Ten good years
Posted: January 2nd, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 82 Comments »
One knock you hear all the time about certain Hall of Fame candidates is that they were just good players who assembled impressive career numbers simply by sticking around for a long time. I have always thought that undersells longevity, the ability to stay healhy, the ability to grow old gracefully, which is probably the most underrated talent in the business.
Mickey Mantle couldn’t do it. He only once hit 30-plus homers after he turned 30.
Sandy Koufax couldn’t do it. He retired with arm problems at 30 after winning the Cy Young three out of four years.
Don Drysdale couldn’t do it. He won five games after he turned 31.
Ryne Sandberg was a thoroughly ineffective player after he turned 34 (.250/.313/.419) and Jimmie Foxx only hit 15 homers after his 34th birthday. Rogers Hornsby was a part-time player after he turned 33 and Gary Carter plugged along as a part-time catcher the last four years of his career. These are some of the greatest ever, Hall of Famers, but they were not especially useful after they passed their prime. Baseball is an unforgiving game — you can’t live off your name for very long. You have to perform or you will be discarded, and those players who perform long enough to put up the huge numbers, well, while most people think they are overrated, I tend to believe the opposite is probably true — they are probably underrated, under-appreciated for being successful after their youth has faded, and their bodies ache, and their stuff has gone, and their bats have slowed.
Still, I understand the point — when talking about a Hall of Famer you want to start with a dominant peak. So, I thought it would be worth looking at the core years of some Hall of Fame candidates to determine who were the most dominant players over the heart of their careers. The question then is: How many years make up the heart of a career? Three years, clearly, is not enough. Take a look at the best three-year lines of a couple of Pittsburgh right fielders:
Player A: .327/.390/.546, 121 2Bs, 27 3Bs, 76 HRs, 318 runs, 299 RBIs, 57 SBs, 150 OPS+.
Player B: .323/.372/.526, 75 2Bs, 33 3Bs, 70 HRs, .282 runs, 286 RBIs, 18 SBs, 156 OPS+.
They both won Gold Gloves all three years. They both were known for having amazing arms. They both played in pretty low run scoring environments. So you probably know that one has to be Roberto Clemente and the other has to be Dave Parker, but which is which? When you reduce it down to just those three years, it’s pretty tough to pick one from the other.
What if you just looked at the five best years?
Player A: .320/.379/.546, 198 2Bs, 41 3Bs, 134 HRs, 481 runs, 525 RBIs, 70 SBs, 150 OPS+.
Player B: .341/.389/.535, 147 2Bs, 50 3Bs, 106 HRs, 490 runs, 496 RBIs, 29 SBs, 155 OPS+.
You could probably guess which player is which based on those numbers … but it would still be a guess. Those numbers are awfully, awfully close. It would be hard to justify putting one of those players in the Hall of Fame but not the other.
So: How about we look over their best 10 years? Yes, over 10 years, it becomes a little bit clearer:
Player A: 306/.356/.501, 346 2Bs, 58 3Bs, 233 HRs, 867 runs, 996 RBIs, 115 SBs, 134 OPS+.
Player B: .334/.381/.514, 250 2Bs, 102 3Bs, 178 HRs, 879 runs, 840 RBIs, 55 SBs, 150 OPS+.
Now, you can see (assuming you look at the right numbers) that Player B was quite a bit better. Player A has bigger counting numbers in some ways — more homers, more RBIs, almost 100 more doubles — but it’s clear that Player B has a significant advantage in on-base percentage and slugging percentage. And that sizable difference in OPS+ should tell you that Player B is Roberto Clemente, and Player A is Dave Parker.
And so, I thought that looking it might be worth look at the players 10 best years to determine just how great he was … when he was great.
* * *
Pitchers:
To give you the ideal, here are Tom Seaver’s best 10 seasons — and remember Seaver was the highest percentage vote getter in the history of the Hall of Fame:
Tom Seaver: 185-91, .670 Win%, 2.44 ERA,147 ERA+, 2,181 Ks, 707 walks, 146 CGs, 38 SHOs, 1.049 WHIP
That’s awfully good. Now, let’s look at four starters on this year’s ballot:
Bert Blyleven: 166-126, .568 Win%, 2.82 ERA, 137 ERA+, 2063 Ks, 684 walks, 162 CGs, 46 SHOs, 1.126 WHIP
Jack Morris: 181-102, .640 Win%, 3.49 ERA, 118 ERA+, 1642 Ks, 860 walks, 127 CGs, 20 SHOs, 1.226 WHIP
Tommy John: 157-86, .646 Win%, 2.94 ERA, 125 ERA+, 1063 Ks, 508 walks, 94 CGs, 31 SHOs, 1.187 WHIP
David Cone: 154-86, .642 Win%, 3.12 ERA, 135 ERA+, 2070 Ks, 820 walks, 47 CGs, 20 SHOs, 1.201 WHIP
Well, as expected, Morris has the most wins — he averaged 18.1 wins per year in his best 10 seasons, he’s right there with Seaver in victories. Of course, everyone here knows how I feel about wins as a statistic, but let’s put that aside for now — Morris is the closest thing to Seaver when it comes to wins per year. So if victories are your thing — and for many voters, victories are indeed the best way to judge a pitcher — then Morris should get the vote.
But even just looking at victories, Morris does not have the best winning percentage — John and Cone both won a higher percentage of their decisions over the 10 years. So there is that.
Then there are, to me, the numbers that matter most: Blyleven has the best ERA, the best ERA+, the best strikeout-to-walk ratio, the best WHIP. He also threw many more complete games than any of the other candidates (and that includes Seaver) and he threw WAY more shutouts than any of them (again, including Seaver). If I was voting for a 10-year Cy Young among the four Hall of candidates, Blyleven would be my runaway winner. And Jack Morris, even with the most wins, would probably finish fourth out of four because he’s last in those four categories.*
*This is not to downplay Morris’ Hall of Fame case, which is most subtle. The case is that he won a lot of games AND he pitched one of the greatest postseason games ever. It’s a legitimate case. I have written so many negative things over the years about Morris’ career that I probably have left the impression that I do not believe he was worth a damn. That’s not true. He was an excellent pitcher who you would love to have on your staff; and he was remarkable in that Game 7 of the World Series. I just happen to believe that he was a beneficiary of circumstance — he played for a lot of high scoring teams — and there are a number of pitchers out there I would put in the Hall of Fame first.
OK, does any of this tell us anything? Well, I think so. It tells us that Blyleven’s peak was VERY high in every possible way except wins. Should he have won more games? Maybe. But it’s worth noting that his 10 peak years were for the early 1970s Twins, the 1977 Texas Rangers, the 1978 Pittsburgh Pirates, the 1984 and ‘85 Cleveland Indians (plus a little ‘85 Twins in there) and the 1989 California Angels. Combined, those teams were 58 games under .500 when Blyleven didn’t get a decision and not one of them won a division title. I guess, you could blame Blyleven for that too. But the way I look at it: It’s utterly preposterous that Blyleven is not in the Hall.
