Jeter’s 3,000 hits now “official.”
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Derek Jeter got what, by my count, was his 74th hit of the season, a dramatic home run to put him at 3,000 on the official statistics (Wade Boggs is the only other player to accomplish this particular feat).
In reality, Jeter crossed the 3,000 threshold sometime last year. But, his 185 hits in 14 postseasons “don’t count.” So the fanfare was delayed until today. Congratulations anyway, sir.
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Yeah, I’ve never understood why cumulative stats like hits, stolen bases, and home runs in the playoffs doing count. It’s also true in football. I don’t know offhand the policy in the NBA and NHL, which both have postseasons that seemingly last longer than the regular season.
I suppose the issue is that you don’t want to drag down someone’s lifetime batting averaging and other non-cumulative stats by including superior postseason competition, essentially punishing them for success.
Probably reached the number earlier if you add in hits from All-Star games
Doubtful. Without looking it up, I consider it extremely unlikely he’s enough hits in All Star Games to push the moment back to 2009. So it was almost assuredly last year either way.
I suppose the issue is that you don’t want to drag down someone’s lifetime batting averaging and other non-cumulative stats by including superior postseason competition, essentially punishing them for success.
There’s something to be said for that notion, to be sure. But at least the NFL generally refers to such stats as “regular season” accomplishments rather than simply acting as if there aren’t any other kind.
They do maintain stats for post-season records. The problem, and one of the reasons I think they don’t get counted as “career” records, is that the postseason has changed radically several times in MLB history. The post-season used to just be the World Series, consisting of the two top teams in the AL and NL. Then, they broke the league up into two divisions and the ALCS and NLCS were born. Now, we have three divisions per league, a wild-card in each league and the ALDS and NLDS.
Where, say, the 1927 Yankees faced a maximum post season of 7 games. A player today could play in as many as 19 post-season games and a pitcher could get as many as 5 post-season starts. That gives them an advantage right there.
What Doug said, but also…
Whether a team makes it to post-season isn’t up to an individual player, for the most part. The team effort/success is what did it. If one has the luck to be on a successful team, one has more opportunities to achieve records due to post-season appearances.
A perfectly good player, leashed to a poor team, does not have a level chance of matching the performance of a player who gets into the post-season a lot.
Thus, I believe, the ‘real’ records are kept only for the regular seasons.
Whether a team makes it to post-season isn’t up to an individual player, for the most part.
Exactly. The regular season represents a level playing field for all – every team plays 162 games. The variables then are a player staying healthy and playing well enough to demand regular playing time.
A lot of great players did not have much opportunity to play much, or any, post season ball. Ask Ernie Banks.
The jeter stat that astounded me is that he is 15 hits away from having 200 in the post season (assuming the yanks get into thew PS this year, he should pass the 200 mark). That is a seasons total worth of hits in the postseason alone. Says alot not just about him, but about the Yankee teams he has been playing on.
