The fact that people keep harping on Ted Williams pretty much ends all arguments. I'll be honest, I didn't know that he played the final however many games. And I'm sure others who are now using that as their argument didn't remember it either. But I'll tell you what they definitely don't remember: however many of the 150 AL+NL batting champions in between then and now sat to preserve their leads. Nobody gives a crap. As long as you qualify for the batting title, you earned it.
If they brought it... there's a good chance they remember it. Your position is already tenuous; I give a crap. MadMax favors playing over sitting... I'm sure there are others (like a whole bunch of Tiger fans). The bottom line is *you* don't give a crap - and that's fine. But the idea that people don't remember specifics - as this thread has proven - is decidedly not true. Heck, this site is dedicated to a team whose championships are forever disqualified by a segment of basketball fans, so I think people *do* remember - especially if the milestone is achieved in a unique way. And sitting a player for three games because the team values a batting title over team accomplishments... you might not remember five years from now. But I will and I think it's cheap. I think Altuve going out and staking his claim is an undeniably better story.
Haven't read the back and forth going in in this thread but I agree with you. If he qualifies he qualifies. To me there is no difference in these last three games than any other random games a player sits during the season when not injured.
So, since nobody brought any examples in the past 150 batting titles, it's safe to assume that none of them have ever sat so much as a game, right? Hint, hint: Yep, that's a loaded question. P.S. - I never suggested sitting him the entire series P.P.S.- nice job avoiding all responses spitting on your original argument: that he should play because the season is 162 games. Your new "i care, so it matters" is a stronger, less destructible argument.
As well as nonsensical; who's suggesting players can't ever sit? I certainly never said that. But to specifically sit to avoid competition? That's an entirely different discussion, IMO. That's not my original argument; my argument was/is that the *season* is 162 games long; to crown a batting champion after 158 games is intellectually dishonest. I respect - and understand - your perspective. I even agree with it, generally: Altuve has accumulated enough games to qualify and, therefore, has no obligation to continue playing nor should he apologize for it. Fair enough. But given that in this specific instance, he's being chased and could - if he has an 0-fer-weekend - potentially lose the title, I think sitting him is cheap and cowardly and places an individual (and meaningless, frankly) milestone ahead of the team (ie sitting your best players significantly impacts your chances of winning). I don't like it and hope the team doesn't do that.
Really?... So a healthy scratch for three consecutive games - something that's never happened to him as a full-time starter - with the specific purpose of helping him win a batting title is the same thing as legitimately resting him here and there during the course of a long season?... I understand the "enough ABs to qualify" perspective - but to group these (potential) DNPs as any other DNPs... doesn't connect with me and feels like giving the hometown kid a break. I doubt any of us would respect VMart if the roles were reversed...
If an NFL team clinches home field in week 14 of their season, and sit all their stars the final 3 games of the regular season (feel free to make the same comparison with MLB, just using short NFL season for simplicity's sake), significantly decreasing their chances of winning those last 3 games, is that dishonest? Is it unfair that these teams aren't subjecting their players to the same amount of wear and tear over a full 16 games that other teams do? Is it "fair" that they are potentially gaining any sort of competitive advantage by sitting players? If so, why?
I honestly believe it devalues competition and I hate when teams do it. But I’m not sure it’s a fair 1:1 comparison – the NFL (or MLB, or NBA) team can’t lose home field advantage once they’ve clinched it. Altuve can lose the batting title; he hasn’t clinched it because, again, he *can’t* clinch it until all 162 games have been played. So the closer analogy, though still far from very good, is an NFL team leads their division by two games with three to play and they decide – you know what? We’re not going to play our final three games – DIVISON CHAMPS! (That's a terrible, impossible analogy; but it's more relevant to the disussion we're having than the one you're making.) Again, it’s not remotely relevant, IMO: resting players for the postseason has considerable merit (though, again, it’s not a strategy I would personally employ). That’s not what the Astros are (potentially) doing; they’re resting a healthy player specifically to preserve his lead in a (meaningless, IMO) batting race, devaluing their own team while concurrently devaluing the very essence of competition and, IMO, sportsmanship. Do you know, without looking, who won the batting title last year? Or the year before that? It's meaningless. It's nice for Altuve; it's nice for a franchise that has had a rough summer. But it's not terribly significant otherwise, so why earn it passively? Why weasel your way into it? It cheap, IMO. (And, getting back to the Astros' summer, it's potentially more gasoline for the fire as I assume it could rub a lot of already pissy writers the wrong way.)
Actually, this would be more of an argument to not really have to win it "actively". All-in-all, I think arguing about this is largely a waste of time. If he sits for 3 or so games, he's not "backing" in to anything... he could have sat all of the last 2 weeks and still qualified to win. If he plays and "wins", I won't really attribute the last few games as the reason why... he earned it by being excellent for the entire season.
1. As someone else pointed it out, they're different cases because one cannot be obtained by suffering an injury while the other can. Imagine the HR record broken because the pitcher was serving up batting practice balls. That would be much closer. 2. People talk about Michael Strahan. if Strahan had not gotten the record, do you think people will remember him nearly as fondly as a sack artist? He's only 24. If he keeps this up, in 15 years and people are looking back on his career, something like 2x Batting title will look a lot cooler than 1x Batting title (another time came in 2nd).
Is it basically a point a hit at this point? This is gonna be tight. Some good drama. Seems like Victor is crushing it at the most critical time, and yet seems like Altuve had done the same thing. These are two guys who are sizzling. Making it extremely tense.
