DamnYankees wrote:
> John, that was the best thing
> I've ever read. Admittedly I'm
> totally biased, but it was really
> thrilling to see you analyze my
> grandfather like that.
Thanks.
> Gotta love him and Miller as the
> only guys over 1000 hits at that
> age.
I'm pretty sure are many other players who have had 1000+ hits by the age of 26. I only looked at Miller and Morris. Looking at the hit leaderboard:
1727 - Pops McAuliffe
1666 - Kid Fite
1643 - Will Miller
1637 - Rabbi Baum
1546 - Fat Gus Kahle
1512 - General Ward
1480 - Sal Rossi
1462 - Flaky Arsenault
1373 - Tito Nunez
998 - Tyke Walls
That's just the Top 10 in hits. So many of these guys broke into the bigs at 17 or 18, and were awfully good by 20, that's it's pretty much a hoot to look at. Several reasons for this:
* older versions of OOTP generated more fully developed draft picks
* I believe Matt now dials down the Overall (or "current") Talent of draft picks to keep there from being these Super Kids
* older versions of OOTP had a quicker development curve
* newer OOTP seems to be slower and reaching peaks at an unrealist (in a non-juice era) older age
* older versions of OOTP had a sharper decline in aging
* newer OOTP can have a far slower aging process, hence the late in life performance of Moe and Ditty in the post war was rarely (if ever) matches by players in the past.
A lot of that is why Morris can possibly catch some of those players on the list even though he's trailing them by several hundred hits. Most of these players had very front loaded careers, while it's a strong possibility that Morris still has his peak coming, especially if a OOTP patch doesn't pop up to cut off the juiced up post-30 age numbers.
Take a look at Baum. He got injured during a monster year in 1930 at the age of 30. He never was the same, other than a flash of it in 1933 when he was again injured. After that he was a shell of himself.
So I could see Morris getting a boatload of hits. Miller is just tough to catch for him because he is so far behind _and_ Miller kept banging out hits for a long time. I don't want to say that Miller's mark is uncatchable by *anyone*. It's just going to have to be someone who doesn't have the disadvantage that Morris did - the war and the slow start getting into the line-up.
> EDIT: Thanks for the info on Baum.
> So Morris is one of a very prestigious
> three,
It's *possible* that someone else has done 220 twice. I just didn't take much of a look. I can run through the almanacs and see what comes up.
> I think he can get 220+ at
> least once more.
He certainly has a decent shot at it. The Eye rating is low, though he does walk a *fair* amount. He seems dialed into the top of the Sox order, and will be there for a while (the Sox may find a better leadoff hitter at some point and drop him to #2).
> Hopefully more, if he plays into 1961.
Seems like a lock. He'll be 38 then. He just may not be a regular, unless some team give him a gig to chase a higher slot on the all-time leader boards.
John
John