here's what's in store for ichiro...

[shockey]

Batting .300 doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Any player who doesn't draw enough walks to have an OBP of at least .400 every single season is a garbage player, period.

Look at these numbers.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/suzukic01.shtml

Freaking pedestrian.

how freakin' arbitrary. i value power more. would it be okay to declare anyone who doesn't slug at least .500 is a fraud or 'pedestrian?' you just can't blanket players like this. all .400 obp's are not created equal. is a guy with a .400 obp who runs like a cow a more effective player than one with an obp of .375 who runs like the wind? i just love these 'cutoffs.'...

 

[JC]

Batting .300 doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Any player who doesn't draw enough walks to have an OBP of at least .400 every single season is a garbage player, period.

Look at these numbers.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/suzukic01.shtml

Freaking pedestrian.

how freakin' arbitrary. i value power more. would it be okay to declare anyone who doesn't slug at least .500 is a fraud or 'pedestrian?' you just can't blanket players like this. all .400 obp's are not created equal. is a guy with a .400 obp who runs like a cow a more effective player than one with an obp of .375 who runs like the wind? i just love these 'cutoffs.'...

coming from the 25 HR 100 RBI guy in comparing Konerko and Martinez. Was that not an Arbitrary cutoff?

 

[LongTimeListener]

shockey, I believe you and Piotr are standing on opposite sides of what the Internets call a "sarchasm."

 

[shockey]

coming from the 25 HR 100 RBI guy in comparing Konerko and Martinez. Was that not an Arbitrary cutoff?

nope. not nearly the same. 25 homers, 100 rbi is a tangible standard. obp is an intangible, in that it's value changes from player-to-player, depending on a player's speed and the type of hitter he is.

a player with an obp of .400 who attains it by walking a lot who has no speed is unlikely to be as effective an offensive player as a .375 obp guy with speed who hits .325 but doesn't walk enough to satisfy some.

but working with hypothetical, theoretical, fictional 'players' is also unfair. no way around it, though, i suppose. i didn't categorize a player who DOESN'T hit my 'arbitrary' criteria for the hof as 'not worth a hill of beans' or insist it was inflexible. but 25 homers/100 rbi is a tangible standard. 25 homers is 25 homers. 100 rbi is 100 rbi. what is a .400 obp? guys with .380 obas (with more power or speed) are more valuable than .400 obp guys with little power/no speed. imo, anyway. i'm sure there is statistical evidence to the contrary; or it will somehow be created.

 

[JC]

What a load that just was.

 

[sgreenwell]

Boggs was a great hitter, no doubt. But he also played in a great hitter's park in the prime of his career, and it's reflected in his splits.

Home aver. .354, away .302
Home OBP .443, away .387
Home slug. 491, away 395
Home OPS .934, away .781.

Ichiro has played his entire career at Safeco, a very pitcher-friendly ballpark.

Greatness comes in many forms, and Ichiro's game is just one of its manifestations.

Fenway's rep as a hitter's park is overrated. Yeah, it's a hitter's park, but it's a light effect, not like Coors Field North. IIRC, Fenway increases batting average thanks to the wall, but decreases power, as sure HRs turn into singles and doubles. And while Safeco is a pitcher's park, the horrible, soul-sucking lineups the Mariners have fielded the past three years have probably skewed its total numbers and made it seem like more of a pitcher's park than it is.

 

[shockey]

What a load that just was.

thanks, bro! 8) just what i was going for!

by the way, i've lost track of what we were talking about. are you speaking up for the author of the ichiro piece or against him? just trying to be sure we're on opposite sides of this one. like i said, i've lost track. it happens. i'm old.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

In 1985, Boggs recorded 240 hits and still had 96 walks. The following four years, he recorded 200 hit, 100 walk seasons, leading the league twice in walks.

There's also some ridiculous stat around the fact he swung and missed very few balls that were in the strikezone.

Ichiro is a great hitter and a HOF'er. But nobody had the science of hitting down like Boggs, who in my mind was the greatest pure hitter in the last 40 years.

At the 1987 All-Star workout in Oakland, they did this contest before the HR derby where they put these targets out in the field and hitters were supposed to try to hit them. I think the first several hitters didn't even come close and then Boggs came up and just started hitting it over and over again. It was pretty amazing.

 

[shockey]

In 1985, Boggs recorded 240 hits and still had 96 walks. The following four years, he recorded 200 hit, 100 walk seasons, leading the league twice in walks.

There's also some ridiculous stat around the fact he swung and missed very few balls that were in the strikezone.

Ichiro is a great hitter and a HOF'er. But nobody had the science of hitting down like Boggs, who in my mind was the greatest pure hitter in the last 40 years.

At the 1987 All-Star workout in Oakland, they did this contest before the HR derby where they put these targets out in the field and hitters were supposed to try to hit them. I think the first several hitters didn't even come close and then Boggs came up and just started hitting it over and over again. It was pretty amazing.

by the way, if someone can find it, i think it was gammons who did an s.i. piece (in maybe the spring of '87???) with ted williams, boggs and mattingly all together just talking about the sweet science/art of hitting. it included them referring to times in which they fouled off or hit a ball with so much bat-speed they could smell the wood of the bat burning.

 

[qtlaw]

Ichiro is a no doubt HOF'er.

Sure he's had a slight decline this year but that's kicking the guy down when he's down. He'll probably come back with 200 hits at .300 at year end with his stellar defense.

The guy hit .372 with 262 hits? Most guys will say the less official ABs you have, the better chance you have of hitting for a high BA. Ichiro has shown that he's a great hitter by "taking the risk" and hitting rather than working the walk. His situational hitting has been pretty darn good as well.

 

[Mark McGwire]

nope. not nearly the same. 25 homers, 100 rbi is a tangible standard. obp is an intangible, in that it's value changes from player-to-player, depending on a player's speed and the type of hitter he is.

shock, I like you. So let me just say it this way.

Please stop. By the gods, just stop.

 

[JonnyD]

The speed argument I can get. A bit overrated, imo, but I can get why someone would make it.

For the record, though, Ichiro has advanced at least one extra base on 41% of hits when he's on base in his career. The AL average in that time is 40%. So it's not as if he's grabbing bases left and right out there. He takes the bases that everyone takes, for the most part, and maybe a couple of extra ones per year.

But that's a digression from my main point, which is this: Why would type of hitter change how valuable an player's OBP is?