Jeter vs. Biggio

glennhoffmania · Jan 9, 2015

I was having this discussion the other day. Their careers are extremely similar. Jeter had about 100 more PAs than Biggio so their longevity is almost identical. I always thought that Biggio was a solid defender but FG apparently disagrees. B-Ref has Jeter as Biggio's second closest comp, after Yount. Jeter has the triple slash, the team-dependent stats like runs and RBIs, and the rings. Biggio has the individual stats like homers and steals, better defense, and the multiple positions. But overall I don't know how you say definitively that one is better than the other.

Average Reds · Jan 9, 2015

ivanvamp said:
I'm comfortable saying Jeter is better, but the margin is slim. But stupid Francesca (who I like listening to still) knows Jeter is a lock first-ballot hall of famer, but thinks Biggio shouldn't be in AT ALL.

"If he was so good, why didn't a New Yawk team trade for Biggio?"

Dan to Theo to Ben · Jan 9, 2015

Francesa and the rest of the ilk are underestimating how difficult the Catcher position is.

EvilEmpire · Jan 9, 2015

Mentioning the rings is fine and all, but you should also put his post-season stats in there too. He has almost a full season of ABs in the playoffs where he played at a high level against playoff-level competition.

Captaincoop · Jan 9, 2015

It may also make sense to look at park effect in comparing these two players. The Astrodome, IIRC, was one of the worst parks in MLB for offense, and Biggio spent most of his prime there.

It probably doesn't make a huge difference, but when the players' stats are this close, Biggio playing in the Astrodome instead of Yankee Stadium may have been a significant factor in Jeter's slight statistical advantage.

glennhoffmania · Jan 9, 2015

Rudy Pemberton said:
You can't underestimate the postseason performance and how much it effects the perception of a player. The numbers are similar for sure, but what specifically do most people remember about Craig Biggio? HOF voting appears to be largely emotional- and every player needs some kind of narrative. Fair or not, being on a very good team in a big market and lots of postseason visibility make a big difference for a lot of voters.

For HOF voting, sure. But I thought we were talking about who was actually the better player, which can be an entirely different question.

Saints Rest · Jan 9, 2015

Biggio actually played three positions: 2B (1989 games), C (428), and OF (363 total, 109,255,2 LF/CF/RF).

I posted the other day that the HOF should give some merit to actual FAME, and Jeter had that in spades over almost everyone, and certainly over anyone who ever played for Houston.

But I think any purely objective observer of the various metrics would have to say that these two players are in the same conversation.

Kliq · Jan 9, 2015

Rudy Pemberton said:
You can't underestimate the postseason performance and how much it effects the perception of a player. The numbers are similar for sure, but what specifically do most people remember about Craig Biggio? HOF voting appears to be largely emotional- and every player needs some kind of narrative. Fair or not, being on a very good team in a big market and lots of postseason visibility make a big difference for a lot of voters.

If this is true, David Ortiz should be on in the first ballot.

Biggio also played CF with that wacky hill for a few seasons towards the end of his career. Biggio was willing to play for wherever his team needed him, yet "The Cpatain" played SS till the very end even though he had the range of a turtle.

Savin Hillbilly · Jan 9, 2015

glennhoffmania said:
For HOF voting, sure. But I thought we were talking about who was actually the better player, which can be an entirely different question.

I think the postseason numbers, as opposed to the intangible/myth-making aspects of the postseason, are relevant to the "better player" discussion--certainly when it comes to rate stats, but arguably when it comes to counting stats/WAR as well. I wish the commonly used stat sites would present combined regular/postseason numbers for players. (Or maybe they do and I'm not looking in the right place for them.)

grimshaw · Jan 9, 2015

ivanvamp said:
Listening to Francesca a little the other day regarding the baseball HOF voting, and a bunch of callers were talking about Biggio. Mike doesn't think Biggio is a HOFer. Ok, whatever. Calls him a compiler, which is true. But of course we all know Jeter is a first-ballot HOFer, right? Lock. And I'm not saying Jeter shouldn't be a HOFer. He should be a first-ballot HOFer. But let's compare the career numbers of these guys...

