Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Love dogs but if any appear on a GM's video feed during tonight's NFL Draft that's a good signal to bet that team's season total under the number. The dog show's that GM isn't really serious... If life gives you melons - you may be dyslexic... Heh Heh... Back in 1978 future Hall of Famer Robin Yount held out from Spring  training because he needed to decide if he wanted to be a pro baseball player or a pro golfer... ABC/Disney should re-make the TV show Barney Miller with Dave Attell playing the lead role... So those folks who did the COVID-9 models that were so very wrong - what other models of theirs have we been using?... "You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire." - Seneca... The President Tweets for the US Navy to "shoot down and destroy" any harassing Iranian gun boats and the price of oil jumps (when it really needed a lift). That's how that works. But "shooting down?" Do the Iranians have flying boats?...

Robin Yount

Today marks the final game in the career of Derek Jeter. Like many, I'm not saying that Jeter wasn't a great player, a first ballot Hall of Fame player, but I am saying that this victory tour seems a bit much. For comparison sake - who can recall the send-off final season of Robin Yount - who was every bit as good (some would argue better) than Jeter.

Yount played much of his career as a shortstop but then moved to play centerfield because that's what the team needed. I can't imagine Jeter doing either - being athletic enough for center or putting the team first and changing position. Yount won two AL MVP Awards meaning the baseball writers twice felt he was the most valuable player in the entire league. Jeter never won an MVP.

Yount finished ahead of Jeter in the following categories; games played, doubles, triples, and RBI. Obviously that means Jeter was ahead of Yount in most of the other categories not named but also consider that Yount had almost 500 fewer strikeouts than Jeter and 70 fewer grounded into double plays. How close they were at the plate can be summed up in the fact that both finished their career with an OPS+ of 115 (OPS+ is a stat used to compare players from different eras).

Bill James created a stat called WAR (Wins Above Replacement) to try to quantify just how valuable a player was. Robin Yount finished with a career WAR of 77 (69th best of all-time) while Derek Jeter has 71.7 (which is 88th best all-time). WAR argues that Yount was the more valuable player. Maybe Jeter should give half his send-off gifts to Robin Yount because Yount was the better player yet didn't get a victory tour like Jeter is concluding tonight.

Johnny Damon - Hall of Fame Player?

Maybe this can be chalked up to either a statistical anomaly or an an example of lies, damn lies and statistics but Johnny Damon just became the 11th player in MLB history with at least 500 doubles, 100 triples, 200 homers, and 2500 hits. All of the other players to rack up those numbers are in the Hall of Fame. You may have heard of some of the names on that list - Paul Molitor, George Brett, Robin Yount, Willie Mays, Stan Musial, Al Simmons, Lou Gehrig, Goose Goslin, Rogers Hornsby, and Babe Ruth. That's quite a list. That's some pretty heady company for Johnny Damon. But does he really belong being mentioned in the same breath as those guys?

Babe Ruth, Willie Mays and Stan Musial would be insulted if you even asked. Damon is also not close in numbers to Paul Molitor's accomplishments. Surprisingly Damon has more runs scored than the great Rogers Hornsby as well as George Brett and Al Simmons. This can pretty much be explained away by the fact that Damon has normally been a lead-off or two hole hitter while the others were hitting 3rd or clean-up in the order. Put another way - Damon was the guy getting on base and they were the guys whose jobs was to drive them in.

Damon also has more runs scored than Goose Goslin who finished his career with exactly 500 doubles - so Damon will also finish with more two-baggers than Goslin. But Goose was a guy who had a career .316 batting average and an OPS+ of 128. Compare that to Damon's .287 batting average and 105 OPS+. Lou Gehrig finished his career with 2721 hits. That's a number that Damon probably will eclipse (currently Damon has 2646 hits). Does that mean a comparison between Damon and Gehrig is warranted? If you said yes - please put down the crack pipe.

The only player statistically close to Johnny Damon on that list is Robin Yount. When comparing the numbers though you have to remember that Robin Yount currently has more than 500 more games played and more than 2000 more plate appearances than Damon. If Damon plays 3 more seasons then these numbers could end up pretty damn close.

Damon - 1597 R/ 2646 H/ 500 2B/ 102 3B/ 223 HR/ 1080 RBI
Yount - 1632 R/ 3142 H/ 583 2B/ 126 3B/ 251 HR/ 1350 RBI

Damon - 392 SB/ .287 BA/ .790 OPS/ 105 OPS+
Yount - 271 SB/ .285 BA/ .772 OPS/ 115 OPS+

Those numbers are pretty damn close. I also discount the OPS+ difference to a point because Damon is damaged by playing his career among the steroid fueled OPS+ monsters who negatively affected players who did not use the needle.

The bottom line is that Johnny Damon really needs to get to 3,000 hits in order to get proper consideration for the Hall of Fame. He has been over-looked and under-valued his whole career and I doubt that will change much when it comes to Hall of Fame consideration.