If You Think Derek Jeter Was a Better Baseball Player Than Albert Pujols, You Should Be in Jail

Look, I'm going to do my best not to get upset. I was having a perfectly fine day until I saw this, but now I'm incensed. I'm showing this tweet to every person that walks in the door at the Barstool Sports office. I'm incredulous.

Saying Derek Jeter was a better baseball player than Albert Pujols — not to mention Ichiro or half a dozen other people behind him on that list — is such an insane take, I don't even know how to refute it. It's actually so wrong, it puts your mind into a pretzel and makes it difficult to debate.

There really isn't a single meaningful statistic you could find which would indicate Jeter is a better player than Pujols. Jeter's batting average is 13 points higher because of the 2,000 or so slap singles he had in his career and that's about it. Pujols is arguably the greatest hitter of this century and I'm having to sit here comparing him to a guy who was never even in the conversation for being the best player in the league, had a career 119 wRC+ and was, according to Defensive Runs Saved (-162), the worst defender in the history of Major League Baseball?

The first decade of Pujols's career is one of the greatest 10-year stretches in the history of the sport — .331/.426/.625, 408 HR, 1,230 RBI. But Jeter had that one play where he caught a ball and took four more steps so he could fall over into the stands, so I guess they're on equal footing.

If Jeter played in Kansas City, he'd be a footnote in baseball history. He wasn't even the best shortstop in his own division for several years. He gets credit for playing on some of the greatest teams of all-time as if winning championships with those groups makes him a better individual player than guys like Pujols. It's certifiably insane and the definition of fake news.

People should go to jail for this.