Submitted by Whyld1, Apr 12, 2007 10:37

I like a lot of the assumptions you made. and the historical significance aspect of Jackie's career beg the inclusion of Cal Ripken into the discussion, but statistically Ripken, is not anywhere near a top twenty player. He hit .270, leads all players for hitting into double plays (ALL TIME!), was notoriously slow of foot (stole like 36 bases in 20+ years, and was thrown out stealing 39 times). Defensively, an argument can be made, but he had half the range of players like Jeter, Reyes, Ozzie Smith, Vizquel, etc., so I have always felt these discussions were more subjective than objective.

Cal played a lot of games in a row, played a good shortstop and averaged 20 homers a year for 20 years, didn't hit for high average, or walk a lot, or hurt you with speed, and killed a lot of rallies with double-play balls. Not a top twenty player, except for historical significance. I remember a lot of the Total Average (total bases averaged per at bat, including steals, walks, and subtracting 2 for double plays, etc.) discussions of the 1980's and Ripken was consistently shown to be an average, and sometimes weak, player, offensively, while guys like Henderson and Bonds were shown to be consistently far beyond the rest of the league. Two excellent seasons actually skew his numbers up, and his average season is actually very, very ordinary for a full time starting player. The homers may be high for a SS, but his average, the number of steals, and the amount of DPs mitigate his offensive value downwards, for sure.

Thanks for putting Jackie's abilities in perspective, though. Very interesting.

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