Then explain it
Don't be like dahsdebater

I see I have to elaborate.

Beltre and Ichiro were a couple of the top players at their position during their careers.  Perhaps top players in their era.  All-stars.   Very good.   However, that doesn't make them Hall of Famers.    Except, in Ichiro's case, he was a historically significant player.   First Asian position player to be a difference maker.   An iconic player.  Thus making him HOF material.   Beltre is just another very good Dominican player.

Can't believe ANYONE thought I was speaking of their specific skill sets.   

I did!

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/26/2014 11:11:00 PM (view original):
Beltre has an ISO of .195.  Ichiro's ISO is .094.  Beltre is likely to finish his career with near 500 HRs; he already has over 500 doubles.  Ichiro is unlikely to eclipse 600 XBH.  Ichiro still has an outside shot at backing into 500 career steals at a high success rate.  Beltre has 117 career steals with a fairly poor success rate.

In what way are those offensive MOs not, essentially, polar opposites?  Yes, as BL said, they both get a lot of hits and not many walks.  Outside of that, Ichiro's game is speed, and Beltre's is power.  I can't believe you would need that explained to you.

It is not unreasonable, as you yourself said, to assume people commenting in this forum are generally baseball literate - in fact, your words were much stronger than that.  Doesn't seem that it should be necessary to explain to anyone who has paid any attention whatsoever to the careers of Beltre and Ichiro how their offensive games are focused around very different strengths - indeed, opposite strengths.

You gotta know the definition of ASSUME,
right?

Posted by MikeT23 on 7/27/2014 7:04:00 AM (view original):
I see I have to elaborate.

Beltre and Ichiro were a couple of the top players at their position during their careers.  Perhaps top players in their era.  All-stars.   Very good.   However, that doesn't make them Hall of Famers.    Except, in Ichiro's case, he was a historically significant player.   First Asian position player to be a difference maker.   An iconic player.  Thus making him HOF material.   Beltre is just another very good Dominican player.

Can't believe ANYONE thought I was speaking of their specific skill sets.   

But Beltre isn't "just another very good Dominican player." He's one of the 5 or 6 best third basemen ever.

Oh dear.

I'm out

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/27/2014 4:30:00 PM (view original):

Posted by MikeT23 on 7/27/2014 7:04:00 AM (view original):
I see I have to elaborate.

Beltre and Ichiro were a couple of the top players at their position during their careers.  Perhaps top players in their era.  All-stars.   Very good.   However, that doesn't make them Hall of Famers.    Except, in Ichiro's case, he was a historically significant player.   First Asian position player to be a difference maker.   An iconic player.  Thus making him HOF material.   Beltre is just another very good Dominican player.

Can't believe ANYONE thought I was speaking of their specific skill sets.   

Beltre plays 3rd base and has 4284 career total bases.  Ichiro plays the corner outfield and has 3638 total bases.  Even if you throw in SB-CS, and especially if you give Beltre credit for his 92 more career walks - and then even if you normalize for the fact that Ichiro has a few hundred fewer career plate appearances - it is clear that Beltre is the more accomplished offensive player.  If you give any positional weighting at all, it isn't even close.  To say they are equivalent is ridiculous.

Also, Beltre was not only one of the best 3B during his era, but one of the better 3B of all time.  I don't know that I would say top 5 or 6, but top 10.  I don't even know that I buy that Ichiro was ever one of the top players at his position.  I would say that at various times during his career, even in his absolute prime, he was realistically outclassed by guys like Manny Ramirez, Vlad Guerrero (Ichiro with power?), Bobby Abreu, Magglio Ordonez, Larry Walker, Gary Sheffield, Jayson Werth,  Jose Bautista, and even Lance Berkman.  And that's just off the top of my head.  I'm probably missing a few.  Don't think he overlapped with Albert Belle at all...

Anyway, it's an absurd comparison in any case.

The HOF isn't a stat comparison only.   I thought we'd discussed this before. 

You're still ignoring the fact that Beltre was one of the greatest 3b of all time and Ichiro wasn't even the best OF during his career. I would put Ichiro in the top 10 RF.

I'm still having trouble digesting "I don't even know that I buy that Ichiro was ever one of the top players at his position".    Seems that a lot of "baseball people" disagree with your assessment.

Posted by dahsdebater on 7/28/2014 1:40:00 AM (view original):
Top 10 ever, or top 10 in 2001 and 2004?

Typo. Should say "wouldn't."