Morris — I think you go with the Denny Green line: He is what we knew he was. He gave up hits, walks, runs, but stayed in games long enough to allow his outstanding teams (884-681 record) to score enough runs to win. His teams won 124 more games than they lost when Morris did not get a decision.
I think Tommy John really does deserve a good look. Not only does he have a pretty solid peak — great winning percentage, 125 ERA+ is good, lots of shutouts — but he had five other years that were good enough to throw in there as well. The guy DID win 288 games in his career, after all. Add in Tommy John surgery*, I think you could make a strong Hall of Fame case.
*If Bruce Sutter can get in largely for “popularizing†the split-fingered fastball, then John certainly should get big points for being the first to come back from the surgery named for him.
David Cone was very good for those 10 years. But that pretty much makes up the entirety of his career.
* * *
Hitters.
Again, to give you an ideal, here are Willie Mays’ 10 best seasons:
Willie Mays: .320/.395/.612, 281 2Bs, 96 3Bs, 411 HRs, 1,195 runs, 1,123 RBIs, 198 SBs, 743 walks, 693 Ks, 170 OPS+.
And the Hall of Fame nominees.
Mark McGwire: .277/.409/.632, 199 2Bs, 6 3Bs, 478 HRs, 931 runs, 1,122 RBIs, 9 SBs, 1,023 walks, 1,191 Ks, 174 OPS+.
Comment: I have to admit — I had no idea McGwire had 10 years quite that good. In the past, I have probably underrated McGwire as a player. I think like other people who were disturbed by the steroid deal, I WANTED to underrate McGwire as a player. But time fades, and we are getting a fuller picture of the era … and a .409 on-base percentage, a .632 slugging percentage and 478 homers over 10 years tells a compelling story.
* * *
Rickey Henderson: .296/.407/.452, 260 2Bs, 43 3Bs, 157 HRs, 1164 runs, 561 RBIs, 838 SBs, 973 walks, 702 Ks, 142 OPS+.
Comment: He had another five years that were just as good. Great peak. Great career. Great everything.
The other day, some brilliant readers were having an interesting discussion revolving around how you would pick your all-time baseball team. Most people would pick it by position:
C: Johnny Bench (09/09/09)
3B: George Brett (or Mike Schmidt, but we are based in KC here)
SS: Honus Wagner
2B: Joe Morgan (or Rogers Hornsby if you want that jerk on your team)
1B: Lou Gehrig
LF: Ted Williams (or Barry Bonds, if you like)
CF: Willie Mays
RF: Babe Ruth
Well, what would happen if we picked by batting order? I realize that this is a bit silly because nobody cares who the best sixth, seventh or eighth hitters in baseball history are. But let’s try it anyway:
Batting 1st: Rickey Henderson (LF)
Batting 2nd: Joe Morgan (2B)
Batting 3rd: Babe Ruth (RF)
Batting 4th: Lou Gehrig (1B)
Batting 5th: Johnny Bench (C)
Batting 6th: Garry Maddox (CF)
Batting 7th: Brooks Robinson (3B)
Batting 8th: Ozzie Smith (SS)
Well, we had to make several moves — obviously replaced Rickey for Ted Williams at the top of the lineup. Were able to keep Morgan, Gehrig, Ruth and Bench by hitting them 2-3-4-5. But after that, we can’t hit Willie Mays sixth, so we’re going with Garry Maddox’s defense (and he hit sixth for much of his career). We can’t hit Brett or Schmidt seventh, so we go with Brooks Robinson and the glovework. And we obviously cannot hit Honus Wagner eighth — though he was by all accounts a wonderful guy and probably would hit wherever you put him — so we’ll go with Ozzie. I suspect that first team would win, assuming you could keep all those egos in line.
* * *
Jim Rice: .308/.361/.532, 286 2Bs, 65 3Bs, 305 HRs, 949 runs, 1092 RBIs, 49 SBs, 482 walks, 1,028 Ks, 137 OPS+.
Comment: Rice’s 10 best years are probably better than anyone left on the ballot. You know his case: He was, for the heart of his career, a .308 hitter who averaged 30 homers per year, more than 100 RBIs, an impressive .532 slugging percentage. You know his flaws: He put up the bulk of those numbers at Fenway Park when it was a brilliant hitters park; he did not walk; he does not add to his case with his base running, his defense or his general attitude.
A couple of weeks ago, I went through how I think the Hall of Fame voters go about electing a candidate. Rice will probably get elected this year, and there is a precedent: He has a very similar case to Tony Perez.
Their career numbers:
Perez: .279/.341/.462 with 2,732 hits, 505 doubles, 79 triples, 379 homers, 1,272 runs, 1,652 RBIs, 122 OPS+.
Rice: .298/.352/.502 with 2,452 hits, 373 doubles, 79 triples, 382 homers, 1,249 runs, 1,423 RBIs, 128 OPS+.
Perez had a longer career which explains the better counting numbers. But Rice was (I think) a better hitter, even considering Fenway Park. Perez had a reputation for being the guy you wanted at the plate with the winning run on base. Rice has a reputation for being feared, a reputation that has been turned inside out a hundred times but is still around. Neither ran well, neither added much with their defense. I think it’s close.
Now for me, personally, Perez wins because he was the glue for the Big Red Machine. But I think you could argue either way.*
*You could also argue, as many would, that neither belong in the Hall of Fame.
* * *
Don Mattingly: .314/.364/.489, 379 2Bs, 14 3Bs, 206 HRs, 874 runs, 975 RBIs, 12 SBs, 499 walks, 357 Ks, 134 OPS+.
Dale Murphy: .277/.362/.502, 269 2Bs, 33 3Bs, 314 HRs, 954 runs, 933 RBIs, 124 SBs, 761 walks, 1,214 Ks, 134 OPS+.
Dave Parker: .306/.356/.501, 346 3Bs, 58 3Bs, 233 HRs, 867 runs, 996 RBIs, 115 SBs, 465 walks, 935 Ks, 134 OPS+.
Tim Raines: .306/.397/.446, 272 2Bs, 76 3Bs, 110 HRs, 967 runs, 599 RBIs, 524 SBs, 811 walks, 537 Ks, 134 OPS+.
Mo Vaughn: .296/.385/.532, 256 2Bs, 10 3Bs, 321 HRs, 830 runs, 1,017 RBIs, 28 SBs, 685 walks, 1,364 Ks, 134 OPS+
Comment: Wow, major log jam at 134 OPS+ — I guess this is just about where the line for staying on the Hall of Fame ballot is drawn. Ten years, 134 OPS+, you get to stay around (though Mo Vaughn probably will not).
