1994 was amazing BUT hard to sustain production for a full season and that season was shortened, and Bags would not have been MVP after being out with a broken hand if the season played out.
Legacies are defined in the playoffs and big moments. If it weren't then Harden would be considered one of the all time greats. Altuve has shown up so many times in big moments. He has defined the Astros culture for the last decade. Work hard, show up in big moments, and not talk a lot. He is the epitome of staying humble and not worrying about what others think.
Had pretty good seats last night and was recording every pitch to Altuve. I would stop after each foul/ball/strike and restart instead of recording the entire thing. Right before he hit the 2,000th I said, “if I don’t record I bet he’ll get a hit.” So, you’re welcome? Got some close up of the “fight,” though!
The 200 homers is the most impressive stat. He's freaking 5'6" and 160 pounds and he's the second all time in post season home runs . That's just sick.
You are comparing him to Joe Morgan who was a first ballot HOFer and Joe didn't get to 200 home runs until close to his 1900th game. Hack played in the 30's and weighed 190 pounds.
There are plenty of great players that never made the playoffs or have signature postseason moments. That's poking a pretty gigantic hole. The playoffs are small, random sample sizes. If a good player accumulates enough postseason plate appearances, they will - likely - have numbers that are consistent with their 1,000s of regular season numbers. Case in point, Altuve has an .844 OPS in 425 postseason plate appearances. His career OPS is .834. Jeff Bagwell had 129 postseason plate appearances, spread across six different seasons. To put that in perspective, Altuve had 80 PAs in 2017 alone. I firmly believe, if Bagwell and the Astros had several sustained runs, he would have eventually ended with a ~.900 OPS in the postseason. It's just hard to do that when your postseason consists of three games/season. (And when, like, 60+% of those games are against Maddux. Smoltz and Glavine. No shade on Altuve - but he's never faced three pitchers *that* good.) The results are what the results are. I'm not excusing Bagwell. But I just can't fathom why, when we have nearly 10,000 other plate appearances at which he performed at a Hall of Fame peak, people would choose to focus on 129.
It's bc he was the best player on the team and could only manage to get his team to a level of success where he only had 129 plate appearances
We're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The Astros had been to the postseason twice in 30 years before Bagwell arrived; six times with him. It was - by a significant margin - the best era in team history (until 2017, obviously). And he was the driving force behind it. So it's weird, to me, to dismiss that because they weren't *more* successful.
The 96,97, and 99 Astros teams combined to have 2 everyday players aside from Biggio and Bagwell that had an OPS+ over 110 (99 Everett and 96 Berry). 98 was legit loaded, but the offense around Biggio and Bagwell those others seasons was garbage they carried to meaningful status. Then they shouldered all the blame when the mediocre offense that was wholly dependent of them went silent over a very small sample. Altuve goes 0-23 to start last postseason and we win every single game.
I still find it hard to believe that Astros won the WS and Altuve started the playoffs 0-23, and didn't have any home runs or even RBIs.
Hmm.... Jimmy Rollins was 5'7" and he hit over 30 in a season I believe, and over 200 homers in his career. Yogi Berra at 5'8"? Mel Ott was like 5'8" too - Kirby Puckett? Hmmm..... Altuve had more power than Morgan, but he doesn't draw walks like Joe did... Jimmy Rollins overall wasn't as good a power hitter as Altuve either, but he did hit 30 a season once. Yogi Berra looks about 3 inches taller than Altuve - is that enough to put them in different size classifications? Same with Puckett. I think the only guy we can really say that had more power than Jose Altuve at the same height is Hack Wilson, who was a freak of nature - he looks like someone took the Incredible Hulk and shrunk him...... I mean look at this guy - incredible......... how bad a drunk was he? How connected to organized crime? Well he lead the NL in homer 4 out of 5 seasons..... the last season being when he played CF and hit 56 homers with 191 RBI and a .356 batting average and almost a 1.200 OPS..... and he received ZERO MVP votes - not a single one. Frankie Frisch won the MVP that year - with a sub. 800 OPS.
Bagwell had great stats, but all of his counting stats would have been eclipsed and he would not have qualified for percentage stats. Tony Gwynn was hitting .394 when the season stopped. Matt Williams was on pace for 60+ HRs and 130+ RBIs.
