Towards the end of last night's Mets' trouncing of the Yankees, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan were discussing the hottest hitters in baseball. Miller brought up Lance Berkman within the context of Lance batting something like .600 over his past 60-65 AB's. Morgan praised Berkman for being a consistent hitter who was also hitting for power. If anyone is unfamiliar with Joe Morgan, this sort of vague, otherwise uninspiring response is actually the highest of praise from the Hall of Famer. Larry Wayne Jones had some dap thrown his way for his higher than .400 BA.
So, while he was mentioned, Lance was brushed aside without too much hesitation by either man. I immediately thought of a game between those same Mets and the Phillies probably 2 Sundays ago when Chase Utley was in the middle of a hot streak himself. Listening to those two prattle on and on about the greatness that is Utley was almost too much. They sounded like a couple of old women who could not stop talking about the handsome boy from down the block, and how he was going to become a doctor. Joe had this hurried excitement in his voice, as if he couldn't wait to make the next nonsensical statement about Utley. While he did have a stretch of games(I'm looking specifically at the stretch from April 4th to May 5th), Lance has hit safely in all but eight games he's played in. His slugging percentage has been higher for a longer stretch than Utley's ever was.
I'll just say this: from May 1st on, what we have seen out of Lance has never been duplicated in the history of baseball. His OPS+ ( a measure of a player's OPS against the league average) this year so far is 231. I like to use OPS+ because it's a quick way to judge a player's performance independent of ballpark factors. 100 is thought to be average. Now, to feel truly in awe, peer back up to Lance's number. I won't repeat it: I'll make your eyes/brain compute his number and then give you the extra second to let it sink in. Astounding, am I right? More than twice the league average , with nearly a third still hanging out in the stratosphere of baseball stardom. 2.33333333333333 ad infinitum times the average major league player in terms of OPS, more than 1/4 of the way through the season.
Barry Bonds posted an OPS+ of 231 in his 2003 campaign which saw him total the following line: 45 HR, 148 BB, 58 K, .341/.529/.749. More recently, I figured Magglio Ordonez or Alex Rodriguez would have posted Berkmanian OPS+ numbers in their 2007 seasons. I'll save you the link click and say 134 and 177, respectively is what I found. I would insert a caveat here, and take note of a small sample size, but we're past that. He has enough AB's to show that his body of work is legitimate. Not that he'll continue to post Magna Carta like OPS numbers (in the 1200s), but this is honest to God greatness on display.
Monday, May 19, 2008
On Homework Assignments
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3 comments:
this post prompted me to check barry bonds' stats and i must say that he was freaking crazy. disregarding steroids, which is of course a really big oversight, but that dude was insane. His .609 obp and .800 slugging are ridiculous. I was never even able to duplicate that in mvp baseball.
The sad thing is that barry could have been known as being one of the top 20 players all time, even if he had never juiced up. He was a perennial mvp candidate years before steroid allegations became big news in the game. Even as a shell of his former self last year he was still an exceptional player.
lance?
who is this lance person of whom you speak? i am looking at the rosters of all the teams who play east of pittsburgh (and the cubs, of course) and i sure as heck don't see no lance there.
are you by any chance talking about that fat guy down in alabama or mississippi or something who don't drink, smoke, swear or chase/screw hooters type chicks with giant plastic boobies and zero brainz???
like, yawn
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