Biggio: 20 years, 1844 r, 3060 h, 668 2b, 55 3b, 291 hr, 1175 rbi, 414 sb, .281/.363/.433/.796, 112 ops+, 65.1 bWAR
- 3 times top 10 in MVP voting, 2 times top 5 in MVP voting
- 0 WS rings (look at the teams he was on)
- played 2 positions well (C, 2b)

Aside from an outlier in 1997 when he was all everything, including the field, Biggio was never a very good fielder (-23 runs fielding and defensive adjustment for his career, compared to Jeter's -29). He ended up being a liability the last 4-5 years of his career as a poor outfielder and then a move back to 2B. While Jeter was well below average before being one of the worst towards the end of his career, his bat always held up enough while Biggio's declined more rapidly.

If there were 3 tiers of Hall of Famers, I would rate Jeter as the middle middle in the HoF tier and Biggio in the lower middle.

EricFeczko · Jan 9, 2015

Biggio's first four seasons in the league may be underrated in terms of WAR, since WAR does not take into account things like pitch framing, and may underesimate the value of catchers. That being said, Jeter's "awful" defense is often as overrated as his "clutch" offense.

Defense aside, the biggest difference between Biggio and Jeter is in terms of BABIP; Jeter had a career .350 BABIP, which would rank him 20th out of all MLB players with at least 3000 PAs (1848); 30th out of all MLB players with at least 1000 PAs (3835). Jeter's value on offense is largely driven by this BABIP. Despite a better walk rate (9.3 to 8.6), strikeout rate (14.0 to 14.6), and power (0.152 ISO to 0.130 ISO), Jeter produced more at the plate than Biggio.

I'm not bringing up the point of BABIP to discredit Jeter. At 8000 PA, his BABIP is pretty stable. Rather, the differences between these two guys is pretty slim at best; if Jeter is a first-ballot HOF, then biggo should be as well.

EvilEmpire said:
Mentioning the rings is fine and all, but you should also put his post-season stats in there too. He has almost a full season of ABs in the playoffs where he played at a high level against playoff-level competition.

Jeter basically played at the same level in the playoffs as he did in the regular season (838 OPS vs 817). Biggio did not play well, but also had~200 PAs. It's almost like having a full season of PAs in the playoffs stablizes the data or something.

Rudy Pemberton said:
You can't underestimate the postseason performance and how much it effects the perception of a player. The numbers are similar for sure, but what specifically do most people remember about Craig Biggio? HOF voting appears to be largely emotional- and every player needs some kind of narrative. Fair or not, being on a very good team in a big market and lots of postseason visibility make a big difference for a lot of voters.

This seems a little tangential. Is the purpose of the thread to place ourselves in the minds of idiotic voters, or to do an honest comparison of biggio and jeter?

Leather · Jan 9, 2015

Saints Rest said:
Biggio actually played three positions: 2B (1989 games), C (428), and OF (363 total, 109,255,2 LF/CF/RF).

I posted the other day that the HOF should give some merit to actual FAME, and Jeter had that in spades over almost everyone, and certainly over anyone who ever played for Houston.

But I think any purely objective observer of the various metrics would have to say that these two players are in the same conversation.

To a very, very, small degree, I can buy into this. But in no way, shape, or form should society-at-large's level of awareness of a player have a major bearing on a player's candidacy for the HOF.

A) The opinion of the people who don't care about/follow baseball shouldn't matter in assessing a player's contribution to the sport; and
B) It favors players from big markets even more so than they already are (See, e.g., the public's fawning over Jeter while Biggio is largely ignored, all because Jeter lucked into playing for a team that could afford to surround him with good talent his entire career).

I mean, Danny Ainge is famous, he played for the Blue Jays. Ergo, should he get HOF consideration?

Snodgrass'Muff · Jan 9, 2015

This is such great material for pissing off Yankees fans. Even the most pessimistic and realistic Yankees fan I know refused to read past the first paragraph to even look at the comparison before laughing it off as ridiculous and refusing to acknowledge that there's a question worth asking.

EvilEmpire · Jan 9, 2015

Jeter basically played at the same level in the playoffs as he did in the regular season (838 OPS vs 817). Biggio did not play well, but also had~200 PAs. It's almost like having a full season of PAs in the playoffs stablizes the data or something.

My point was that when comparing them, there is no good reason to omit postseason data. Ivanvamp mentioned the rings, so why not actually include the extra 111 runs, 200 hits, 20 HRs, etc, etc? Same for Biggio.

Post season play widens the gap between them in counting stats, rate stats, "fame", whatever. I think all that is relevant, especially with regard to the opening post which focuses quite a bit on the Hall of Fame. In terms of total accomplishment, I don't think there is any question that Biggio belongs in the HoF. They are certainly comparable, but Jeter did more.

