Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated writes not only about Josh Hamilton being the best player in baseball, but that there “possibly [isn't anybody] this good, this big, this fast and this unique …. since Mickey Mantle in his prime.”

Let’s ignore for a fact that there aren’t levels of uniqueness – you’re either unique or you’re not, and focus on both Hamilton’s claim to being the best in baseball, and his claim to being the best in baseball since Mickey Mantle.

There’s no doubt that Josh Hamilton’s a stud.  If he’s not the favorite for American League MVP, he’s in the top two or three.  I just have issue with Verducci cherry-picking the stats he likes to make his case.

“Hamilton leads the league in batting (.362), slugging (.634), hits (161) and total bases (282). The rest of the league is playing for second place in the MVP race.”

It’s not surprising to see that a player leading the lead in batting average also leads the league in hits, especially since batting average is defined by the number of hits you have divided by the number of at-bats you have.  The league leader in hits doesn’t always lead the league in average, however, because there are other things you can do at the plate.  Like take a walk.

Hamilton has a .405 on-base percentage, which is nothing to sneeze at, and it’s third in the league, but it’s also 28 points behind Miguel Cabrera.  Even if you take away all of Cabrera’s intentional walks (and leave in Hamilton’s), he’s still walked fifteen more times.  On-base percentage is vastly more important than batting average, and Verducci knows this.  I can only surmise that he’s bringing it up because he’s trying to write a compelling piece about Hamilton.

But I can cherry-pick stats, too, and these are stats that voters vote on.  Cabrera’s actually 31 points ahead in slugging percentage (as opposed to Hamilton was a week ago, just to show how much the stat can fluctuate over that short a period of time), has five more home runs, and eighteen more RBIs.  If Cabrera ends the season with 40 home runs and 130 RBIs, and Hamilton finishes with 32 and 110, voters will select Cabrera even if Hamilton bats twenty points higher (although I’m not sure we should expect that, given that Hamilton’s BABIP is hovering around .400 right now, which means he’s getting exceptionally lucky on balls he puts in play… Cabrera’s BABIP is pretty close to his actual average).

The point is that while no one should be arguing that Hamilton isn’t an MVP-caliber player, it’s not as cut-and-dried as he stating that he has “no contemporaries”, as Verducci claims.  It’s hyperbole and it’s ridiculous and it’s an insult to other players.

Now onto Mickey Mantle.

I’m always puzzled when I hear about a player with great speed who doesn’t steal bases.  Ken Griffey, Jr was a phenomenal outfielder who possessed great speed in his youth, but he never saw fit to steal bases.  If you have speed and you don’t use it, is it really that noteworthy?  Verducci quotes Rangers GM Jon Daniels marveling at how Hamilton can go from first to third without breaking stride.  Wow, uh, that’s great.  Tell me again why he has only eight stolen bases?  Is that just “not part of his game”, like they said about Griffey?  Because that’s a load of crap.  Being fast and not stealing bases is like throwing 100 mph and not throwing strikes.  What good is it?

This is going to sound blasphemous, because we’ve all heard about how great Mickey Mantle is, and how fast he was, and all those regrets about hard living and his bad knees, but if Mantle was such a phenomenal combination of speed and power, why was his best season total a paltry twenty-one bases?  His career 152 steals rank him between Dave Parker and Dante Bichette on the all-time list.  Not exactly a burner on the basepaths.

But let’s assume for the sake of argument that Mantle when healthy would have been like Willie Mays (and, honestly, I’m not sure why the comparison to Mays wasn’t made instead of Mantle, but whatever), clocking home runs and whizzing around the basepaths.  There are a whole bunch of guys who make a better comparison than Hamilton.  A-Rod is one.  Barry Bonds is another.  Even Pudge Rodriguez in his prime.  It’s absurd to compare Hamilton to Mantle as though no one in between them was their equal.  I get that Verducci likes the fact that he’s built like a linebacker and he’s fun to watch patrolling center field and hustling all out on plays.  He doesn’t need to embellish it with the nonsense about Mantle.