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  1. #1176
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    It's so weird to me that in your argument of who was the best hitter of baseballs and getting on base from that, you actually ignore the concept of, ya know, getting on base? And ignore that the best hitter of baseballs might be the guy who gets on base more. You use "at bats" as a stat, willfully ignoring that walks don't count as at bats. Like, walks are completely irrelevant to you.

    In any baseball situation -- down runs or tied, men on or bases empty -- isn't the best hitter the guy you'd most want at bat? To start a rally or drive guys in? In no world is that Gwynn. I mean, sure, if you narrowly define best hitter as the guy who is most likely to get a "hit", and treat walks the same as outs, and give extra credit for avoiding strikeouts (because that means you didn't hit the ball), then sure, I'll give you Gwynn. But that's an utterly bizarre way to define best hitter, divorced from the actual reality of the game.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  2. #1177
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    Quote Originally Posted by fomofo View Post
    I remember reading something by Williams, (may have been in The Science of Hitting), where Ty Cobb was encouraging him to just hit it into the open field when teams put the shift on him, and Williams was just all, nah, not me, not gonna do that. Worked for him.

    Always sweet to see a guy do that and get a base hit, though.

    And love hearing the greats talk...

    ted Williams hit things that were shooting back at him too

    its like how you have to respect jimmy Stewart’s great big brass balls

  3. #1178
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    Quote Originally Posted by stealurface831 View Post
    Babe Ruth is the single greatest era-adjusted hitter ever. And it isn’t all that close. All-time leader in: SLG, OPS, WRC+, WOBA, WRAA, ISO, and oWAR.


    Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums
    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    It's so weird to me that in your argument of who was the best hitter of baseballs and getting on base from that, you actually ignore the concept of, ya know, getting on base? And ignore that the best hitter of baseballs might be the guy who gets on base more. You use "at bats" as a stat, willfully ignoring that walks don't count as at bats. Like, walks are completely irrelevant to you.

    In any baseball situation -- down runs or tied, men on or bases empty -- isn't the best hitter the guy you'd most want at bat? To start a rally or drive guys in? In no world is that Gwynn. I mean, sure, if you narrowly define best hitter as the guy who is most likely to get a "hit", and treat walks the same as outs, and give extra credit for avoiding strikeouts (because that means you didn't hit the ball), then sure, I'll give you Gwynn. But that's an utterly bizarre way to define best hitter, divorced from the actual reality of the game.
    Because art matters. Because the beauty of a skill transcends what you do with it, and lifts us up as a human race. Ray Allen's jump shot matters. Barry Sanders' cutbacks matter. Franz Klammer at Innsbruck matters. Reaching the absolute limit and edge of what humans can do matters. When it came to the art of putting a ball in play with a bat, which is the fundamental building block of baseball, Tony Gwynn was the best there ever was, and that matters. Babe Ruth was perhaps the greatest baseball player in terms of impact (SUF's argument above - and its a good position for sure.) But when we are kids in backyards no one cares about walks or stolen bases or infield shifts. Hitting a ball with a stick is primal, foundational, elegant and art. And I care deeply about who was the best to ever do that. And that was Gwynn.

    From sabr.org:
    I met baseball’s best hitter! No, not Babe Ruth, who died in 1948. He is baseball’s best batter. No, not Ty Cobb, who died on my fourth birthday, in 1961. He is baseball’s best “unadjusted” hitter. Not Honus Wagner (who actually had a .328 lifetime batting average). Not Ted Williams. Not even Wee Willie Keeler! To a sabermetrician like me, adjustments are important — nay, critical — to evaluating player performance. The moniker “baseball’s best hitter” properly belongs to Tony Gwynn.

    First, I should explain that the term “best hitter” is a vague one. I define it to be “best at getting hits.” The classic metric for this is batting average. Some baseball pundits prefer to say that batting average measures ability as a “pure hitter” rather than as a “hitter.” OK, fine. Call Gwynn “baseball’s best pure hitter.” Why should we even care about this title, though? Aren’t sabermetricians all about wins, wins, wins, which essentially comes from runs, runs, runs — so concepts like WAR (wins above replacement), OPS (on-base-plus-slugging), or linear weights become the metrics of choice? Well, this sabermetrician cares about more than wins. There is an art to hitting — baseball swings can be beautiful. Just watch a regular-season game. A single typically gets much more applause than a walk. In Internet terms, it gets more “likes.” Winning shouldn’t be everything, otherwise a late-season game between two non-contenders should just be canceled.

    Oh, I define “best batter” (or perhaps “best all-around batter”) as the player with the best ability to produce runs (thus wins) in a given plate appearance, while “best player” is the best all-around player, which includes baserunning, fielding, and pitching abilities. Yes, Babe Ruth wins both of these awards.

