Cal Ripken Commercial, not teasing Gunnar extension...wow

[Malike]

44 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

How is saying Beltre is better defensively saying something bad about Brooks? 

Both Fangraphs and BBREF have Brooks solidly ahead of Beltre in dWAR. Beltre had a better bat and both were incredible 3B'man.

[Moose Milligan]

3 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Brooks was way too much of a gentlemen and too humble to say anything otherwise.

Yeah, like I said I think he was pretty comfortable with his contributions to the game to care. 

[Tony-OH]

2 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Yeah, like I said I think he was pretty comfortable with his contributions to the game to care. 

Yeah, his 16 consecutive gold gloves and 12 more dWAR than Beltre in 100ish less games at 3B speaks for everyone, but another Orioles legend trying to score points with non-Orioles fans by dissing another Orioles legend with his BS, non-fact based opinion.

[Malike]

Beltre absolutely deserves to be in the conversation. He's 3rd in WAR for 3B all time.

[Sports Guy]

18 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Honestly I'm surprised that you would ever ask that. You know why and your old enough to know why it was disrespectful. Maybe you just don't care because honestly, no one ever really knows what you care about at times, but anyone that understands anything about respect knows one legend does not say someone is better at the ONE thing they were always known as being the best at. 

 

Try to not hurt yourself getting off that high horse you like to put yourself on.

Its an absurd thought that this is somehow degrading Brooks or that he was saying something slanderous about him. 

[Sports Guy]

8 minutes ago, Malike said:

Both Fangraphs and BBREF have Brooks solidly ahead of Beltre in dWAR. Beltre had a better bat and both were incredible 3B'man.

That’s fine. I’m not saying I agree with Cal but Cal saying he felt Beltre was better isn’t saying something bad about Brooks.  It’s saying something that good about Beltre. 
 

 

[Malike]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

That’s fine. I’m not saying I agree with Cal but Cal saying he felt Beltre was better isn’t saying something bad about Brooks.  It’s saying something that good about Beltre. 
 

 

I don't disagree. I mean by the standard of WAR he was  worth more on both sides of the ball. Defensively, I believe Brooks was better but Beltre was a really good hitter and defender.

[Sports Guy]

Just now, Malike said:

I don't disagree. I mean by the standard of WAR he was  worth more on both sides of the ball. Defensively, I believe Brooks was better but Beltre was a really good hitter and defender.

Yea Beltre is the better all around player. 
 

I think it’s fair to say that he was closer with the glove to Brooks than Brooks was to him with the bat.

[Malike]

Just now, Sports Guy said:

Yea Beltre is the better all around player. 
 

I think it’s fair to say that he was closer with the glove to Brooks than Brooks was to him with the bat.

That's reasonable.

[Just Regular]

3 minutes ago, Malike said:

Beltre absolutely deserves to be in the conversation. He's 3rd in WAR for 3B all time.

Beltre's career finish was bananas.    He was scuffling when Pujols was PUJOLS, but by the end Beltre made it about 90% of the way to him on career achievement as the DR's two greatest bats so far.    Ripken's comment was also tone deaf as it was a couple months into Manny flashing like he was going to be a great 3B too.   2013 Machado in his first full year would have one of the very best 3B seasons of the century, though Beltre also had some as good.

Physicality and all, I guess Gunnar and Westburg are better than all of them.

 

[Malike]

I do think it's impossible to compare players from different era's, and Cal alluded to that after he made the comment. The information available to these guys now is just incredible. Not to mention diet, training, players being bigger and stronger, etc.

[RarityFlaherty]

18 minutes ago, Malike said:

Both Fangraphs and BBREF have Brooks solidly ahead of Beltre in dWAR. Beltre had a better bat and both were incredible 3B'man.

Forgive my ignorance on this, but how is dWAR calculated for older players? Is the hypothetical replacement level player uniform for all eras, or is it just in comparison to others of the same era? If it’s not uniform for all eras, it’s probably not a good way to compare players from vastly different eras. 

[Gurgi]

15 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Yeah, his 16 consecutive gold gloves and 12 more dWAR than Beltre in 100ish less games at 3B speaks for everyone, but another Orioles legend trying to score points with non-Orioles fans by dissing another Orioles legend with his BS, non-fact based opinion.

Now that we bring this incident to mind I do remember it.  I remember we all hated the statement.  I felt like Ripken was just pandering to the national crowd and was not even being honest.  

Ripken is not fluid and smooth at ANY thing that involves public speaking.  It think it is one reason why he does not do it much anymore. 

[Malike]

8 minutes ago, RarityFlaherty said:

Forgive my ignorance on this, but how is dWAR calculated for older players? Is the hypothetical replacement level player uniform for all eras, or is it just in comparison to others of the same era? If it’s not uniform for all eras, it’s probably not a good way to compare players from vastly different eras. 

I believe they use TZ, It's not perfect and no one should be claiming it is. But in broad strokes, we can be pretty confident that Ozzie Smith and Brooks Robinson were incredible fielders, that Greg Luzinski should have never been allowed to put on a glove, and that Dave Winfield was very overrated in the field.

Edit: got the source from the interwebs but I can't link to it from my phone, I thought I could.

Link

Edited April 17 by Malike

[Moose Milligan]

7 minutes ago, Tony-OH said:

Yeah, his 16 consecutive gold gloves and 12 more dWAR than Beltre in 100ish less games at 3B speaks for everyone, but another Orioles legend trying to score points with non-Orioles fans by dissing another Orioles legend with his BS, non-fact based opinion.

I can’t find a video of the quote, cause I want to make sure I got it right. Accuracy matters.  
 

I did find some very angry people on reddit (shocker) from eight years ago when the comment was made. Apparently, according one user, the exact quote was, “"Beltre has the best hands at third base I've ever seen, sorry Brooksie”

If that’s actually the direct quote, that’s a bit different than calling Beltre the best ever defender at third base.  It’s one of the parts of being a great defender, but it’s not the entire sum of the parts. It’s a matter of opinion, and in that light, it doesn’t really mean much because you can’t quantify “hands” in something like dWAR or WAR. 
 

Someone could say that Scott Rolen had better range at third than Brooksie.  Someone could say that Schmidt had quicker feet than Brooksie.  Someone could say that Machado had a quicker release than Brooksie.  Someone could say that Arenado had a better arm than Brooksie.

None of those statements mean that said players were actually a better complete defender at third base than Brooksie.

So if we’re at all interested in being honest and taking him to task for what he said, let’s argue the argument.  From what I can surmise (and I’ve spent the last 15 minutes looking for more evidence contrary to what I’ve found) Cal never said Beltre was a better defender than Brooks. He just said he had better hands. 

Now, if you’re going to continue to get upset at the “Sorry, Brooksie,” line, well, I can’t help you there.