Yankee Fans: Morons

That's pretty much what Mauer is now, a Jason Kendall clone. I'm glad I'm not buying tickets to support a $20 million a year catcher who can't hit the ball out of the infield. What a disappointment he's become.

 

I just don't understand where you're coming from. Any fan would be thrilled to have Jeter on their team, except you apparently.

 

I got into an argument with an old-time Yankee fan who said Jeter is one of the top five shortstops of all time.
I laughed and said he wasn't a top five Yankee of all time. Then I started mentioning stats and he said that's all the younger generation cares about. Well, that's the only fair way to judge them I tried to explain before he started yelling some more BS about how great Jeter is.
Jeter is a great player who turned into a mythical type of player because he played in New York. He's Barry Larkin without the fanfare.
And I love when Yankee fans say they'd rather have Jeter in their prime than A-Rod. Why?
"Jee-tuh wins. He's a winnuh."
He was a perfect piece of the championship puzzle, surrounded by a good amount of talent that also carried their weight. Jeter wasn't throwing those Yankee teams on his back the entire season.
I respect Jeter, but when his career is over, what will he be remembered for?
1) Being on teams that won six titles
2) The play vs. Oakland
3) The play vs. Boston where he dove into the seats.

That's not nearly enough to be as good as so many claim he is.

 

So, apparently, you can't read, either. I'm not saying the guy sucked. He's a Hall of Famer. But as Mizzou pointed out, he can be both a Hall of Famer and vastly overrated and he is both.

He is nowhere close to Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle and the declining skills he has now aren't going to get him there. I'm not sure why that is so hard for you to accept.

 

All of which is completely irrelevant to the 2009 MVP award.

Can't get the ball out of the infield? Sounds like your hero Jeter the entire first half of this season.

 

Well then it sounds like our only point of disagreement is over what Jeter will accomplish in the rest of his career

 

I want to go back to what was said earlier about Jeter's defense. It is not a universal truth that Jeter is a below average shortstop. Bill James himself has renounced many of his defensive metrics and admitted that is essentially unknowable how many runs Jeter has saved in his career compared to an average shortstop.

 

If that is what you really think, I have met five-year-olds who do a better job with reading comprehension than you do.

 

I want to come back to this, because everyone is forgetting a guy who should fit right in with Munson, Reggie and Maris in the Memory Makers category: Catfish Hunter, one of the best clutch pitchers of his era. True, he made his fame with Oakland, but it is no coincidence that when Hunter arrived in the Bronx, the Yankees started winning championships again.

 

Did Hunter ever have that one, single defining moment, though? His perfect game came with Oakland. During the two world series seasons with the Yankees he won a total of 21 games. He's closer to the A-Rod/Clemens group than the Memory Makers.
The Memory Makers all had one moment that's indelible -- Reggie's three-homer game in the World Series, Munson's plane crash (the only thing putting him in this group instead of the fan favorites, honestly) and Maris' 61-homer season. That's what separates them from the pack. Hunter never had that, at least not with the Yankees.

And I'd also like to take this opportunity to make an addition to my original list. I'd put David Wells in the Fan Favorites category. His personality (and gut) was huge there for a spell, and it clearly made his perfect game a more memorable piece of Yankees lore than Cone's. He wasn't great enough for his perfect game to sneak him into the Memory Makers category, but he deserves a place above the guys who missed the cut.

 

Just wanted to chime in with props to Batman for his list. (Although Gomez and Grove are only similar in name -- Grove is still one of the top five lefties of all time, Gomez had some great seasons but is one of the worst Hall of Fame selections ever.)

And yeah, I wouldn't list Hunter on any list of greatest Yankees, even as a Fan Favorite. He was well on the downswing by then. Wasn't even all that good in the postseason, either (2-4, 4.70 in 8 games for NYY).

Cone has more of a case in the Memory Maker division, I think. His perfect game with Larsen/Berra in the house was the defining moment of the record-setting '98 season and his critical Game 3 start in the '96 Series launched the dynasty in the first place.