As I posted elsewhere, a pet peeve of mine is the characterization of Chipper as injury prone (here "synonymous with his career"). Indeed, Chipper has had injury problems in his 30s, and he lost his rookie season; these are not trivial. But, he also had a nine year stretch where he was an iron man, missing a total of 43 games. And, these were seasons when the Braves were in contention annually, so he had a few years (1996, 1999) of playing over 170 games by the time the postseason was done.

Not unlike Mickey Mantle, Jones’ lone rival for the title of greatest switch-hitter, injuries would be synonymous with his career.

Nice article, but this is a little silly. Jones might well be the second best switch-hitter in history, but he's not even on the same planet as the Mick.

But, he also had a nine year stretch where he was an iron man, missing a total of 43 games.

Great point, and to elaborate a bit; those 43 games missed over 9 years were spread out; he never went on the DL during the 9 year stretch.

Colin posted this list of games played on my Facebook link. It is an awesome list and shows exactly how durable Chipper was before age caught up to him. The list includes post-season games, which were numerous for the Braves at that time...

1995: 154 (144 game regular season)
1996: 173 (!)
1997: 166
1998: 169
1999: 171
2000: 159
2001: 167
2002: 163
2003: 158

Chipper would have to go 0 for his next 151 ABs to not finish his career as a .300 hitter, so I think he's got that wrapped up. Likewise a .500 SLG. He's much closer to dipping below a .400 OBP - if you assume he'll get 135 more PAs this season (75% of the remaining games times 4.1 PAs per game), he would need to get on base 31 more times, which is a .224 OBP. Cross your fingers for him!

I have been surprised, with his excellent hitting this year, why he is not walking more (being pitched around).

Looking at the box score, I didn't notice the Braves finally decided to stop being stupid and moved Medlen into the rotation. Good for them! Only took four months to figure it out. And a five hit, no walk shutout last night. Sure it's the Padres but it still counts.

Someone remind me why somebody thought Chipper did not merit a spot as a reserve on this year's All-Star team.

So, apparently Chipper Jones is tweeting now. I'm not sure if it's really him or not since there is no verified check next to his name last I saw, but...man, his last tweet was REALLY hard to read. I say that as someone who is a huge baseball fan and considers himself well versed in Twitterspeak.

Looking at the box score, I didn't notice the Braves finally decided to stop being stupid and moved Medlen into the rotation

He is a 5' 10" RHP; he cannot be any good.

Someone remind me why somebody thought Chipper did not merit a spot as a reserve on this year's All-Star team.

Um, he was in the All-Star game. I think he grounded out in the game, but I remember the ovation the Kansas City fans gave him when he was announced - it was awesome, only Billy Butler heard more from the crowd.

Not unlike Mickey Mantle, Jones’ lone rival for the title of greatest switch-hitter, injuries would be synonymous with his career.

Nice article, but this is a little silly. Jones might well be the second best switch-hitter in history, but he's not even on the same planet as the Mick.

Chipper may be #2, but Eddie Murray deserves more respect than this. He and Chipper are closer to each other than either is to Mick.

Chipper's got a 141 OPS+ through 10,473 PA. If Murray had retired at 36, he would have had 10389 PA and a 136. By peak value they are pretty close.

I think he grounded out in the game, but I remember the ovation the Kansas City fans gave him when he was announced - it was awesome, only Billy Butler heard more from the crowd.

He dribbled a single into leftfield.

So, apparently Chipper Jones is tweeting now. I'm not sure if it's really him or not since there is no verified check next to his name last I saw, but...man, his last tweet was REALLY hard to read. I say that as someone who is a huge baseball fan and considers himself well versed in Twitterspeak.

This glossary may help:

DU: Dan Uggla
Free: Freddie Freeman
Huddy: Tim Hudson
JHey: Jason Heyward
JSoft: Paul Janish
Kimmy: Craig Kimbrel
Ma-homie: Paul Maholm
Meds: Kris Medlen
O: Eric O'Flaherty
Old Man: Chipper Jones
Roadrunner: Juan Francisco
Sheetsy: Ben Sheets
Teen: Martin Prado

Chipper would have to go 0 for his next 151 ABs to not finish his career as a .300 hitter, so I think he's got that wrapped up. Likewise a .500 SLG. He's much closer to dipping below a .400 OBP - if you assume he'll get 135 more PAs this season (75% of the remaining games times 4.1 PAs per game), he would need to get on base 31 more times, which is a .224 OBP. Cross your fingers for him!

Greg Maddux is lighting 999 prayer candles, one for each of his career walks allowed.

Chipper may be #2, but Eddie Murray deserves more respect than this. He and Chipper are closer to each other than either is to Mick.

