SI.com's "Things We Miss in Baseball."

You should have been around when the early Mets, Cubs, KC A's and Senators were around. Same thing, except the previews weren't as blunt about their hopelessness.

 

Pretty much all MLB teams make money, and tons of it. Some make tons and tons and tons of it. And one makes tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of it.

 

And those that don't win and cry the most about how they can't compete tend to be the ones that makes tons and tons and tons and tons and tons and tons of it.

 

Maybe Gannett can sponsor it's own awards for teams by dividing wins by payroll.

 

This is fascinating, actually.

It's true, Ted Williams never had a 200-hit season.

He also never had more than 566 at-bats in any single season.

With the exception of last year, Juan Pierre has never had a full season where he had as few as 566 ABs.

Here's the difference - Teddy Ballgame drew an average of 143 walks per season. Pierre has 334 walks in 10 years.

Pierre collected 204 hits in 2006, but he had 699 at-bats and wound up with a .292 batting average. That's not a pure hitter, or at least not one who deserves to be too favourably compared with Ted Williams.

 

Oh, I wasn't trying to compare him to Teddy Ballgame, of course. (The 200-hit question was part of the trivia contest at our SABR chapter meeting last week. I just wanted to throw it out here because it's such a fascinating stat.)

And you're right: the walks make the difference. Williams was within striking distance (<20 hits) of 200 in seven different seasons, so he easily could have gotten there if he ever swung at anything resembling a ball.

But Pierre's not that bad of an example when it comes to "pure hitters" in today's game. Despite his obvious limitations -- he can only hit singles or triples, which is an odd combo; and he never walks -- he's a .301 lifetime hitter (with a higher OBP than Al Oliver, by 4 points). He'll probably end up with 2,000 hits and 500 stolen bases. Got as much respect for the game and its history as anybody playing. In terms of what people miss about baseball, you can do a lot worse than to root for that guy.

 

Didn't have Strat-O-Matic but used to play this all the time:



Buddy of mine was a big Strat-O-Matric guy and actually recreated the entire 1981 season, every team, every game. Took him something like 11 years.

 

Juan Pierre fucking sucks.

 

I don't think slapping weakly at every pitch you see and assuming that your speed and luck will get you enough hits to keep you in the league, even while you provide almost nothing of real offensive value, counts as being a "pure" hitter.

 

When fans talked more about the game than player's salaries.

 

Brook's mustache.

 

In other words, Juan Pierre fucking sucks.