Raines is, to me, clearly the best of the group. He has the best on-base percentage, which is the most important thing, and of course he was a remarkable base stealer. Maybe once Rickey gets in this year the voters can take a serious look at Raines, who was really the next-best thing.
Dale Murphy has the Gold Gloves in center field and the two MVP awards. Don Mattingly has the Gold Gloves at first base and the MVP award. More to the point, though: There are officially six categories listed on the Hall of Fame ballot that voters are supposed to consider. They are:
1. The player’s record (statistical record, I’m sure)
2. Playing ability
3. Integrity
4. Sportsmanship
5. Character
6. Contribution to his team(s)
It’s pretty remarkable that THREE of the six categories are integrity, sportsmanship and character. I mean, those three mean, more or less, the same thing.
Integrity: The quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.
Sportsmanship: Sportsmanlike conduct such as honesty, fairness, courtesy, etc.
Character: Qualities of honesty, courage or the like; integrity.
Everyone has to judge for themselves how much to consider these things. I think most voters feel (and should feel) very uncomfortable judging others on these things. But it should be said: If the original intent of the Hall of Fame was to elect players based largely on their integrity, sportsmanship and character then it is indeed tough to vote for Mark McGwire. And it should boost the cases of Dale Murphy and Don Mattingly.
Of course, if original intent of the Hall of Fame was to elect players based largely on their integrity, sportsmanship and character then how would they explain electing Ty Cobb first ballot, with a higher percentage than any other player including Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner? My guess is: This was all a bunch of bull.
* * *
Andre Dawson: .294/.337/.511, 292 2Bs, 57 3Bs, 268 HRs, 811 runs, 922 RBIs, 194 SBs, 348 walks, 780 Ks, 131 OPS+.
Comment: He was a Gold Glove center fielder and right fielder, a power hitter, a base stealer, an MVP and a class act. But that dadgum on-base percentage … the Dawson vote is all about if you can get past the basic concept that getting on base is the most important part of the offensive game, and Dawson just wasn’t very good at that.
* * *
Harold Baines: .298/.363/.482, 269 2Bs, 30 3Bs, 215 HRs, 728 runs, 931 RBIs, 23 SBs, 567 walks, 744 RBIs, 127 OPS+.
Mark Grace: .309/.372/.413, 373 2Bs, 34 3Bs, 125 HRs, 843 runs, 820 RBIs, 49 SBs, 769 walks, 413 Ks, 127 OPS+.
Alan Trammell: .302/.369/.457, 293 2Bs, 30 3Bs, 145 HRs, 830 runs, 710 RBIs, 168 SBs, 546 walks, 519 Ks, 126 OPS+.
Matt Williams: .278/.326/.508, 241 2Bs, 27 3Bs, 300 HRs, 774 runs, 960 RBIs, 43 SBs, 352 walks, 994 Ks, 122 OPS+
Comment: Obviously Trammell is in a different category from the other three because he was a Gold Glove shortstop. Still, he’s right there with some pretty great offensive players. Trammell had nine terrific offensive years, which is more than almost every shortstop in the Hall of Fame right now. The guy, perhaps more than Blyleven or anyone else on the ballot, is a victim of circumstance. He should have won the ‘87 MVP but didn’t. He could have won the ‘84 MVP, but didn’t. In his prime, he was not as good a fielder as Ozzie or as good a hitter as Ripken,* but you could argue that NOBODY EVER was as good a fielder as Ozzie, and Bill James ranks Cal Ripken as the third-best shortstop ever. So those are tough comparisons. Also, Trammell got hurt late in his career so the memory many have of him is as a part-time player from 1991-1996.
*In fact, Trammell’s bat is much closer to Cal Ripken’s than I suspected. From 1982-1993 — Ripken’s prime, and the years of his consecutive game streak — Ripken punched up a 121 OPS+. Trammell’s OPS+ over that exact same stretch was 120. And if you want to cherry pick even more, during the second half of the 1980s — 1986-1990 — Trammell put up 126 Win Shares to Ripken’s 119.
Now, these are unfair comparisons — Ripken played about 400 more games during the 12-year stretch (about two and a half full seasons), and the absurd Win Shares argument ignores that Ripken was at his best in 1983, ‘84 and ‘91. There is no doubt that Ripken was measurably better than Trammell. Still … if Ripken is legendary, Trammell is pretty great himself.
It’s interesting to me that at their best, Harold Baines and Mark Grace put up the same OPS+. I remember once being in a minor league press box in Charlotte with Jimmy Piersall, who was some sort of roving instructor for the Chicago Cubs then. He was, as you may have guessed, an odd duck, and at some point one of the writers in the press box asked what the heck was wrong with Mark Grace. The writer had Grace on his rotisserie team, of course, and he really wanted a bit more power out of the guy.
Well, Piersall went ape. He started screaming about how this was what was wrong with society, how Mark Grace was a great hitter, he was hitting .310, and it was ludicrous for anyone to question him, and it was especially ludicrous for fat people who had never swung a bat to question him, and it was ESPECIALLY ludicrous for fat people who sat up in a press box and had never swung a bat and had never done anything in their lives except write stupid stories that nobody read to question that. And anyway, finally, he asked an open question to anyone in the box: What do you think YOU would hit in the Big Leagues?
At which point the official scorer said: “Oh about .340.â€
At which point Jimmy Piersall exploded into 10,000 tiny pieces.
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Baines, Blyleven, Henderson, McGwire, Raines, Rice, Smith & Trammell. They all should get in with current HoF standards in my opinion. Baines & Smith aren’t getting much support from the voters here though.
No matter how you slice it, Blyleven belongs in the Hall. The 10 year argument is a good one, though.
One quibble. Ruth batted third and Gehrig fourth. That’s why they wore numbers 3 and 4, and why Gehrig hit all those grand slams. They’d rather pitch to Lou with the bases loaded than Ruth with two on.
Great, great article. In the middle of it, I got the same kind of feeling that I get reading Bill James.
I think you’re a little lenient on McGwire. You add up his best 10 seasons, but at least six of those are probably tainted. And those six pretty much outshine the other four, so I’m not sure it would change my opinion at all.
Also, I think you’re a little hard on Blyleven when you wrote “But it’s worth nothing that his 10 peak years were for the early 1970s Twins, the 1977 Texas Rangers, the 1978 Pittsburgh Pirates, the 1984 and ‘85 Cleveland Indians (plus a little ‘85 Twins in there) and the 1989 California Angels.” I don’t think it’s worth nothing at all. I think it’s significant. Oh wait, maybe you meant “noting”…
I love it when a typo totally reverses the meaning of a sentence…
Don Mattingly: .314/.364/.489, 379 2Bs, 14 3Bs, 206 HRs, 874 runs, 975 RBIs, 12 SBs, 499 walks, 357 Ks, 134 OPS+.
Dale Murphy: .277/.362/.502, 269 2Bs, 33 3Bs, 314 HRs, 954 runs, 933 RBIs, 124 SBs, 761 walks, 1,214 Ks, 134 OPS+.
