It was about Altuve and his 52 steals, not Biggio and his 50. 52 is not arbitrary, nor is it a "threshold". It's Altuve's actual number.
Yes, I understand that 52 is how many steals Altuve has. But this statement "Jose Altuve with 209 hits, 42 doubles, 52 steals,
1st to reach those numbers since Ty Cobb in 1917- 225H, 44-2B, 55 steals." is using 209 hits, 42 doubles, and 52 steals as thresholds. It's not saying Ty Cobb had exactly 209 hits, 42 doubles, and 52 steals, it's saying he had
at least that many. What I'm saying is those are cherry-picked thresholds made to make Altuve's season seem extra-special. Which is quite common - teams and sportswriters do it all the time - but I find it bizarre that they put the bar at 52 steals, which excludes Biggio's 1998 season, you know, the one when he set the record that Altuve just broke. Something like "Jose Altuve is just the 4th player in the modern era to collect 200 hits, 40 doubles, and 50 steals in the same season, joining Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, and Craig Biggio" would have been better, in my opinion, and still sounded extremely impressive.
But maybe it's just me that has a problem with cherry-picked thresholds, such as
these:
McHugh won his sixth consecutive decision in a span of seven starts. He has allowed two earned runs or fewer in nine consecutive starts and hasn't walked a batter in his last four starts, a span of 29 1/3 innings. He tied a franchise record by not issuing a walk in four starts of at least six innings.
He joined Cy Young winner Mike Scott (1986), Larry Dierker (1969) and Nolan Ryan (1983) as the only Astros pitchers to allow two runs or fewer in nine consecutive starts. His 2.66 ERA is the lowest by an Astros pitcher (minimum 140 innings) through Sept. 15 of a season since 2005, when Roger Clemens (1.77) and Andy Pettitte (2.43) were leading the team to the World Series.
