Jeter was an everyday shortstop at 20/21 years of age. In his 17 years, he has probably been the most consistent ball player in a career that has spanned that long of a time. Technically he has had 1 bad season.

As for Young, he was a mature adult when the Rangers took off the training wheels. He was playing 2nd base, and he did not start his career with the bag that Jeter did. Also, he has played with some good ball players and still didn’t offeer enough to get any of those teams over the hump. Jeter won with Brosius, an aging David Cone, aging Cecil Fielder, Chuck Knoblauch, Matsui at the end of his peak, the list goes on. He was the glue that held those teams. His will to win is equal to that of the fiercest athlete of all time; Micheal Jordan. He’s that hungry. What if he continues this pace and decides that he will make that OF move? He has as good a chance as any to break the all time hits record. What will people say then when he outhits Micheal Young by 1,500 career hits in the end?

Of course we’re factoring in longevity. That’s why I said Jeter is a no doubt hall of famer.

nor is he near as pure a hitter as micheal

How is Jeter not better? It’s been shown multiple times that MY is a product of his ballpark even though their triple slash lines are almost identical:

MY – .304/.350/.451
DJ – .313/.383/.449

Wait a sec, did I say identical? What I meant was Jeter’s was far better. If we get Jeter out of Yankee Stadium, which is death to right hand hitter’s power, Jeter hits .321/.390/.455, better across the board than MY’s career line.

JETER would/could not play the positions micheal young is capable of playing

MY plays all those positions poorly! How is this a plus in his favor?

You also haven’t shown why you think he’s a MVP candidate. Is it just because you say he is?

Plus, he is an average defender, who has been asked to move out of his natural position, and has remained effective

Since when? Total UZR by position:
1b: -2.1
2b: -1.8 (propped up by his ’02 stats)
3b: -14.9
SS: -55.5

Aggregate ratings

DRS has him:
’09: -18
’10: -13

TZ has him:
’09: -12
’10: -5

When the discussion of Thome for instance, entrance into the Hall, where are those detractors, for a consistently below average defender?

Thome has one of the better aggregate triple slash lines of all time. He’s a .277/.403/.556 career hitter (.277/.407/.582 H, .277/.399/.531 A btw). His lack of defensive value is an issue, which actually has been brought up. But when you hit like him…

and 5 of those members had OPS of below .800.

Are you intentionally doing this? Stop quoting non-contextually driven OPS. An OPS of 900 during the height of the steroid era isn’t the same thing as an OPS of 900 during the dead ball era.

What are Michael Young’s best years? 4 of the last 6, which would suggest the silly presumption that he will begin a rapid decline is pure imagination.

By bWAR it’s [in order] ’06 (4.6), ’08 (3.7), ’09 (3.3) and ’07 (3.2). If those are your best years you shouldn’t sniff the HoF. Also, I never said decline was imminent, I said when his skills decline. Try to keep up.

Plus, he is an average defender, who has been asked to move out of his natural position, and has remained effective. When the discussion of Thome for instance, entrance into the Hall, where are those detractors, for a consistently below average defender?

Every other player who garnered 3000 hits and have passed the 5 year waiting period are members of the Hall, all 28 of them, and 5 of those members had OPS of below .800.

What are Michael Young’s best years? 4 of the last 6, which would suggest the silly presumption that he will begin a rapid decline is pure imagination.

You of course can continue to suggest that Michael Young isn’t Hall worthy in your view, but if you choose to do so, there are many enshrined that deserve your criticism more than he.

Runs – 1st
HR – 1st
H – 3rd
2b – 4th
3b – 1st

Park factors can affect all types of hitting. The Ballpark, due to the heat + humidity, has probably been an extreme hitters park since inception. Just look what it does for Young, his career splits are:

H – .325/.373/.493 – 866
A – .283/.327/.410 – 737

His home OPS puts him in a class with Danny Tartabull, John Olerud, Darryl Strawberry and Jason Bay (career range 120-130).

Away OPS puts him in a class with Davey Lopes, Vince DiMaggio and Coco Crisp (career range 958-976).

You have just claimed that walks are more valuable than hits. That is nuts

It is nuts, as linear weights tends to put singles at 1.0 and walks around 0.7/0.8. Good thing I never claimed that, and try to prove that I did. What I said is that Michael Young’s OBP is inflated by his high BA. He doesn’t walk, at all. So when those singles start reaching fielders, or he loses his power, expect what hitting value he does have to disappear.