Tim Raines: .306/.397/.446, 272 2Bs, 76 3Bs, 110 HRs, 967 runs, 599 RBIs, 524 SBs, 811 walks, 537 Ks, 134 OPS+.
wow mattingly was slow. like pat burrell slow. i get that on base percentage is important. i get stolen basis are important. but arent both just stats that illustrate how important scoring runs is. shouldnt raines have scored more with those numbers?
I think the reason that Lee Smith is not getting more support is that people are looking more at saves with a more skeptical eye instead of other counting stats. To me if a closer is hall-worthy, they have to be known as a lights out, go warm up the bus player when they enter the game. That to me is more important than the number of saves.
Then of course there is always the argument that if they were such a good pitcher, why weren’t they a starter?
@Somebody: scoring runs, of course, matters, but it shouldn’t be a measure of how good a player is. If you don’t have anyone batting behind you who can drive you in, you’re not going to score many runs.
As for Rickey, by biggest problem with him is that he just never played in many games in any particular season. He played from 1979 – 2003 and he played in more than 150 games exactly 3 times in his entire career. Three times. That’s crazy. Yeah, he walked a lot and stole a lot of bases and scored a lot of runs, but I have trouble viewing him as one of the top players in the game of all time. Of course a 130 OPS+ is fantastic out of the lead of spot, but if it’s only for 130 games per season, those numbers just don’t impress me as much.
Great stuff, giving us this analysis of the ten best years. Here’s a plug for some lists about these guys:
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/hKKf (Tim Raines)
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/baZd (Morris vs. Bert)
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/5672 (Blyleven)
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/D8NJ (Rickey)
http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/JUxv (Minnie Minoso, can’t stop myself)
With the standards of certain people, you would think no one belongs in the HOF. I do believe Blyleven should get in, just as I think a lot more borderline players should get in. I just get sick of all the arguments against certain players and the biases that get thrown into the mix. For example, Joe has blinders for OBP on. Nothing else really matters. Can you blame a guy like Andre Dawson for playing before OBP became popular? I mean, it almost seems like Joe would rather have a player walk every time they come to the plate. So what would you like to have more? A guy who walks every time up, or gets a single every time up? Obvious answer right? The single as he could drive in a run even when the bases aren’t loaded. But I forgot, RBIs aren’t important either. You must tally who walked the most times to see who won the game.
And about McGwire, how do we know which seasons of McGwire’s are tainted? He hit 49 homers as a ROOKIE! The guy has integrity and character except for the steroid issue. How can you not like the guy? It’s not like he’s jerkwad extraordinaire Barry Bonds.
“The guy has integrity and character except for the steroid issue.”
Except for dealing from the bottom of the deck, he was a great poker player.
This is fun. How many guys played 80% at shortstop, batted well enough long enough to collect 2300 hits, and were career above average with the stick (OPS+ over 100)? Five. Honus Wagner, Luke Appling, one retired guy not yet eligible, one guy still playing, and Alan Trammell. http://www.bb-ref.com/pi/shareit/QyBM
‘I Love to Fart’ t-shirt’s gotta count for something …
Aaron: OBP wasn’t as widely discussed in Dawson’s day as it is now, but it wasn’t unknown. Ted Williams and Branch Rickey were advocating OBP almost 30 years before Dawson made the majors.
Also, Dawson’s problem wasn’t that nobody walked back then, it was that he walked significantly less often than the average player of his day. If you put up a .400 OBP no one will really care how much of that comes from hits and how much from walks, but if your OBP is .323 (9 points worse than league average), then people may have a point when they bring up OBP.
Grace was no Tom Dodd.
Whoa, Joe. One small error in your analysis, counting stats are not counting stats if you are comparing players with the same number of years played. I would definitely want the guy who hit more HRs, 2Bs, etc. over ten years than the other guy. This illustrates his production per year.
Also, runs scored cannot be discounted. It is a measure of your OB%, your ability as a base runner, your ability to steal bases, and your slugging %(it is easier to score from 2B or 3B than from a walk, etc. Sure you need someone to drive you in but there is also the argument that with good bats behind you, you will get more fastballs and you will hit better, that doesn’t mean that Babe Ruth’s stats are inflated because he had another HOFer (Gherig)hitting behind him. Its a team game. Bottom line, Runs Scored may be the most important measure of a players value to a team. Likewise, there is a big advantage to hitting behind a base stealer like Rickey or Raines because of the unbalanced infield and the focus of the pitcher.
As for who should get in, Blyleven, Trammel, Rickey, Raines, and maybe in a few years, McGwire. In that order, I might add.
Keep up the great posts.
I would love to see the 10 year stats of Frank White compared to Harold Reynolds and all 2nd basemen in the hall of fame. His lack of consideration for the hall with 9? gold gloves – tied with the most ever at his position and robbed of the 10th by Harold Reynolds due to batting average (gold glove remember) where Frank White had only 4 errors all year compared to 20+ for Reynolds – is a travesty. Also, Frank White developed as a hitter w/ good power as his career progressed.
Runs Scored is a measure of how well the team did as a whole, but the number of runs a particular player scores probably only has a loose correlation to how good the player is. I’d prefer to have the guy who gets on base all the time to the guy who barely gets on base but happened to have 700 AB and batted in front of some big time boppers. Think Willie Wilson – he scored 80-90+ runs a season (when he was healthy), but I certainly wouldn’t want him leading off for my team (outside of maybe one or two seasons of his).
Since your last entry, I can’t help but wonder what the average player’s OPS+ or ERA+ is, after playing at least 10 seasons. And now I’m wondering it even more. Since the better players usually last more than a decade and the ones with 80 OPS+’s or 80 ERA+’s probably don’t factor into the mix…hmmm. I wonder how 110 OPS+ looks compared to the average OPS+ during a 10+ year career. Or how a 110 ERA+ looks compared to the average ERA+ over a 10+ year career. I don’t really have the means to figure this out though.
Not to get into steroids, but it isn’t as if a USC guy on the A’s in 1987 couldn’t have been on PEDs. I had small college football players asking me to help them use needles in the mid 80s. The stuff was pretty easy to get.
In other words, if you think McGwire’s later career is tainted, I see no reason not to extend that taint to his entire career.
@ Sabernar:
“Yeah, he walked a lot and stole a lot of bases and scored a lot of runs, but I have trouble viewing him as one of the top players in the game of all time.”
You understate. He didn’t do those things “a lot,” he did two of the three more than anyone else ever, and is second all-time in the other one.
Yes, fair point about the number of games. Durability matters. But don’t undercut your argument by belittling three monstrous accomplishments.
Mark Grace’s Hall of Fame case is indisputable. He popularized the term “slump-buster”, and should be elected in a landslide for that contribution alone.
The lack of support for Trammell is unfortunate. I think he’s clearly more qualified than at least half the middle infielders in the Hall.