  4. #1179
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    Quote Originally Posted by EWG View Post
    Gwynn had 200 more hits than Bonds in 600 fewer at bats.
    600 At bats is basically a season. Bonds had 2500 walks compared to Gwynn's 790, if you give him the difference of at bats he might have had 100 more home runs. I agree that there is value in not striking out, absolutely, and forcing the opposing team to make the play and power isn't everything but his ISO was 20% less than league average. You can't be "the best" when you don't have the power to leave the yard imo.

    Quote Originally Posted by EWG View Post
    Now, the second argument: You like stats instead of the eye test? So does the Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org) (huuuuuge geek alert)
    They think Gwynn was the best, and they have the most analyzed argument for it you could ever imagine. Fire up your calculators and go here: https://sabr.org/journal/article/ton...s-best-hitter/

    pff, what do you they know?
    j'ai des grands instants de lucididididididididi

  5. #1180
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    I mean, Barry Bonds had 2,374 more plate appearances than Gwynn (PA is a much better measure than "at bats"). Bonds got on base (hits plus walks) 5,493 times. Gwynn got on base 3,931 times. So, in those extra 2,374 plate appearances, Bonds got on base 1,562 more times than Gwynn; Bonds made only 812 more outs than Gwynn even though he had 2,374 more plate appearances. And a groundout is the same as a strikeout (the stats guys argue about the finer points of this but simply put they're the same). And you're telling me Gwynn is the greatest hitter ever? Isn't the greatest hitter the guy who is less likely to make an out? Note I have not talked about slugging at all, just not making an out.

    The article you linked defines it as “best at getting hits.” Which is an absurd way to look at hitting, it says a guy like Jose Altuve is a better career "hitter" than Joey Votto because he has a career BA that is 8 points higher, even though Votto has led the league in OBP 7 times and has a career OBP that is 53 points higher than Altuve. But ok, in a world where Altuve is a better hitter than Votto (again, not even mentioning slugging), then sure, Gwynn is the best hitter ever.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  6. #1181
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    When a guy walks up to the plate, nobody says "the outcome of this event doesn't matter unless he makes an out or gets a hit, anything else is irrelevant". When a guy walks up to the plate, the fundamental question is going to be when his time at the plate is done, did he make an out or not.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  7. #1182
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    Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter I ever saw. Fight me.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  8. #1183
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter I ever saw. Fight me.
    preach the true gospel

  9. #1184
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    Quote Originally Posted by EWG View Post
    First, I should explain that the term “best hitter” is a vague one. I define it to be “best at getting hits.” The classic metric for this is batting average. Some baseball pundits prefer to say that batting average measures ability as a “pure hitter” rather than as a “hitter.” OK, fine. Call Gwynn “baseball’s best pure hitter.” Why should we even care about this title, though? Aren’t sabermetricians all about wins, wins, wins, which essentially comes from runs, runs, runs — so concepts like WAR (wins above replacement), OPS (on-base-plus-slugging), or linear weights become the metrics of choice? Well, this sabermetrician cares about more than wins. There is an art to hitting — baseball swings can be beautiful. Just watch a regular-season game. A single typically gets much more applause than a walk. In Internet terms, it gets more “likes.” Winning shouldn’t be everything, otherwise a late-season game between two non-contenders should just be canceled.
    I am surprised that was written in 2019. Is that accurate? If 'best hitter' is best at getting hits, can you convince me we should discount Ichiro and the years he spent in Japan? Gwynn had 3100 hits but Ichiro may have racked up over 4k. He had 3089 despite not starting until he was 27.
    j'ai des grands instants de lucididididididididi

  10. #1185
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    And a groundout is the same as a strikeout (the stats guys argue about the finer points of this but simply put they're the same).
    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    When a guy walks up to the plate, nobody says "the outcome of this event doesn't matter unless he makes an out or gets a hit, anything else is irrelevant". When a guy walks up to the plate, the fundamental question is going to be when his time at the plate is done, did he make an out or not.
    Huh. Kind of a thinker there

  11. #1186
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    Barry had only 102 less INTENTIONAL walks than Gwynn had walks his entire career (688 to 790). Barry had a season with more intentional walks than Gwynn ever had regular walks in a single season (120 to 82). And Barry's 2nd and 3rd best years for intentional walks (68 and 61) were greater than Gwynn's 2nd best year of regular walks (59).

    And since Greg Maddux was brought up, admittedly Gwynn hit him like crazy, better than Bonds actually. And Maddux called Bonds "the easiest guy in the world to pitch to." However, he said that because "if it mattered you just walked him. He was so much better than all the other hitters in the game. You got to pick your fights. You got to get 27 outs and you got to know where they are. They’re not going to be with him. So you got pick on the other eight guys if you can fight them that way.”
    Last edited by Danno; 08-11-2022 at 05:05 PM.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  12. #1187
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    Barry Bonds is the greatest hitter I ever saw. Fight me.
    You know where I live

    Quote Originally Posted by ex-powderbroker View Post
    I am surprised that was written in 2019. Is that accurate? If 'best hitter' is best at getting hits, can you convince me we should discount Ichiro and the years he spent in Japan? Gwynn had 3100 hits but Ichiro may have racked up over 4k. He had 3089 despite not starting until he was 27.
    This is an interesting point for sure

    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    And a groundout is the same as a strikeout (the stats guys argue about the finer points of this but simply put they're the same).
    Untrue. A groundout can advance or score a runner. So can a flyout. A strikeout cannot. It's the most selfish play in baseball.

