The MLB Thread

[James Ford]

Derek Jeter is not the greatest player ever, even among his current teammates. That honor belongs to Ichiro. Someone please tell me why Ichiro consistently bats eight or ninth in the Yankee lineup, despite having the highest average of any starter?

If Jeter had played in Seattle his whole career, you'd hardly hear anything about him.

[vansmack]

Who cares?

Let's talk about the important things - if you're the Giants/Pirates/A's/Royals, how important is home field for the one game playoff?  Who do you pitch on Sunday if it might decide whether or not you have to travel to, say Pittsburgh or San Francisco?

For the Royals and A's, I hope they think it's very important so their #1 and #2 get used up before the ALDS in Anaheim....

[hutch]

Who cares?

Let's talk about the important things - if you're the Giants/Pirates/A's/Royals, how important is home field for the one game playoff?  Who do you pitch on Sunday if it might decide whether or not you have to travel to, say Pittsburgh or San Francisco?

For the Royals and A's, I hope they think it's very important so their #1 and #2 get used up before the ALDS in Anaheim....

I don't think it is for the Royals...

[hutch]

Derek Jeter is not the greatest player ever, even among his current teammates. That honor belongs to Ichiro. Someone please tell me why Ichiro consistently bats eight or ninth in the Yankee lineup, despite having the highest average of any starter?

If Jeter had played in Seattle his whole career, you'd hardly hear anything about him.

say what? isn't he sixth on the all time hits list?

[Julian, Bespoke SEXPERT]

Derek Jeter is not the greatest player ever, even among his current teammates. That honor belongs to Ichiro. Someone please tell me why Ichiro consistently bats eight or ninth in the Yankee lineup, despite having the highest average of any starter?

If Jeter had played in Seattle his whole career, you'd hardly hear anything about him.

say what? isn't he sixth on the all time hits list?

Had Ichiro spent his whole career in MLB instead of Japan for his prime, he'd probably be top three all time in hits.

[vansmack]

I don't think it is for the Royals...

Probably not, because they're a good road team and Shields is scheduled to throw tomorrow, lining him up nicely for Tuesday.  But what about Oakland being 16 games above .500 at home and -1 on the road? 

I think there's no way Bumgarner throws on Sunday either, but either Liriano or Cole will have to sit for the Bucs.

[hutch]

Derek Jeter is not the greatest player ever, even among his current teammates. That honor belongs to Ichiro. Someone please tell me why Ichiro consistently bats eight or ninth in the Yankee lineup, despite having the highest average of any starter?

If Jeter had played in Seattle his whole career, you'd hardly hear anything about him.

say what? isn't he sixth on the all time hits list?

Had Ichiro spent his whole career in MLB instead of Japan for his prime, he'd probably be top three all time in hits.

I love Ichiro and don't disagree with you although I don't know that I would consider him a better player than Jeter or maybe I would (Listen, I'm a Jeter basher myself but the facts are the facts.. the guy has four or five World Series rings and at least in the first half of his career was fairly clutch...).....but Jeter did spend his whole career and only five people have more hits in the MLB....you can't knock him because of what Ichiro might have accomplished... and, having lived in Japan 5 years, let me assure you Japanese baseball is an entire different animal so don't add all his Japan hits to his US hits or assume its comparable or that he'd have developed the same way had he been born in the US or something....

is Jeter limping towards the end? yes.... is he a defensive liability? yes..... but at the end of the day he proved his naysayer wrong.. i thought he was done quite  a few years ago and the guy that ended up being done was Nomar... Jeter recaptured some of his magic and prolonged his career in a way i did not think possible..although he was never mr. clutch again.

[James Ford]

Baseball is a team sport. Jeter has five rings because George bought the teams that could win five rings. If Jeter had been on the Mariners, the Yanks would probably still have won five Series. The Seattle owners never spent any money, of course Ichiro never got any rings.

[Julian, Bespoke SEXPERT]

Judging players based on TEAM titles "they" won is a really dumb - albeit popular - way for people who don't like critical thinking to make assessments.

[Julian, Bespoke SEXPERT]

I love Ichiro and don't disagree with you although I don't know that I would consider him a better player than Jeter or maybe I would (Listen, I'm a Jeter basher myself but the facts are the facts.. the guy has four or five World Series rings and at least in the first half of his career was fairly clutch...).....but Jeter did spend his whole career and only five people have more hits in the MLB....you can't knock him because of what Ichiro might have accomplished... and, having lived in Japan 5 years, let me assure you Japanese baseball is an entire different animal so don't add all his Japan hits to his US hits or assume its comparable or that he'd have developed the same way had he been born in the US or something....

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1737669-how-many-hits-would-ichiro-have-had-if-his-entire-career-was-in-mlb (conservative estimate - 3550)

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/7/2/3124028/could-ichiro-have-passed-pete-rose (liberal estimate - 3900 a year ago)

I'm loathe to link to Bleacher Report but since I can't find the analysis I remembered reading, this was a pretty good, cited link to some analysis that agrees with the idea that hypothetical MLB-Only Ichiro would not have lost a ton of his 4,000 professional hits.

[Julian, Bespoke SEXPERT]

Smacks, a hypothetical:

Let's say Cleveland somehow wins out and gets to 88 wins. Kansas City falters (in part because of Cleveland sweeping them) and gets to 88 wins. Seattle only wins 3 more and also finishes with 88 wins. Oakland wins at least 3 and gets the first wild card, and Detroit wins the Central. With three teams tied for the second wild-card spot, what sort of weird one-game round robin would we be looking at?

Hypothetical number 2: the same as above but this time Oakland stumbles down the stretch and all four teams are tied at 88 wins? How does that Wild Card scenario get resolved?

[Yada]

@bookert

let's go bucs!

https://vine.co/v/O7tjEJzYAQ5

[shemptiness]

Smacks, a hypothetical:

Let's say Cleveland somehow wins out and gets to 88 wins. Kansas City falters (in part because of Cleveland sweeping them) and gets to 88 wins. Seattle only wins 3 more and also finishes with 88 wins. Oakland wins at least 3 and gets the first wild card, and Detroit wins the Central. With three teams tied for the second wild-card spot, what sort of weird one-game round robin would we be looking at?

Hypothetical number 2: the same as above but this time Oakland stumbles down the stretch and all four teams are tied at 88 wins? How does that Wild Card scenario get resolved?

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/59527184/playoff-tiebreaker-rules

[Julian, Bespoke SEXPERT]

Smacks, a hypothetical:

Let's say Cleveland somehow wins out and gets to 88 wins. Kansas City falters (in part because of Cleveland sweeping them) and gets to 88 wins. Seattle only wins 3 more and also finishes with 88 wins. Oakland wins at least 3 and gets the first wild card, and Detroit wins the Central. With three teams tied for the second wild-card spot, what sort of weird one-game round robin would we be looking at?

Hypothetical number 2: the same as above but this time Oakland stumbles down the stretch and all four teams are tied at 88 wins? How does that Wild Card scenario get resolved?

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/59527184/playoff-tiebreaker-rules

Thank you, but you're missing some of the subtle nuance of this situation. Smackie greatly enjoys researching this sort of baseball minutia and explaining it to me, and I greatly enjoy not having to do any research whatsoever and listening to my baseball bed time story from Uncle Smacks. Yes, I can get the information this way, but you're ruining it for us. *stomps foot*

[shemptiness]

Yankees officially eliminated.  Jeter watches from the on deck circle.