Parker had a sweet nickname.
Hmm.. so this 10 best years argument looks pretty good for Edgar Martinez.
Dedo … I can appreciate your support for Blyleven and Trammell and agree (especially with Blyleven’s candidacy). However, when you state that they should get into the Hall BEFORE Rickey Henderson?!? Well … let’s just say I need a heckuva lot more convincing than what Joe just wrote. You can mount arguments that Blyleven and Trammell should not be in the Hall (again, I disagree, but they can be mounted). What’s the argument against Rickey? He was a little flaky? He could be selfish and say selfish things? He didn’t shampoo often enough? I can’t come up with one.
I think it’s very telling that even on a blog like this, Blyleven gets only 78% of the vote. The more progressive (I think) fans here don’t respect him much more than the traditional sportswriters do.
Another one you should look at is Charlie Hough. A very good pitcher for a bad team at his peak. Here is where wins matter. He won 18 game for a team that lost nearly a 100 games.
Unfortunately knuckleballers are underated just as guys with long carrers
Joe – in discussing the pitchers, you mention the winning % of their teams. It would be quite interesting to see a stat of PitcherWinning% – TeamWinning%withOtherStarters. I would think that would give a pretty good idea of how much better that starter performed than their team (although it would probably penalize pitchers working in good rotations, and starters with lousy closers unduly). Do you have that handy in your spreadsheet?
When looking at the offensive numbers (both 10 Best years and Total Career) Murphy and Rice are very similar, but clearly Murph meant more to a talentless franchise while Rice was surrounded by Fisk, Yaz, Lynn, Evans, (Scott, Watson and Perez)) in a much better hitter’s ballpark.
Also, Murph roamed CF with a Gold Glove while Rice floundered in the field. (Fielding and Throwing)
Murph could run bases.
When comparing the two players as players, Murph beats out Rice in 3 tools and ties him in power.
This does not include Murph’s role as a public figure which was noted above.
Rice may or may not deserve the Hall, but someone please explain how Murph could be ranked so far behind him in Hall consideration.
Imagine Blyleven on the Orioles or Red in the 70’s and Palmer on the Twins/ Rangers….Bly’s in with +300 votes and Palmer or Seaver are out.
Barry Larkin is going to be like Trammell in the Hall voting, probably with even less respect.
Rickey should be unanimous. He won’t be of course, but he’s arguably the greatest leadoff hitter of all time and there’s really no reason he should be left off of a ballot.
Also, having watched Mattingly play so much, believe me when I say the man should be in the HoF. I still can’t believe Puckett made it in on the 1st Ballot. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the man and his accomplishments, but statistically speaking, Mattingly should be in there as well. There was palpable fear in old Memorial when he would step up in crucial spots. Anyway, Joe Checkler had a great comparison a few years back:
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/baseball_hall_of_fame/58178
I always felt that had the back injury not plagued him so badly, he easily would’ve been regarded as the Brooks Robinson of 1st Base. The man was amazing.
Great post Joe. I’m still looking forward to your Adam Dunn post.
Aaron M.,
OBP is only one piece of the offensive puzzle, but it’s also the most important part. Rather than looking at it as the percentage of the time a player gets on base, it might help to think of it as the percentage of the time a player doesn’t make an out, thereby (generally) hurting his team.
Dawson had a lot of tools. He did a lot of things very well, but saying that you should discount his OBP is like saying that a pitcher who has a plus fastball, good curve and good change, but for some reason is below average at keeping people off base should be in the hall.
And n a guy who goes 500-for-500 is more valuable than someone who goes 0-for-0 with 500 walks, but that’s hardly a realistic example.
Aaron M.,
OBP is only one piece of the offensive puzzle, but it’s also the most important part. Rather than looking at it as the percentage of the time a player gets on base, it might help to think of it as the percentage of the time a player doesn’t make an out, thereby (generally) hurting his team.
Dawson had a lot of tools. He did a lot of things very well, but saying that you should discount his OBP is like saying that a pitcher who has a plus fastball, good curve and good change, but for some reason is below average at keeping people off base should be in the hall.
And no one would argue that a guy who goes 500-for-500 is no more valuable than someone who goes 0-for-0 with 500 walks, but that’s hardly a realistic example. When comparing a guy who hits .280 with a .320 OBP, that’s just not as valuable as a guy who hits .250 with a .350 OBP (all else being equal, of course).
Dedo,
Runs have some correlation to a player’s skill, sure, but they also rely on a player’s lineup – Rollins led the NL in runs in his MVP year and he wasn’t even the best offensive shortstop in his own division. He benefited hugely from batting ahead of Utley (who was also better than Rollins), an actual good year from Howard and very good years from guys like Burrell and Rowand. For another, more striking example, Devon White racked up some big run totals in the early 90s, but he had guys like Alomar, Winfield, Molitor, Olerud et al to help him around the bases.
I have to say, Joe, your regular readers (who I assume are the early voters), are MUCH more baseball savvy than the BBRAA as a whole, though that’s a pretty low bar to pass. As for the small percentage not voting for Ricky – how you can you possibly justify that view, without falling back on the BBRAA’s joke of an answer that “no one deserves 100% of the vote on their first ballot” – like they suddenly become HOF-worthy in year 2??? Ricky has a very strong argument as the single best leadoff hitter of all time. THE BEST, since baseball was invented. Why would you not vote for him in the HOF? Because he talked in the third person?
If questions of integrity, sportsmanship and character make it tough to vote for McGwire, shouldn’t they also make it much tougher to vote for Raines? The guy used narcotics in the clubhouse, brought them onto the field of play and changed his baserunning style to accommodate that.
I’m not in any way condoning or excusing what McGwire did, but it’s interesting that virtually all discussion of his HOF chances revolve around his drug use while Raines’ is barely mentioned.
I vote for Rickey, but don’t go overboard on “best lead-off hitter.” If Ted Williams had been lead-off, he would have been better. Ditto most of the other 56 players with better OBP than Rickey. At the least, speedy guys such as Bonds, Cobb, Hornsby, Speaker, Collins, etc. would have likely been better lead-off hitters. They were better hitters, which is why they weren’t leading off.
Puckett v. Mattingly. I loved Kirby, but would not have put him in first ballot. Still, the offensive numbers are very similar…it is flawed to say Mattingly dominated for more than about 3 years. 8 of his 14 seasons saw him having an OPS+ below his career average. But Puckett was a Gold Glover at CF, Mattingly at 1B. I think most of us can agree that a great defensive CF is going to do more for you than a great 1B. 1B is where old fat guys who can still hit can often be productive; the same is not true for CF. And while winning is not everything for the Hall, it is and should be a factor. The Twins would not have won without Kirby.
Raines v. Mac: Raines gets a bit of a pass because his drug use probably did not help him.
