Posted by italyprof on 4/7/2014 7:56:00 PM (view original):
Though it is also worth pointing out that one other factor, the prevention of real competition by segregation pre-1950s (1947, but the real overall effect of integration was not felt until there was a critical mass of black players), means that the stats for the best players before that era, including many ahead of Jeter - who let's recall would have been considered "black" by the racist categorizations of the time (one drop of black blood etc.) due to his African-American father - and so prevented from playing at all in the ML before 1947 - are also inflated. So Jeter again, like all post-1947 players is better historically than his number indicated EVEN after being adjusted for things like eras-league averages.
Again, you're OBVIOUSLY grasping at straws to try to prove your point. Pete Rose didn't play during the segregation era. You're just trying to throw arguments against the wall and see what sticks. I've never seen this from you before, and it's incredibly disappointing.
Segregation era arguments are stupid anyway. The proportion of all male people in the United States between the ages of 20 and 40 playing Major League Baseball right now is several times smaller than the proportion of white male people in the United States between the ages of 20 and 40 playing Major League Baseball at any point prior to 1947. But realistically, that has very little to do with racial integration and everything to do with internationalizing the game and general population growth. At the end of the day, there are far too many factors to consider when determining relative talent eras beyond saying something like "during WW2 the talent in MLB was substantially lower than at any other time in the modern history of the game." If you want to have any kind of intelligent discussion at all, you have to just treat people relative to their peers. And Jeter was good relative to his peers, probably better than Rose on a per PA basis, but not at getting on base.
And what makes you so sure that Jeter isn't one of those guys getting an advantage from PEDs? There is virtually nobody I would just assume was clean. There are guys I would like to believe were clean. Jeter I have no idea about. His ability to stay healthy was, at the very least, a little bit suspicious. I'm not saying he used, and I'm not saying he didn't. I'm saying you don't know. So again, you can't make an argument that because of PEDs, some guys stats should be considered more impressive relative to anyone else from any era. Because you don't know which guys they are. You just have to take everybody relative to his peers and compare him to other guys relative to their peers. It's really the only way to do it, because anything else is pure conjecture.
The reality is that you made a stupid argument about OBP, ignoring league averages, and now you can't back off of it because it's your primary defense of Jeter as an elite player. He wasn't an elite player. He was a very good player, and a well-deserving Hall of Famer. But he was never nearly as good as Yankees fans wanted to believe he was. At least not during the regular season. And since he wasn't, you have to grasp at straws and then pure air trying to put together arguments that don't even begin to hold water, because for some reason it's important for so many people for Derek Jeter to be a historically great player. I don't get it. You guys won titles as a team, be happy about that.