Mighty Joe Young · Jan 9, 2015

EvilEmpire said:
My point was that when comparing them, there is no good reason to omit postseason data. Ivanvamp mentioned the rings, so why not actually include the extra 111 runs, 200 hits, 20 HRs, etc, etc? Same for Biggio.Post season play widens the gap between them in counting stats, rate stats, "fame", whatever. I think all that is relevant, especially with regard to the opening post which focuses quite a bit on the Hall of Fame. In terms of total accomplishment, I don't think there is any question that Biggio belongs in the HoF. They are certainly comparable, but Jeter did more.

Which is totally ignoring the massive difference in defensive value over their careers. You have a bad-to-awful SS vs. a very good 2b/middling catcher.

I still think Jeter was better but not by much.

EvilEmpire · Jan 10, 2015

Which is totally ignoring the massive difference in defensive value over their careers. You have a bad-to-awful SS vs. a very good 2b/middling catcher.

I still think Jeter was better but not by much.

Of course I'm biased, as I suspect some are in the opposite direction, but I agree with this fangraphs article that makes an argument on why the criticism of Jeter's defense value is overstated:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-other-half-of-the-story-about-derek-jeters-defense/

I get that Derek Jeter is polarizing, and I get that it’s fun to criticize a player the media’s never stopped putting on a pedestal. It’s certainly worthwhile to note Jeter hasn’t been a great defensive shortstop. While he’ll have absolutely zero trouble getting into the Hall of Fame, defense still is important when it comes to our understanding of what he’s been as a player. Jeter has had his on-field shortcomings. But it’s also important to not get carried away. For his position, Jeter’s been one of the game’s worse defensive players. His position has included some of the very best defensive players in baseball. In terms of overall value, those about negate one another. In the end, the most correct opinion of Jeter’s defensive ability is, `Hey, he’s been all right.’

Edit: I'm not sure how much we are really disagreeing since you think Jeter is better, but just going back to defensive metrics, Jeter had a UZR/150 at SS of -7.1. Biggio had a -3.2 at 2b and -15 in the OF. Total Zone seems to like Biggio a lot better with a -35 at 2b, -26 at C, and -10 in the OF, while Jeter was -129 at SS.

I don't know how to weight those differences while also accounting for the fact that Jeter played a tougher defensive position (as discussed in the article I posted). I'm pretty confident that Biggio had more defensive value, but I'm not sure how much more. I suspect how much fans want to weight defense in comparing the two is pretty subjective. But again, at least we agree that Jeter was better

StupendousMan · Jan 10, 2015

EvilEmpire said:
My point was that when comparing them, there is no good reason to omit postseason data. Ivanvamp mentioned the rings, so why not actually include the extra 111 runs, 200 hits, 20 HRs, etc, etc? Same for Biggio.

Well, I have a bias against including post-season stats in these discussions. Many people, myself included, prefer to ignore statistics such as RBI because they depend strongly on factors outside a player's control: how often his teammates got on base, in this instance. We prefer to choose measures which emphasize a player's own contributions to the game.

Post-season stats, like RBI, depend to some degree on a player's teammates. Swap Jeter to the Astros and Biggio to the Yankees, and we'd be talking about the full season of extra hits and steals that Biggio had, and how his rings improve his case for the Hall.

So long as the chances of a player making post-season appearances depends on the quality of his teammates, I'd prefer not to give those post-season statistics much weight in evaluating a player.

EvilEmpire · Jan 10, 2015

Swap Jeter to the Astros and Biggio to the Yankees, and we'd be talking about the full season of extra hits and steals that Biggio had, and how his rings improve his case for the Hall.

And that would be right and proper. Keeping in mind that this thread started off discussing HoF credentials, I think it is crazy not to look at the totality of a player's career. They produce what they can with the chances they are given. Value is generated during the regular season. Value is generated during the playoffs. As a fan, I think the value generated by a player in the post-season is important. Ignoring what a player does when the pressure is higher and the competition stronger does not strike me as reasonable when considering someone for the Hall.

Adrian's Dome · Jan 10, 2015

EvilEmpire said:
Ignoring what a player does when the pressure is higher and the competition stronger does not strike me as reasonable when considering someone for the Hall.