Chipper's got a 141 OPS+ through 10,473 PA. If Murray had retired at 36, he would have had 10389 PA and a 136. By peak value they are pretty close.

One assumes you mean peak hitting value? By bWAR, ranking top five years:



I don't think that's particularly close in overall value, which one might expect, given that they hit similarly when one was a 3B and the other was a 1B.

Yeah, Chipper tweets like an over-caffeinated teenager. Apparently he has a whole language for describing home runs.

Greg Maddux is lighting 999 prayer candles, one for each of his career walks allowed.

Pedro's 100th loss his second-to-last start makes me sad.

Murray used to have an OPS+ of 156 each year from 1981-84, but now BBRef lists 1984 as a 157. This is terrible! Whatever new research led to a change in the 1984 park factors or whatever needs to be reversed this instant.

Yeah, Chipper tweets like an over-caffeinated teenager. Apparently he has a whole language for describing home runs.

This is probably my favorite aspect of Chipper outside of "hey, my favorite team has this inner circle HOF player on there team." He has is own damned grammatology for Christ's sake. He speaks in tongues.

This is probably my favorite aspect of Chipper outside of "hey, my favorite team has this inner circle HOF player on there team." He has is own damned grammatology for Christ's sake. He speaks in tongues.

It's charming because it's Chipper, and we all love Chipper. I found it decidedly less charming when Eric Byrnes was rambling on about "oppo tacos" and "oppo tacos with lettuce" during the 2010 College World Series.

It's charming because it's Chipper, and we all love Chipper. I found it decidedly less charming when Eric Byrnes was rambling on about "oppo tacos" and "oppo tacos with lettuce" during the 2010 College World Series

Was he doing this on Twitter or as a broadcaster? If Chipper were to stop by the booth next year and speak in the same sort broken "Old Hoss Radburn" syntax he speaks in normally it wouldn't be nearly as fun. (Well, it would be for a game or two, especially if Joe Simpson had to translate him, but it would get old quickly.)

Chipper Vs Ed-die

Yes, Jones' peak appears higher by batting value above avg or above replacement. But it's been easier to do that in the 90s-now than it was in the 70s-80s. Eddie's rank among his peers was nearly as good as Mister Jones.

By WAR rank among position players, top four years:
Chipper: 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 6th
Murray: 3rd, 6th, 6th, 8th
and then you consider Murray played 563 more games... there are close as possible 2nd best switch hitters.


By bWAR, ranking top five years:
Chipper: 7.4, 7.1, 6.8, 6.7, 6.0
Murray: 6.8, 6.4, 5.4, 4.9, 4.9

Was he doing this on Twitter or as a broadcaster? If Chipper were to stop by the booth next year and speak in the same sort broken "Old Hoss Radburn" syntax he speaks in normally it wouldn't be nearly as fun. (Well, it would be for a game or two, especially if Joe Simpson had to translate him, but it would get old quickly.)

Fair enough. Byrnes was doing it on the ESPN telecast, and you're right, there's a difference between pulling that nonsense as a professional broadcaster and just blabbing on Facebook.

Greg Maddux is lighting 999 prayer candles, one for each of his career walks allowed.

Fergie Jenkins: 4500.2 IP, 997 BB

Ya kinda get the feeling Fergie was keeping an eye on those in his last season.

On Chi

Oops ...

On Chipper, maybe it is his official Twitter account ... but he's having one of the Hooters girls do the tweeting. :-)

On switch-hitters, Reggie Smith is being dismissed too easily as is Lance Berkman. Smith wasn't as durable as either Chipper or Murray and I suspect will fall short on peak measures but ...

career 137 OPS+
143 OPS+ from 24-33 (cherry-picked)
with 45 WAR and 41 oWAR
top 5 WAR of 6.5, 5.9, 5.5, 5.4, 4.8 which is similar to Murray
4 top 10 finishes in position player WAR (4, 6, 8, 8)

Murray will beat out Smith on career but peaks looke pretty close.

Berkman is even more interesting as he leads in OPS+ at 146, 2nd only to Mantle. He's at 7500 PA and longevity is an obvious concern in terms of comparing with Jones and Murray. He's gonna lose the WAR war because he's a below-average defender at an offensive position but he has 424 Rbat which is higher than Murray's career total but over 100 lower than Chipper's. (Murray gave back a lot of Rbat at the end but Berkman beats him slightly through age 37 when Murray had 3500 more PA.) But Murray is still winning on oWAR and he's getting hit for 100 more runs of Rpos

Hopefully Berkman can finsish off with 2000 or so reasonably healthy PA to make this and the Berkman vs. Edgar debates more interesting.