OFan5:
Puckett NEVER deserved to be in the Hall. To use him as the reason to argue for Mattingly in the Hall is nothing more than using Tony Perez to argue for someone else in the Hall. The 5-10 “worst” HOF’ers should never be used to argue for someone else, because you’re already scraping the bottom of the barrel when you do so. If “Jim Ed” goes in, well, Dwight Evans was a better player in the same park over the same time period, so now he “has” to go in. I don’t believe either is a “must-be-in” player in the HOF, but Dwight Evans was a better player over their careers. So if some idiots vote Rice in, suddenly Evans “has to be”? And I know you’re not saying that, but Puckett was a complete f’ing mistake of BBRAA voting…so using him to argue for anyone else deserves no traction as an argument…crap, Kingman fans could probably make an argument against Puckett…
Bucky,
not sure I necessarily disagree with you, but Ricky maximized the seemingly “ideal” lead-off skills – got on-base all the time, would routinely crank HR’s on (supposedly) first-pitch FB’s, and stole bases like a mad man. Would an even better OBP be more effective for run-scoring? Yep, it would. But he didn’t typically have the the SLG% that forced you to move him down the lineup to the 3 or 4-spot and trade his speed away for his power. Could he have batted there? Sure, and maybe he should have at times…(and I will couch this by saying that I have not looked at exact numbers – this is based on my memory, so if I am wrong, I apologize – but he seemingly maximized his skill-set to scoring runs from the lead-off spot)
As for Raines vs McGwire, you’ve summed up the major argument. I suspect coke can be a “performance-enhancer”, but what McGwire is theoretically accused of serves no purpose other than “performance-enhancement”. Did they both do illegal things, and then lie about them? Yep. But my personal suspicion is not the same as WADA declaring your drugs “performance enhancers” – and, yes, I accept the WADA is full of “s**t”
Best Darn Sports Show Period did not put Babe Ruth on the all time team. Hank Aaron and the steriod king were their corner outfielders. Joe did not even mention Hank Aaron. Of course, the Babe was way better because he hit a homerun every 12 at bats instead of the 1/18 that Hank hit. I think if you take the steriods away, I would rather have Aaron than the Barry (steriod king). Certainly, we would all rather have Hank come over for dinner than Barry.
The funny thing was that the Best Darn Sports Show Period picked Babe Ruth as the best player ever. How do you not put your best player on the team? I love Joe. Those guys on that show are morons.
“…and for many voters, victories are indeed the best way to judge a pitcher…”
And for many voters, party affiliation is the best way to judge a candidate’s worth.
Why must you kowtow to the ignoramus, Joe?
I can’t come up with an argument against Bert Blyleven that doesn’t involve an irrational vendetta stemming from an overabundance of “Circle Me Bert” signs at the K.
Ted Williams has got to be there. I know you have Ruth and Henderson but hit Williams fourth instead of Maddox and adjust accordingly.
Joe,
One issue with the all time lineup: you have two players, Henderson and Bonds, that are not HOFers (yet), but you pencil in Honus Wagner instead of Alex Rodriguez at SS?
“When looking at the offensive numbers (both 10 Best years and Total Career) Murphy and Rice are very similar, but clearly Murph meant more to a talentless franchise while Rice was surrounded by Fisk, Yaz, Lynn, Evans, (Scott, Watson and Perez)) in a much better hitter’s ballpark…”
Part of that is just wrong. Fenway was not “a much better hitter’s park” than Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. In fact, it was actually a slightly worse hitters park. From 1976 through 1990, the years Murphy played in Atlanta, the average yearly park factor for “The Launching Pad” was 1.163. For Rice’s years in Fenway (1974-1989), the average yearly park factor was 1.137.
“…Also, Murph roamed CF with a Gold Glove while Rice floundered in the field. (Fielding and Throwing)…”
No need for hyperbole. Murphy was a very good center fielder. Probably a touch overrated, but still excellent and clearly better and more valuable defensively than Rice. But Rice didn’t “flounder” in left field. He was, in his best years, a pretty good left fielder by most modern measurements, and certainly serviceable in his other years (i.e. not Adam Dunn or Manny Ramirez or the recent vintages of Pat Burrell or Raul Ibanez).
FYI – hat tip to Retrosheet for the yearly park factor data.
Looking at the results to the HOF poll, one thought springs to mind: the 50 or so odd folks that did not vote for Rickey should have their blog-viewing privileges revoked. Their mere presence on this web site effectively gives 5-10 votes to Morris and Rice every time they swing by.
By the way, Joe, if Raines can’t get 75% here, what chance does he have with the moron BBWAA voters (you and Neyer, among others, excepted of course)?
Brian,
Your comment regarding Seaver being “out” of the HOF if he hadn’t played for the Reds in the 70’s is patently absurd. If you’d take two seconds to look at his record, you’d see that he played about 7.3 years of that decade for the Mets, a team that never won 90 games any year of that decade, and only 2.7 years in Cincinnati, AFTER the years when they won their World Series.
Seaver was 132-84 for those Mets teams (.611 winning %) for teams that were below .500 almost every year when he didn’t get the decision! Conversely, for the Reds he was 46-23 (.667 winning %) for teams that averaged 90 wins per year, meaning he was just as much better than his team on a good team than he was on a bad team – the mark of an OUTSTANDING pitcher.
And by the way, he only pitched three more years with the Reds in the 80’s, when he had one outstanding year (‘81), one mediocre year (‘80), and one abysmal year (‘82). The question is not “whether Seaver would have won 311 games if he hadn’t pitched 5.7 years for the Reds”, it is “how many MORE games than 311 would he have won had he not pitched 11.3 years for the Mets”!
Seaver is probably the most underrated superstar player of all time – and for the life of me, I have no idea why that is. He was so much better than his HOF caliber contemporaries – guys like Ryan, Gibson, Marichal, Palmer, Carlton, Blyleven, etc. Yet casual fans would almost universally say Ryan, for one, was the better player. It’s ludicrous.
Another fantastic post.
Those 6 qualities for the HOF are really stunning. HALF?!? of a voters case is based on qualities outside performance? Assuming all six are weighted equally, which they’re clearly not in practice, but still …
And just what the heck is “contribution to team”? Is that just performance over again? Or perception by teammates? Here’s a silly thought, what if it’s an inadvertent license to use team-based stats, like RBI and wins …
King of the Stolen Bases Rickey Henderson hit 43 triples in his best ten seasons.
King of the rally-killing GIDP Jim Rice hit 65 triples in his best ten seasons.
How can this be? And what does it say about these two players who hopefully will end up sharing the spotlight next July? A commenter on Ken Davidoff’s blog suggested that it was a function of Rickey’s tendency to jake it, and no doubt that someone with as much speed as Rickey should have far more triples than he finished with.
But 65 triples for Rice? How? Were they all shots to the centerfield triangle at Fenway (checking his splits, for his career, he had 44 triples at home, 35 on the road)? If so, had they been hit on the road, you could add 40 homers to Rice’s totals, putting him well over 400, and making a huge change in those home/road splits.
