The GRRREAT Delmon Young!

I'll be honest. I started out writing this post to say that comparing post season totals (home runs, RBI's) between Delmon Young and Hank Greenberg is preposterous.

In Greenberg's day, only two teams out of 16 got as far as the postseason. Hence, (and my math is terrible, so I'll stand for criticisms) your team only had .125 percent chance to even get that far. Today, 10 out of 30 teams make it to the playoffs, or a .330 chance.

So there is a great deal of luck in being on a winning team, and even getting the chance to be in the postseason.

For example, our hero Al Kaline only appeared in one World Series and one playoff. Total post-season production: three homers and nine RBI's. He had a great series in 1968, hitting .379 but his totals are less than either Greenberg or Young. 

But when I got back to comparing the records of Greenberg and Young, Delmon's stats hold up.

Fact is, their opportunities post-season have been pretty similar, and fact is, Delmon has more cred!

Delmon played in 18 games for the last two years for the Tigers. (Let's ignore his post-season appearances with Minnesota.) He has racked up seven homers and 14 RBI's.

Greenberg played in 23 games in four World Series. (Once again, some luck in playing for a winner.) He "only" hit five HR's and 22 RBI's.

It's not always going to be fair to compare modern players' post-seasons with the old boys. Already this season we've had a record 36 post-season games, and there could be seven more. In olden times there we only seven post-season games* per year.

But in this case, Young has played in fewer games, and accomplished more. Tip of the cap to him.

(I thought you guys would appreciate a Maris-style asterisk to my records. From 1919-1923 the series was the best of nine!)