OPS and OPS+ favor the slugger and the walker, neither of which Young is. Which makes his numbers even more impressive

Are we looking at the same Michael Young? What’s impressive about a no-defense player who, for the last 6 years has OPS+: 108, 106, 95, 128, 102 and 124? Twice he’s been at league average or below. Two other times he was less than 10% better than average. This guy is a future HoFer?
[Oh, and DJ's same six year age group: 125, 114, 125, 132, 121 and 102]

If Michael Young gets 3000 hits, maintains his OPS of over .800 it would be a crime if he were excluded from the Hall.

It’d be a crime if he were admitted. bref-com has him at 35.3 oWAR for his career. His career high oWAR is 5.6 (highest bWAR is 4.6 so far). That’s 2.94 oWAR/year. How is this a HoF’er?

Beyond the voters’ weird Ranger fetish, did you know that of the 34 MVPs awarded since 1994, only 7 have gone to players from Eastern Division teams? Did you know that? Clearly you didn’t know that or you wouldn’t have repeated this BS about baseball not existing west of the Mississippi.

Ball parks matter….and when you play in by far the most hitter friendly one in all of MLB, you just can’t ignore it and make any sense whatsoever in your resulting arguments.

Why are you talking about Derek Jeter? This post is about Michael Young. It’s a comparison made to Jeter in that people can’t stop talking about Young’s intangibles and leadership and all sorts of crap that he, Michael Young, himself directly contradicts. What does this have to do with NY writers/fans thinking that Jeter is the best? Where does that argument come into play?

KNOW?

Probably not, the Carson Palmer situation is the first I can remember where a player actually sat out rather than play for the team. Guys like Eli Manning and John Elway always made threats because they were never in a put-up-or-shut-up situation (training camps/still had contract time left).

Gary Sheffield always made threats about making life a living hell for his teams if he weren’t traded. Isn’t that why Milwaukee let him go?

The ability to be a productive player into your later years, I think, is an impressive accomplishment. I tend to doubt anyone will be paying Michael Young at age 40 to be the player he’s likely to age into, but if he’s better than that? Good for him.

Bill James’s Favorite Toy has him with a 29 percent chance to get to 3000 hits. I’m not saying Michael Young is a Hall of Famer if that happens, but it would be an impress accomplishment regardless.

It’s never not funny to see guys like Craig cling to this completely bogus straw-man argument. They’re addicted to it like crackheads are to the pipe.

Sure he’s just a “fine player”, not a first ballot HoF’er or member of 3,000 hit club or anything. He’s simply fine. It’s those irrational Yankee fans and writers who constantly insist, he’s the “BEST!” That’s what they say don’t they, that he’s the “best” and there has never been any player better, and no one in the game today is better, and there are no flaws in his game because he’s the “best”, and we’ll never acknowledged in any way shape or form that his skills have diminished with age, because he’s the “best”! I mean it can’t be refuted, we all know we’ve read thousands upon thousands of articles stating exactly that. Derek Jeter “has” to be called the “best”, because he simply and provably is the “best”. Sure, we know they can’t be reasoned with, I mean they’ve always said he has the “best” range ever at SS, they’ve always said he hits for more power than anyone in the modern era. How are you going to talk to someone like that? These are clearly irrational people, but luckily we have stand up guys like Craig who are going to speak up against this mindless hoard and unnamed media members!! Huzzah!

(And this is the guy constantly whining about the slanted and biased opinions of other writers?…)

It is true that he only had the 3rd best OBS on his team this year, but he trailed Beltre and Hamilton by only .038, and .028 and had 150 more PA, which at least evens their 2012 productivity

I assume you mean OPS, and an almost 30 and 40 pt gap in that is huge. Also, his OPS is that high because of his BA. He rarely walks. Here’s a ranking of BB% which is far more indicative of a player’s ability than merely quoting OBP:

Michael Young 6.80%
Josh Hamilton 7.20%
David Murphy 7.50%
Mitch Moreland 7.60%
Elvis Andrus 8.40%
Ian Kinsler 12.30%
Mike Napoli 13.40%

Only Eddie Collins and Napoleon Lajoie are second basemen who have a higher OPS and 3000 hits. And his career OPS is better than Rose, Ripkin, Yount, and Biggio

Using OPS and not OPS+, which factors in league average is disingenuous. Collins (141) and Lajoie (150) blow Young (106) away in that category. Rose (118), Ripkin (112), Yount (115), and Biggio (110) all suffered through their decline phrases and still have better OPS+’s than Young.

Nevermind that OPS overrates SLG and undervalues OBP, which would be a further knock against Young. Only reason he’ll make it into the HoF is counting stats. He’s the epitome of Hall of [Very] Good.