Chipper had a much better "late peak" than Eddie (age 34-36, 10th best in WAR, behind Ruth, Wagner, Mays, Bonds, Clemente, Aaron, Speaker, Lajoie, Cobb). Interestingly, Larry Walker ranks 11th. Eddie ranks 154th.

Is there any chance all these articles and the fans clamoring for it, along with his performance this season, that Chipper changes his mind about retiring. I'm sure he meant it at the time, and I'm sure he's looking forward to his retirement, but if you have a little left in the tank, I'm not sure I could quit. He may not be able to play every day, and he might be putting extraordinary effort just to go out on top and may have nothing left when the season is over.

BTW, who is the greatest major leaguer of all time that was the first overall pick? (Arod, Griffey, Chipper?)

BTW, who is the greatest major leaguer of all time that was the first overall pick? (Arod, Griffey, Chipper?)

Steve Chilcott.

And Chipper goes yard again in the first inning.

Reggie Smith is being dismissed too easily as is Lance Berkman

I was shocked at how darn good Reggie Smith was, in looking at his career. he is a lot more deserving HOF candidate than some of the names I hear bandied about.

I think Berkman is 1 more full good year from having a good HOF case, too. More and more voters are going to see the value of his very high OBP; guys who got a lot of hits but never walked are going to be exposed a bit; they will lose their luster over time.

Lance Berkman used to be a center fielder. I remember it and I still do not understand how that was possible.

Is there any chance all these articles and the fans clamoring for it, along with his performance this season, that Chipper changes his mind about retiring.

He's been pretty damned emphatic about it, so I doubt it.

Lance Berkman used to be a center fielder. I remember it and I still do not understand how that was possible.

I'll never forget the play he made climbing the hill at then-Enron Field. Or maybe I should say stumbling up the hill.

Is there any chance all these articles and the fans clamoring for it, along with his performance this season, that Chipper changes his mind about retiring.

He's been pretty damned emphatic about it, so I doubt it.

Me too. I think it just plain hurts Chipper's body too much to keep playing baseball at this point.

And Chipper goes yard again in the first inning.

I believe you meant to say, "Chipper goes yickety again in the first inning."

I almost fear the idea of bringing up Bill James name at BTF these days........but where does the latest James ranking place Chipper as an all-time great 3B-man?

I believe you meant to say, "Chipper goes yickety again in the first inning."

And it looked awfully mammo.

I think it just plain hurts Chipper's body too much to keep playing baseball at this point.

This would be partly my guess. It's too bad that 1B is blocked and that Chipper can't DH regularly without leaving the Braves.

Chipper goes yickety again in the first inning

I don't think that means what you think that means in Hooter-speak.

And it looked awfully mammo

I think you can translate that one on your own.

I almost fear the idea of bringing up Bill James name at BTF these days........but where does the latest James ranking place Chipper as an all-time great 3B-man?

I haven't looked in a while but I think I put him in 3rd behind Mathews. I've had him ahead of Brett for a while but me and my silly thinking third baseman should get credit for playing third base. :-)

The official Walt Davis off the top of his head list at 3B:

Schmidt
Mathews
Chipper
Boggs
Brett

pretty big gap

some ordering of Rolen, Santo, Baker, Brooks and whoever I'm forgetting
some ordering of Boyer, Nettles, Bell (and maybe Bando ... I just gotta say WAR doesn't sit right with me on him) and whoever else I'm forgetting.

I'm assuming AROD doesn't have enough peak as a 3B to qualify as a top 3B.

Thanks Walt.
That looks to be a very logical ranking; I'd probably list the top 5 similarly.
I got to see a young Eddie Mathews when I was a kid at Forbes field and he was my favorite non-Pirate player for years.
He didn't age well and was done before his time.
Injuries I guess as he was a tremendous athlete in his twenties.
I give Chipper real credit for staying in playing condition through his late 30's

all 35 and over team this season

1b: david ortiz
2b: jamey carroll
ss: derek jeter
3b: chipper jones
lf: alfonso soriano
cf: torii hunter
rf: carlos beltran
c: aj pierznyski

pretty good team. carroll has played all over but second the most though just barely. his defense is truly impressive. torii has been playing right but hey we needed a centerfielder. ichiro and paul konerko can be bench guys.

pitchers? oh geez there are lots of pitchers.

He didn't age well and was done before his time.

I'm not sure I'd put it that way. Mathews debuted at 20 and was extremely durable. He made it to nearly 2400 games and over 10,000 PA. That's a long career, it was just squeezed into ages 20-35. Chipper, age 40, only passed Mathews in games and PAs this year.