Wilt Chamberlain Pic
- Thread starter twwilliams9
- Start date
Bad Take. You're confusing longevity with consistency and not just consistency but consistent excellence.
Forget that he even played the last 10 years of his career. Most guys get 200 hits only a few times in theirs, this man averaged 200 hits the FIRST 5, 10 or 15 YEARS OF HIS!!! Pick a time frame, he was great from the get go!
Had a career .303 batting average and .375 OBP.
3 Batting Titles
2 Gold Gloves
3 World Championships
Rookie of the Year
League MVP
World Series MVP
None of those have anything to do with longevity. People say he was just singles hitter, he is second in all time doubles and I watched him hit 3 homers in a game against the Dodgers. The guy could have hit for power but chose to be a contact hitter by design and was as good as any that ever played the game at what he did. Thats why he's great and could have been great in todays game too.
Yeah you hit a nerve
I hate (not really) to make you realize that your childhood hero, was a good, a very good player. But the greatest of all time? Not even close. Not top 10, nor top 20. Maybe he has a chance at top 20 since WW2, maybe. (that's a whole other discussion, but I'd start with Williams, Musial, Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Clemente, Bonds, Griffey Jr, Pujols, Gwynn, A-Rod, and haven't even thought about pitchers yet).Bad Take. You're confusing longevity with consistency and not just consistency but consistent excellence.
Forget that he even played the last 10 years of his career. Most guys get 200 hits only a few times in theirs, this man averaged 200 hits the FIRST 5, 10 or 15 YEARS OF HIS!!! Pick a time frame, he was great from the get go!
Had a career .303 batting average and .375 OBP.
3 Batting Titles
2 Gold Gloves
3 World Championships
Rookie of the Year
League MVP
World Series MVP
None of those have anything to do with longevity. People say he was just singles hitter, he is second in all time doubles and I watched him hit 3 homers in a game against the Dodgers. The guy could have hit for power but chose to be a contact hitter by design and was as good as any that ever played the game at what he did. Thats why he's great and could have been great in todays game too.
Yeah you hit a nerve
I tried to help you/him out, tossing out his first 2 years (.271) and his last 7 years (.274), and only focusing on his prime 15 years (which is a long prime, = longevity). Yes he was somewhat consistent, not really any more than other good hitters, ranging from .348 to .284 those years. Even his 25% & 75% percentile averages were not that close together (.305 & .327).
As for the hits, a big factor in that was his ABs, batting 1st or 2nd on an offensive machine, not missing many games, and not taking a lot of BBs. Over those 15 years he averaged 729 PAs and 646 ABs per year. Those are huge #'s. Naturally more ABs >> more Hits, especially for a very good hitter, resulting in 204 hits per year those 15 years. But for those 15 years his .316 BA, 204 hits, 38 2b, 7 3b, 10 HRs, 63 RBI, 9 SB were very good, but not the best of the best.
Let's look at Tony Gwynn, who in his prime 15 years hit .341 BA, 185 hits, 31 doubles, 5 triples, 8 HRs, 66 RBI, 20 SB.
Boggs was .334 in his prime years. And so on.
The main difference in the 2 is Gwynn was a much better hitter (25 points higher), but Rose played more games 19 more per season on higher scoring teams, resulting in 100 more AB per season.
So maybe Rose was great at not getting hurt, or playing (well) through injuries.
I also believe Rose could have hit for more power (like most batting-average focused hitters), but knew it would lower his average and he knew his role on his teams.
As for the TEAM accomplishments, yes he played on some great teams. So what.
As for him in "today's game". If he were playing today, I wouldn't want him to change a thing. Rose, Carew, Boggs, Gwynn could play in any era. Everyone doesn't have to hit HRs.
BTW, you aren't going to "out-numbers me". I am a career Statistician (analyze and interpret data using statistical analysis), who was analyzing baseball stats by the time I was 7 or 8.
I didn’t see Pistol Pete mentioned. Aroldis Chapman is a super human at one particular thing. I think Cal Ripken deserves a huge nod for durability; being able to play EVERY SINGLE GAME at the highest level of competition for that long requires super human like health and consistency.
If I recall correctly, Ripken played EVERY INNING for a huge chunk of that streak. No late inning at bat to keep it alive. He played every pitch in every game for many years.
Not saying you’re right or wrong but Pete Rose holds the distinction of being the only player in history to play 5 different positions in All Stat game history.
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/sports/mlb/2024-mlb-all-star-game/3589580/
Bill James is the father of sabermetrics. He wrote a book in the year 2000 or so in which he rated players, talked about decades and told interesting stories. I forget the exact years, but over a ten year period he rated Musial the best player in the NL eight times, second best once and in the Navy during WW 2 the other year.
Yep, greatest player from top to bottom, person and player. Best clutch player, with men on base year after year. Once saw, in person Willie May's hit 3 home runs and Stan the Man 2 in a double header, will always remember that day a Old Sportsman Park in the 50's.
I remember where many restaurants would not serve you if you were not dressed well and men had to have a tie.
I saw my first pro game at Sportsmanship Park. Musial got a double off the screen in right. Do you know why there was a screen? For those who do not, Gussie Busch owned the team back then and he was worried about how much money they were losing on baseball's from batting practice home runs, so he had that tall screen built from the right field line to way out in right center. Cost Stan a lot of homers.
Btw, when they built the original Busch stadium, Busch wanted to name it Budweiser Stadium after his premium beer. MLB said he could not promote beer. He told MLB, Fine I will just name it after myself.
