The BIGGEST and BEST subreddit for America's pastime: baseball. The focus is mainly on MLB, but other posts about other leagues and levels are welcome! Mike Trout **For the best user experience, we recommend disabling the Reddit redesign.**
Opinion
I was young and didn’t have a chance to watch either play but I’ve seen both referred to as major “what-if” players.
Who was better?
Sort by:
Best
Open comment sort options
Best
Top
New
Controversial
Old
Q&A
Hamilton and it’s not even close. 2010 Hamilton beating out Miggy for the MVP sucked as a Tigers fan, but dude hit like .360, with power.
Miggy losing MVP with a stat line of .328/.622/1.042 38 Homers and 126 RBI is kinda wild.
Josh hit .359 with 32 homers and 100 RBI and didn’t play the month of September. Pissed Miggy off enough to go and just hit for the triple crown 2 years later lol
The only thing that could be argued in favor of Sizemore would be speed and defense. Hamilton was without debate a drastically superior bat. He would be talked about along with miggy and Pujols as the absolute best had he stuck around longer. IMHO they were the 3 best bats of this century so far.
Hamilton had the chance to be one of the greatest of all time with his skills. His 2010 was the greatest season I’ve ever seen by a ranger
Very good player with a steep decline. Shame that his personal demons made him a late bloomer and then have an early decline.
I dont think it’s close either that Hamilton was better. Sizemore’s body just couldn’t keep him playing.
We saw how good Hamilton was in 2007-2012. We never really saw Sizemore reach his full potential.
I feel like we got a glimpse in 2008 - I don't ever see him as a 40 HR guy but I think he was going to be good for 35 or so a year instead of 25.
What?
Hamilton. It’s a testament to his insane talent that he ruined his life with drugs and alcohol. Came back and barely played double A/triple A and just hit major league pitching.
Hamilton. Still hurts thinking about how he sabotaged himself.
Remember how he said he couldn’t be trusted with $5 because he’d find a way to get high with it?
how do you get high with just $5? boone's farm, biker crank, krokodil? asking for a friend
Paint cans?
i would also accept huffing glue or nitrous poppers
Charlie Kelly would be a better owner than a Dolan or Haslam
If Hamilton's late HR ended up winning game 6 and the WS for the Rangers, it's the greatest comeback story in MLB history. He was out of baseball completely for almost 3 years. Hell, it's still arguably the best, since not only did he make it back, he played at an elite level.
I only say it cause you just won so the sting's gone-ish now, but both your best relievers blowing 2 run leads with 3 outs left each... AND blowing two different final strikes has to go down as the greatest WS collapse ever.
Robbed a lot of deserving talent from the rings they deserved.
What's weird is how that's never come up in the past 12 years
Our second best reliever pitched right before Feliz. Mike Adams. Feldman and Oliver were not
Well not Feldman (though Feldman pitched pretty well himself, it was Oliver that fucked that inning up), but I thought Oliver was dealing that year…
Double checked… 2.29 ERA that year… so if not the 2nd best, then good enough to be on a WS team
In the thread, a lot of people underrating Grady Sizemore.
Nah, they're just not confusing potential with reality
I think it's an issue of looking at a stat page vs watching them play. By looking at stats I think it's really easy to just say, "well Hamilton had a season that was 100 OPS points better. So clearly it's him". But from watching them, it's definitely a discussion. Sizemore was a lot more dynamic, while Hamilton was a freak.
Sizemore had a higher floor, Hamilton probably had a higher repeatable ceiling. But Sizemores ceiling probably wasn't that far below Hamiltons.
Both will always be what ifs, and for good reason. But it's definitely not as clear as this early comment section is making it out to be.
really?
stat page tells you hamilton’s CF defense was a hard negative which definitely wasn’t what ppl were saying with the eye test. the eye test 100% takes Hamilton because his offense was not only better but aesthetically more pleasing (high avg + power). Sizemore’s value comes from defense, baserunning, and OBP — things typically better calculated by stats.
also this absolutely was not a debate before ppl were looking at advanced stats, I promise you in like 2012 you ask this same question abt these two at their peaks and nobody is taking Sizemore.
Yeah, Hamilton was my go to definition of a 5 tool player. He had range and a cannon out there, no matter what the page says.
Strong disagree on who people were taking then. Everyone around the Central was taking Sizemore. Even now if you ask this question in the tigers stadium or KC or MIN most people are going to immediately start by talking about how great Sizemore was and could have been.
There is a big time perception gap between what the stats page says and what fans thought. Now that he is coaching you are hearing it all again around here.
Bias based on region maybe. But the debate is very open for a large amount of people who watched early Grady.
Disagree. And Cleveland got a fair bit of exposure too as a playoff team w Sabathia, Lee, and Hafner. Sizemore was more of a ‘super underrated what could’ve been’ guy whereas Hamilton was a bonafide superstar (with a WAR/162 total that is surprisingly low).
Nah. It honestly seems like most of the people saying Grady are underrating just how good Josh Hamilton was
There is not a single parent comment in this thread saying Grady was better. And not a single reply saying definitively that Grady is better.
Just that he's being underrated. Which is clear because of the above two sentences.
I made the original comment hours ago. That's still the case.
Our parent comment is about underrating Grady compared to Hamilton
Which Grady was awesome, loved playing with him in MVP 2005, But he was no peak Josh Hamilton
this line of enquiry hurts for all the reasons are you a BDSM master
two most talented what ifs this side of, i don't know, Brien Taylor
Hamilton had a higher ceiling, but lower floor
Travis Hafner
Hambone by miles.
Hamilton was Mickey Mantle reborn for like a couple seasons. Feel like we as baseball fans were cheated out of an all time career bc of his demons
Hamilton was Mickey Mantle reborn for like a couple seasons. Feel like we as baseball fans were cheated out of an all time career bc of his demons
Hamilton was a generational talent. If he would’ve reached his potential, easy 500 Hr, 750+ SB. He was unbelievably gifted.
One thing that sticks out to me is when he hit 28 home runs in the first round of the derby.
My old pitching coach was drafted and played rookie ball against Hamilton he said watching him play and move was absolutely different. He was big, but could fly.
I'd say Hamilton had the better single year peak, sizemore had the better multi year peak, and they had pretty similar overall careers
Really similar, with almost no overlap. Grady's last good year was at age 26, Hamilton's first good year was at age 27.
What people don’t want to hear is that we saw both of their peaks. Sizemore was an all-star level player while Hamilton was an MVP level player. There’s quite a bit of difference between to two.
Peak Hamilton was HoF-level. Peak Sizemore wasn’t.
Hamilton was most talented baseball player I've seen in my entire life.
Dude spent 3 years shooting heroine and not playing baseball, then he took 100 minor league AB's, then he slashed .292/.368/.544 in the majors.