As far as range factor for first basemen goes… it’s not really a great stat. A vast majority (like, really huge – probably 80% or more) of the plays made by an average first baseman involve standing on first base and sticking your glove out at approximately shoulder height, and squeezing at the appropriate time. Not necessarily the best measure of defensive skill at first base; more a function of the groundball tendencies of the pitching staff and the range of the other infielders, at least 80% of it.

For what it’s worth, the badness of Piazza’s defense is overrated; a study by Sean Forman (the baseball reference guy) listed him as one of the best catchers in recent years at preventing wild pitches/avoiding passed balls (I wish I had the link handy; it’s on bb-ref somewhere). Oddly enough, Pudge was one of the worst in the same study, if memory serves.

Take, for example, Eddie Murray. The second best switch hitter of all time. 3255 hits, 504 homers, 1917 RBI, 8 straight years with a top ten finish in the MVP voting, even 3 GG and 110 SB to 43 CS. And zero GREAT seasons by the 162 OPS+ rating. He belongs in the HOF. But he belongs not on the scale of his peaks, but the height and length of his valley.

So what the GREAT argument does is give us a basis to discuss players who didn’t have the counting numbers, but still maybe are worthy of HOF consideration. And as we move into the future, with HGH and who knows what new PEDs on the horizon, it also gives us a way of ranking players compared to their peers, because it seems probable that we will see more and more players with better but shorter careers.

Using Joe’s list, my number is five. Any player who manages five GREAT seasons deserves HOF entry, no doubt in my mind, unless there are issues of cheating and the like. Anybody with fewer than five had better have some longevity to him, like being the best hitter at his position, getting some large counting numbers, whatever. And I have to say, no matter what kind of metrics we come up with for a GREAT season, when a guy has an OPS+ of 156 four years in a row, finishes 5th, 2nd, 2nd, and 4th in MVP voting like Murray did, some of those years have to be great. So maybe greatness becomes absolute GREAT using RCAA or OPS+ or whatever, but if you finish in the top 3 or 5 in MVP balloting, you had a GREAT year.

The interesting question is going to be: what about Jeff Kent? I mean, Piazza, ARod, and Maddux are no doubt about it HOFers, and Bonds and Clemens would be save for the cloud of PEDs, but what about Kent. All time leader in home runs for his position, IIRC RBI as well. One GREAT year, winning MVP. Good in the post season, with an OPS of .880. But probably a negative base runner, definitely a negative base stealer, and just an average fielder at a very important position. A smart ball player, one of the best I’ve seen in recent years at giving up an out to move a runner from second to third with nobody out. But also at the center of many “jerk-related” controversies.

Does Kent get in as a GREAT player? Not unless he gets a big boost for playing second base. But a guy who has a career OPS+ of 123 while playing an adequate middle infield position has to deserve HOF consideration, unless we want to rule out everybody except for sluggers. I mean, look at Wade Boggs, never won an MVP, had two years where he batted over .360 without achieving GREATness, only two GREAT years in his career, didn’t play an important defensive position, and although he won a GG in a year where his RF9 was below league average (hah!) he was at best an above average fielder. His career OPS+ was only 130. And yet he wasn’t a 1B/LF/DH type, and he was a very reliable fielder (.011 FP above average) with average or slightly above average range at a middling defensive position. But 3,000 hits these days is the kind of counting number that is driving us towards GREATness, same as 500 homers.

So I say if we’re going to continue on this path, we *must* find a way to upgrade better fielders, especially at more important positions. We have to be able to move Wade Boggs from marginal to clear cut. Tony Gwynn, who had 5 gold gloves, a higher OPS+ than Boggs for his career, and was a decent basestealer (319 steals to 125 CS) only had one GREAT season, and that was a short year where he batted .394. Seasons of .370, .368, .362, not quite GREAT.

So the formula needs work: defensive adjustments. But I seem to be the only person talking about that.

In 1992 and 1993, Thomas had an RF9 *THREE* more than the average first baseman in his league while fielding 150+ games. 1994 and 1996 he also showed above average range for his position. His FP was about average, his range far above average. Then he slowed down a lot. Those four seasons certainly compare favorably to what Edgar Martinez fielded.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/t/thomafr04.shtml

Brian Giles in 1996 had an OPS+ of 162 in 140 PA. His AAA OPS was .988. So yeah, he was clearly ready for the bigs in 1996.

1995 had an OPS+ of 268 in a cup of coffee. In the minors that year his OPS was .891. So I’ll give him 1995 as being *probably* ready for the majors.

1994, his first year at AAA, his OPS was .870. Since almost every MLB hitter has to prove himself at a level before being promoted, I’ll say that in 1994 he established himself as being possibly promotable in 1995, but he didn’t hit well enough to make it clear that he deserved to be in the majors in 1994.

I’ll give Giles the better part of two extra seasons for his counting stats. But no more than that. His career is what it is: probably delayed by the team he was with, but not significantly. The first year he ever hit 20+ homers in a season was his last year with more time in the minors than the majors, and he didn’t really show power until 1999, when he was traded to the Pirates. I’ll guarantee if he’d shown a .600 SP or better in the minors, he’d have been in the majors sooner.

Giles, .296/.406/.511
Walker, .299/.384/.539

Giles, 1317 runs created in 4451 (AB-H), about 7.99 RC/27
Walker, 1431 in 4903, about 7.88 RC/27

Walker has a longer career, but since Giles (a) was trapped in the minors for far too long, as others have pointed out, (b) was more durable in-season, and (c) is still playing, it’s hard to give Walker an edge for that. Defense, yeah, Walker was probably better. But Giles was a little better as a hitter. That’s pretty much the definition of “close.”

Also, not that I’m saying Giles was as good defensively as Walker (he probably wasn’t), but BP’s fielding numbers (at least FRAA) aren’t the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’d be curious to see something more sophisticated, like zone rating or one of the PBP-based metrics; I doubt there’s really 75 runs of defense between them (although, again, Giles played tougher positions, so that difference is a bit too high).

Edgar has a very good case to be in the Hall.

If Seattle management had been able to surround their HoF quartet with simply average ML players, the M’s would likely have won at least one championship, and the tenor of this debate would be much different.