    Quote Originally Posted by ex-powderbroker View Post

    pff, what do you they know?
    This, right here, is the only counter argument I'm accepting. FKNA.

    This stuff is fun, right?

    EDIT: Not gonna lie, I find it both surprising and amusing that this has Danno so riled up. Danno you make good points, I just disagree. And now we wait a bit for Danno to do more research...

    Lawyers.

  13. #1188
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    Quote Originally Posted by EWG View Post
    Untrue. A groundout can advance or score a runner. So can a flyout. A strikeout cannot. It's the most selfish play in baseball.
    This is why I said the stats guys argue this. Because a groundout can also be a double play. And a groundout can come on a first pitch, whereas a K requires 3 minimum, and usually more, and is often seen as better in terms of getting higher pitch counts, which benefits the team. Lots of stats guys argue the finer points of this, but there is little evidence to suggest that a strikeout is “worse” than a groundout, popout, or any other means of making an out, with respect to generating runs.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  14. #1189
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    This is why I said the stats guys argue this. Because a groundout can also be a double play. And a groundout can come on a first pitch, whereas a K requires 3 minimum, and usually more, and is often seen as better in terms of getting higher pitch counts, which benefits the team. Lots of stats guys argue the finer points of this, but there is little evidence to suggest that a strikeout is “worse” than a groundout, popout, or any other means of making an out, with respect to generating runs.
    Is this the point where we agree to disagree except for one point that we both agree on: stats guys are annoying?

  15. #1190
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    Stats guys are annoying, but useful.

    It just seems really weird that you take the position that the strikeout is the "most selfish play in baseball" yet you also take the position that a groundout is not more selfish than a walk, that essentially it's better for a hitter -- to be a "hitter" -- to ground out than get a walk. Which is utterly bizarre. Because there's no world where a hitter should choose over and over again to groundout versus take a walk, simply because by grounding out they were making contact.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  16. #1191
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    Peak Bonds (2001-2004) was so far and away better than any hitter in history, that I don’t really know how someone could even argue against it.

    And while those Gwynn stats listed up thread are amazing, they don’t touch all of the crazy Bonds stats. One of my favorites is that he had 5 seasons with an OBP over .400 with an 0-2 count.

  17. #1192
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    Because there's no world where a hitter should choose over and over again to groundout versus take a walk, simply because by grounding out they were making contact.
    Could you tell this to IKF? As good as Gwynn was at getting hits, IKF is god mode for killing worms in the infield.
    j'ai des grands instants de lucididididididididi

  18. #1193
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    International Kickboxing Federation?
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  19. #1194
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danno View Post
    International Kickboxing Federation?
    You don't read the post or listen to the fan?
    j'ai des grands instants de lucididididididididi

  20. #1195
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    I'm assuming that your post has something to do with the Yankees. And there's your answer.
    "fuck off you asshat gaper shit for brains fucktard wanker." - Jesus Christ
    "She was tossing her bean salad with the vigor of a Drunken Pop princess so I walked out of the corner and said.... "need a hand?"" - Odin
    "everybody's got their hooks into you, fuck em....forge on motherfuckers, drag all those bitches across the goal line with you." - (not so) ill-advised strategy

  21. #1196
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    I interrupt the argument with a TheRookieKwan update. 1-3 with 2 walks in a Guards 4-3 win. Guards 7 games over 500 and rolling, and Kwan back over .300.

    That is all.

  22. #1197
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    Quote Originally Posted by EWG View Post
    I interrupt the argument with a TheRookieKwan update. 1-3 with 2 walks in a Guards 4-3 win. Guards 7 games over 500 and rolling, and Kwan back over .300.

    That is all.
    The Dao of Steve(n Kwan).



    Anyone else see that fucking Iowa State Fair loaded baked potato they got out there at this Field of Dreams Game?

    I want that.

    Like, really want that.
    I still call it The Jake.

  23. #1198
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    Holy shit.

    That moon, those clouds, over that field.

    Someone in production nailed it.
    I still call it The Jake.

  24. #1199
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    Iowa's beauty is greatly underrated.

  25. #1200
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    Kind of fun story that I just found out about 5 minutes ago - Manny's, Pedro's and Papi's kids are all on the same Sox developmental team together and their Dads are often seen around the clubhouse. They honestly seem like nice kids. http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=34313749

    And the Sox finally win a series against the AL East! Okay it was a one-game series against the O's. But still!

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