Not saying that this is what should be done, but don’t tell me he was a creation of Fenway. Anyone who watched him play knows that he hit singles that were still rising when they clanged off of the Monster, shots that would have been homers in every other park in the league. And those triples don’t show that he had speed because we know he didn’t – they show that he hit shots to the deepest part of the park that also would have been home runs in most of the rest of the league.
Chris,
Nobody is taking anything away from Seaver as a great pitcher and worthy of the HoF (Though I would take Carlton in that group you listed). However, the Mets were in the Series twice in Seaver’s tenure and with the Reds , they were competitive with 3 division champs and 3 times less than 5 games out. The point was, what would Bly have done if he were on such superior teams. If he didn’t shut them out, he was in jeopardy of losing…+20% of his total vicotries were complete game shut outs. Their stats are very similar in terms of shut outs, complete games, games, innings and strike outs. Seaver led in ERA but they maybe attributed to the difference in leagues with the DH?.
“Also, runs scored cannot be discounted. It is a measure of your OB%, your ability as a base runner, your ability to steal bases, and your slugging %(it is easier to score from 2B or 3B than from a walk, etc.”
This makes no sense. We have better measures of those things. Namely: On base percentage, Weighted Stolen Bases (or whatever SB metric you want to use), and slugging percentage. Why must we keep runs just because it’s a proxy for things we already know?
“Sure you need someone to drive you in but there is also the argument that with good bats behind you, you will get more fastballs and you will hit better, that doesn’t mean that Babe Ruth’s stats are inflated because he had another HOFer (Gherig)hitting behind him.”
There is that argument, yes. Problem is, the most anyone has been able to show is weak protection effects. You can’t seriously be arguing that the adjustment for protection should match the adjustment you have to do to make runs scored context-neutral?
“Its a team game. Bottom line, Runs Scored may be the most important measure of a players value to a team.”
In a universe where we have anything less than complete information, anything *may* be true. I may be Ricardo Montalban in disguise. Both things are about equally *likely* to be true.
“Likewise, there is a big advantage to hitting behind a base stealer like Rickey or Raines because of the unbalanced infield and the focus of the pitcher.”
ML-wide from 2006-2008, tOPS+ (Allowed, of course) is 96 with the bases empty and 106 with any runner on. That’s not a big advantage, hell, that’s lower than I expected. A 4% negative differential and a 6% positive (they average to exactly even because there are more at bats with nobody on base, of course) is the baseline. You’ll have to show me something that backs up your assertion that having a “base stealer” on first dramatically changes that.
Dan,
No one would argue that Rice wasn’t a very good hitter, but the stats show that he was aided in a big way by Fenway. He was a Hall of Fame-caliber hitter there, but put up a .277/.330/.459 line everywhere else. To suggest that all 40 of his Fenway triples would have been homers is a silly argument.
How many doubles did he hit off the monster that would have been fly outs elsewhere? How many towering fly balls did he hit over the monster that would have died on the track in any other park?
The facts are that he wasn’t particularly great on the road. You can’t just add would-haves based on his great home stats.
what jeff said. gosh hes so much smarter than me
I don’t think some folks here are considering the role injuries have played in the careers of at least two of the players under consideration.
First, Rickey. Stealing bases is *hard* on your body. You have to go from a standing start to maximum speed as quickly as possible. Then you have to slide, at best not causing any scrapes, at worst colliding head first with a kneeling second baseman. When Maury Wills won his MVP, a lot of it was because of the widely publicized pictures of his legs, covered with bruises and scabs, from all the steals. Late in the season he started stealing everything head first just to move the bruises from his legs to his chest; he *needed* his legs, whereas bruises on his chest didn’t impair his playing as much. So the fact that Rickey missed a lot of games to heal up doesn’t bother me. It would be worth considering whether Rickey (and Raines) actually hurt their team by stealing so much because of time missed from the lineup given how good they were as pure hitters, but I *think* they both did what was best for their teams: sacrificed their bodies to help their teams win.
The second player, of course, is Mark McGwire. As a rookie, he was downright skinny, generating power with long long arms. I believe beyond all arguments otherwise in the visual evidence of my own two eyes. After 1993-94, when he spent most of both seasons on the DL, I think McGwire started using steroids, not to get better, but to get healthier. 1995, IIRC, was the first year he started looking big, and his batting average had a big jump from established career levels, indicating (to me) that his increased arm strength was letting him get a bit more contact. 1996, it’s undeniable. But those were too healthy years after two years of 74 games combined. So I cut him some slack for motivations, especially (IIRC) since he was prescribed his first set of steroids as part of his rehabilitation. This doesn’t make his steroid use right. But in my mind, it’s partial justification. So I’m not voting for him this year, and maybe not next year. But I think it’s worth voting for him eventually; 49 homers as a rookie is still HOF worthy, six straight seasons on the All Star team before the two injury plagued seasons is HOF worthy. Same with Bonds; he’d established a peak performance level at HOF standards before he bulked up. The other thing nobody is talking about (much) is pitchers on PEDs. We know they are out there. And the act of pitching breaks down muscle mass much more so than batting (because pitchers throw far more pitches in their one start) so steroid use is innately helpful to pitchers, especially power pitchers. But for batters to leverage steroid use, they have to put in lots of time lifting weights off the field. Steroids don’t make hitters better: they make it *possible* for you to make yourself better by working harder and longer. How many batters were hurt by facing PED enhanced pitchers? We’ll never know.
Anyway, I give Rickey, Raines, and to a lesser degree McGwire some slack. I don’t know when I’d consider letting McGwire into the HOF, but it’s gonna be sometime. McGwire’s best OPS+ season was 1993, before he was using. Yes, it was only 27 games, but he (and Bonds) both had a lot of talent with or without PEDs.
Brian,
First, let me start by saying I am very much a proponent of Blyleven’s HOF candidacy (note my inclusion of him in the group of Seaver’s peers in my earlier post).
Next, sorry, but your post certainly came across as taking something away from Seaver. But putting that aside, let me address two of your points:
1. “However, the Mets were in the Series twice in Seaver’s tenure and with the Reds , they were competitive with 3 division champs and 3 times less than 5 games out. The point was, what would Bly have done if he were on such superior teams.”
Not really true. Despite the Mets playing in two Series with Seaver, they were clearly not a “superior team”, perhaps with the exception of 1969. When they won the NL in 1973, they were pretty clearly the worst league champion in baseball history, winning the dismal NL East that year with an 82-79 record and then shocking Cincinnati in the NLCS. Seaver was 19-10, so without him they were 63-69, overall a losing record. From 1967 to 1977, Seaver was 189-110, a .632 winning %; the Mets as a team were 868-907, a .489 winning %; Seaver was nearly 150 points better than his team, including his own record. If you remove Seaver, the rest of the Mets teams posted a 679-797, a .460 winning %! That, in a word, is awful.
