"Let's not jump the gun just yet by sending white smoke billowing from the top of Yankee Stadium to anoint Andy Phillips as some kind of pinstriped savior. While this young man has pumped some much needed life into a so far lethargic offense, it's still too soon to determine if he is Lou Gehrig or merely another Kevin Maas."
The Yankee offense is certainly inconsistent -- most offenses are -- but I don't know if it's fair to claim it's lethargic. They are averaging 5.5 runs per game and are third in the league in runs scored.
No matter.
The beauty of Phil Pepe is not in the boring details.
The beauty of Phil Pepe is that he reminds everybody that, after fourteen career at-bats, it's too early to compare Andy Phillips to Lou Gehrig. (It is also too early to compare Phillips to Pope Benedict XVI.)
You know what? Let's go ahead and jump the gun and put Phil Pepe's proposition to the test:
Andy Phillips: 10 games; 14 at-bats; .286 ba; 2 hrs; 6 rbis; 4 runs.
Lou Gehrig: 2,164 games; 8,001 at-bats; .340 ba; 493 hrs; 1,995 rbis; 1,888 runs.
What other criteria may we use? The baseball-reference.com HOF monitor is not the be-all and end-all statistic, but I think it's a pretty good way to compare careers. Let's see what b-r.com has to say:
Andy Phillips: HOF Monitor of nothing. I guess he hasn't played enough games yet to qualify. But I did find out that his first name is George.
Lou Gehrig: HOF Monitor of 352, which is the seventh-highest of all-time.
My conclusion is that Phil Pepe is right again. It is, in fact, still too soon to determine if Andy Phillips will be as good as Lou Gehrig.
No comments:
Post a Comment