Putting too much weight on what is generally a small and inconsistent sample size that not all players got equal opportunities at (unlike the regular season) doesn't strike me as reasonable, either.

If you want to mention Jeter's postseason, fine, but you can't knock Biggio's case as well because he didn't play on the same loaded teams. It's like the classic Montana vs. Marino case...if you swapped the two, but otherwise left their teams intact, would you look at their individual cases differently? It's not exactly fair. Same with Biggio and Jeter.

Yelling At Clouds · Jan 10, 2015

Just imagine if they had been on the same team.

Plympton91 · Jan 10, 2015

Adrian said:
Putting too much weight on what is generally a small and inconsistent sample size that not all players got equal opportunities at (unlike the regular season) doesn't strike me as reasonable, either.

If you want to mention Jeter's postseason, fine, but you can't knock Biggio's case as well because he didn't play on the same loaded teams. It's like the classic Montana vs. Marino case...if you swapped the two, but otherwise left their teams intact, would you look at their individual cases differently? It's not exactly fair. Same with Biggio and Jeter.

I think there's plenty of middle ground there. When a player gets to the postseason and shines, that has to count for a lot. And the lack of opportunity is less of a concern for me now that 5 teams in each league qualify for postseason play. On the other hand, when a player spends much of his career -- particularly the indentured servitude part of it -- on bad teams, you shouldn't use the ridiculous argument that he couldn't have been all that valuable because his teams could have lost without him.

I haven't seen anyone in this thread make the argument that Jeter is a shoo-in and Biggio should only get in with a ticket. Thus, I think we can agree that both are Hall of Fame players, and that the 15 to 17 percent of writers who will vote for Jeter on the first ballot but didn't vote for Biggio this year are dinosaurs.

But, if Curt Schilling gets in, that will be to a large extent due to the weight that many writers will put on his performances in the 2001 and 2004 postseasons; and when David Ortiz goes in, that will also be aided by his otherworldly postseason resume. I don't think any Red Sox fans will begrudge the writers who put that heavy weight on those performances, and so it would be hypocritical to argue that Jeter's postseason excellence shouldn't be a significant variable in making him a 95% plus first ballot Hall of Famer.

glennhoffmania · Jan 10, 2015

P91, you're talking about HoF voting. The point of this discussion isn't to debate whether one deserves to be in and one doesn't. The question is, who was the better player? That has absolutely nothing to do with how post-season stats impact voting, whether Schilling has a better shot because of 2001 and 2004, or how many more votes Jeter will get over Biggio. Everyone here understands and agrees that they're both worthy of being in the HoF, and that Jeter will get in more easily than Biggio.

EricFeczko · Jan 11, 2015

Plympton91 said:
I think there's plenty of middle ground there. When a player gets to the postseason and shines, that has to count for a lot. And the lack of opportunity is less of a concern for me now that 5 teams in each league qualify for postseason play. On the other hand, when a player spends much of his career -- particularly the indentured servitude part of it -- on bad teams, you shouldn't use the ridiculous argument that he couldn't have been all that valuable because his teams could have lost without him.

I haven't seen anyone in this thread make the argument that Jeter is a shoo-in and Biggio should only get in with a ticket. Thus, I think we can agree that both are Hall of Fame players, and that the 15 to 17 percent of writers who will vote for Jeter on the first ballot but didn't vote for Biggio this year are dinosaurs.

But, if Curt Schilling gets in, that will be to a large extent due to the weight that many writers will put on his performances in the 2001 and 2004 postseasons; and when David Ortiz goes in, that will also be aided by his otherworldly postseason resume. I don't think any Red Sox fans will begrudge the writers who put that heavy weight on those performances, and so it would be hypocritical to argue that Jeter's postseason excellence shouldn't be a significant variable in making him a 95% plus first ballot Hall of Famer.

I agree regarding Ortiz, and actually wouldn't vote for him for the hall of fame...yet. If he plays at the same level as 2014 for 3-4 for more years, then he'd probably fit.

To say that Schilling needs the postseason to get in is a bit ridiculous though; Schilling amassed 83.2 fWAR/80.2 bWAR in the regular season. He has a 42 in Black ink, 205 in gray ink, 171 for the Hall of Fame monitor and 46 for the Hall of Fame standards. His postseason performances are like whipped cream on a sundae; a puff of air on a substantive tasty treat. Delicious awesome air, but air nonetheless (at least from an HOF perspective).

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