters. There is more to hitting a baseball than batting average. Ichiro has no power to speak of, and his ability to get on base, beyond hitting singles, is sorely lacking. That's why he's only 5% above average. OPS + factors in OBP and SLG, and adjusts for ballpark factors.

Ichiro hit .314 (.3136).
Hank Greenberg, right below him on the all-time average leader board, hit .314 (.3135).

Ichiro had 3,878 total bases in 9,573 at bats. A .405 SLG.
Hank Greenberg had 3,142 total bases in 5,193 at bats. A .605 SLG.

Greenberg had the same average, lifetime, but brought incredible power to his game. And a home run always trumps a single.

That's not all. Ichiro walked 620 times in 10,339 plate appearances. He has a .357 OBP career.
Greenberg walked 852 times, or 232 times more in 4,241 fewer plate appearances (6,098 PAs total). His career OBP was .412.

Ichiro's career .762 OPS is only 5% above league average for his career.
Meanwhile, Greenberg's 1.017 OPS is 58% better than league average for his career.

Two .314 career hitters. Ichrio with a career 60.0 WAR (58.1 fWAR) in 2,455 games played. Greenberg with a career 57.5 WAR (61.1 fWAR) in 1,394 games played. Those WAR metrics take everything into consideration-hitting for power and average, OBP, speed, fielding.

Who would you rather have?

Power matters, but ops is extremely overrated. If I had two guys with equal BA, I would take the guy with the higher SLG. I would rather a guy who hits for a high average than a guy who walks a lot.

Walks are the most overrated stat in baseball. The goal of the game is to score runs. A walk only scores a run when the bases are loaded, which is rare. A hit scores the runner from 3rd almost every time, from 2nd most of the time and from 1st a lot of the time on extra base hits.

This even totally ignores the strategy of walking a guy with 1b open and 1 out to set up the double play or pitching around a hitter with 2 outs to get out a weaker hitter. I would rather my star hit a pitch out of the strike zone than allowing himself to be pitched around. Give me a guy with 3000 hits over a guy with a bunch meaningless walks.

WAR is pretty much worthless. It over values walks. The values for fielding are random. Certain positions are over valued and others are under valued. Baseball reference even completely changed how they calculated it a few years ago. Fangraphics has their own system which varies from BR.

[packs]

Couple of interesting stats for a guy who apparently is only better than 5 percent of all major leaguers and is just some slappy dinky hitter:

Ichiro has led the league in intentional walks 3 times
Ichiro has more intentional walks in his 16 seasons than A-rod does in his 22.
Ichiro's offensive WAR is nearly 10 points higher than Jose Bautista's, even with Joey Bats having a 132 RC+.

[Econteachert205]

I don't mind the idea of using total bases as a preferred metric. If we are talking lead off hitters one could make the argument that on base percentage is more important than either. My main issue with total bases is that the steroid era skewed the validity of comparative analysis because of the home run party. I'm more impressed with say Carl Yastrzemski total base numbers from the late 1960's than any total base numbers from the 90's.

[1952boyntoncollector]

Originally Posted by Econteachert205

I don't mind the idea of using total bases as a preferred metric. If we are talking lead off hitters one could make the argument that on base percentage is more important than either. My main issue with total bases is that the steroid era skewed the validity of comparative analysis because of the home run party. I'm more impressed with say Carl Yastrzemski total base numbers from the late 1960's than any total base numbers from the 90's.

Steroid era applies to everything though on many stats on many arguments. There are a lot of big total base guys that werent in the home run party though.

There was another poster that talked about walks not meaning much compared to hits because you can drive in runs with hits. I agree with that. However it was already assumed the total base guys drive in more runs that then the ichiro type 3000 hit guys so the walks was just an icing on the cake and not a main part of the argument


Basically, i just not a big fan of 'participation awards' If you play long enough you are going to get a certain amount of slap hits even into your 40s. I would contend a replacement level player from AAA who played 23 years in the big leagues would get close to 3000 hits but nowhere near 4500 total bases... Yes ichiro did it in far less, However we are going by totals not by how many years when doing a 3000 hit countdown. There is no hits per game countdown.....

[packs]

Well factor into your perspective that only about 1 percent of all major leaguers have careers spanning 20 or more seasons.

[dgo71]

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector

Basically, i just not a big fan of 'participation awards' If you play long enough you are going to get a certain amount of slap hits even into your 40s. I would contend a replacement level player from AAA who played 23 years in the big leagues would get close to 3000 hits but nowhere near 4500 total bases... Yes ichiro did it in far less, However we are going by totals not by how many years when doing a 3000 hit countdown. There is no hits per game countdown.....

I think that is greatly minimizing the talent it takes to get to 3000 hits. Lots of guys had long careers and yet there are still only 2/100ths of a percent of the games' players to ever reach the milestone. Harold Baines played forever and was solely a hitter for a lot of that time and didn't get there. Vizquel, Fisk, Buckner, Darrell Evans, Ted Simmons, Ruben Sierra...quite a long list of 20+ year MLBers that didn't get to 3000 hits, and I would consider all of those names to be better than a AAA replacement player. I would venture to say it's not an easy task regardless of how those hits are produced. I do agree to some extent that if the discussion is about what has more overall value, the power is important along with some of the other stats that have come up in the thread, but to the point of the original question about 3000 hits and whether or not it's impressive at it's most basic level, it most definitely is.