It is similar to what he did in Cincy, at least until his awful 1982 season when he went 5-13 at age 37 on a terrible Reds team that finished 61-101. From ‘77 to ‘81, he went 70-33, an outstanding .680 winning %; the Reds, while better than the Mets, still were only 425-329, an excellent .563 winning %, but one which Seaver bettered by 117 points! Overall, from 1967 to 1983 (his entire Reds/Mets career), but he only pitched for three teams that made the playoffs – 69 and 73 Mets, and 79 Reds (he pitched about half a year for the 86 Red Sox, but was injured late and did not make their postseason roster). In total, all of his teams were 1687 and 1651, a .505 winning percentage; his total lifetime W% of .603 is nearly 100 points better than his teams. That is one of the best figures in history.
Now, let’s compare that to Blyleven. He also pitched for three playoff teams, two that won the WS – 70 and 87 Twins, and 79 Pirates. Many people think he spent his entire career pitching for atrocious teams, but that’s simply not true. Not until the 1985 Indians did he ever pitch for a team that lost 100 games, the only time in his career he ever pitched for a team that poor. Seaver actually had two, the 67 Mets and 82 Reds, and just missed another with the 83 Mets (94 losses), while Blyleven only pitched for two other teams that lost as many as 90 games (83 Indians and 86 Twins).
Prior to that, counting his years split with two teams, he pitched for a .500 or better team 10 of 16 times, with three of them winning 94, 98, and 98 games. Seaver pitched for one 100 game winner, a 92 game winner, and a 90 game winner, though he had 13 .500 or better teams to go along with four below .500 clubs. Overall, though, you may be surprised to learn that all of Blyleven’s teams combined finished with a record almost identical to Seaver’s teams, with 1923 wins and 1892 losses, a combined .504 winning %. His lifetime winning % was .534, meaning he was 30 points better than his teams. Sorry, but that pales in comparison to what Seaver accomplished.
2. “Seaver led in ERA but they maybe attributed to the difference in leagues with the DH?.”
To a degree, yes, but only if you look at just the raw numbers. Seaver’s lifetime ERA is 2.86, while Blyleven’s is 3.31. Seaver spent most of his career in the NL (just 94 games with the White Sox and Red Sox at the end of his career). Blyleven spent most of his career in the AL, with only six years of facing pitchers as hitters (1970 to 72 with the Twins prior to the DH, and 78-80 with the Pirates, a total of 207 of his 692 games).
Still, we can account for the difference by adjusting for parks and leagues using Adjusted ERA, or ERA+, which you can find for all players at baseball-reference.com. For his career, Seaver’s ERA+ was 127, meaning he was 27% better than a league average pitcher; Blyleven’s ERA+ is 118, meaning he was 18% better than average, and that Seaver was 9%. Seaver also threw 61 total shutouts to Blyleven’s 60, despite Bert’s edge during their best ten years cited in Joe’s article. (BTW – Carlton was only 115 for his career, but then that’s another argument on how there is no way Carlton was a better pitcher than Seaver). Also, Seaver led his league 3 times in ERA, and was in the top four seven times and top ten 13 times; Blyleven never led the league in ERA, but was good enough to be top five seven times and top ten 10 times. Edge, solidly to Seaver.
Sorry to make this so long, and I hope you get through it all, but it’s a subject that I enjoy discussing!
It would be helpful (maybe I’m just not sure how or where to get this info) if we could have this listing for pitchers: W-L record for his career (and top ten years); team W-L record when the pitcher was not pitching. To a lesser extent, ERA+ and team ERA+ aside from this pitcher. I think it will show definitively who was better than the teams he was on (Blyleven) and who was merely reflecting good teams behind him (Morris and John).
Not to rag on Morris again, but aside from the one game everyone remembers, there were several games not quite so good. He lost game 5 of the 1992 WS, which is part of why there wasn’t a game 7. He was beaten head to head and decisively in the 1987 ALCS by Blyleven. His career postseason ERA was 3.80, virtually identical to his regular season 3.90. He had three great postseason series (ERA 2.00 or better); one average one (ERA 4.05); three lousy series (ERA6.57 or worse). This doesn’t sound very HOF worthy to me. He did have a pretty remarkable 5 complete games in 13 postseason starts, but he was only 3-2 in those complete games.
Yes, it’s easy to remember the spectacular, especially the spectacular that you witnessed. Our brains remember the happy and forget the bad; I routinely have folks who bullied me in school greet me warmly at reunions because they’ve forgotten those times (I have a freakish memory). But baseball and Bill James (and others) gives us park and era normalized numbers, enabling us to at least compare players by their performance compared to the league. And we can look at Jack Morris’s career postseason numbers and have to think: 3.80 ERA? Really? Blyleven’s was 2.47. Tommy John’s was 2.65. They were both Morris contemporaries. In a few years we’ll be considering Schilling and Smoltz as two more possible (not certain) HOF candidates who were much better in the postseason than was Jack Morris. But some folks are only capable of remembering the one game and for that, Jack Morris is still getting consideration for the HOF when clearly better pitchers can’t make it in. For what it’s worth, David Cone’s postseason is also 3.80. I don’t think he deserves to be in the HOF either.
Justin,
All you had to do was watch the man in action to know that Rice didn’t hit many cheap homers into the net at Fenway, or fly balls that kissed off the Wall for doubles.
Which brings up another thing – in a recent post, Joe mentioned this:
_________________________
Interesting rundown on Jim Rice and whether the stories written during his day considered him to be “feared.†You may be all Riced out; I must admit that somewhere along the way I crossed that line. But this piece is still a lot of fun, and it includes a snippet of a story by Columbia, S.C.’s Bob Spear — a very nice man, by the way — who briefly tried to make the case that Fenway Park HURT Rice. He even had a quote to back up the bizarre premise: “The park has hurt him,†agreed Twins superscout Ellis Clary. “I remember Charlie Dressen talking about how Joe DiMaggio would hit 75 home runs a year in Ebbets Field (in Brooklyn). Along the same lines, put Rice in a park like Atlanta and he’d hit 95 a year …â€
_______________
The idea was roundly dismissed, but it points out a problem with the current fixation on modern statistical analysis.
That “superscout” WATCHED Rice play.
Was there a bit of hyperbole in “95 home runs at Fulton County”? Yeah, undoubtedly. But you can bet that he said it based on WATCHING Rice hit. WATCHING Rice hit screaming line drives that hit halfway or 3/4 up the wall and Rice being held to a single – or maybe even thrown out going for second – and recognizing that the Monster took away far more than it ever gave to Jim Rice.
Rice didn’t hit pop fly homers. Yeah, of course he’d hit one or two a year that carried into the net but the vast majority of his hits were line drives, and towering “home run anywhere” moonshots.
I watched Jim Rice play. No argument can ever convince me that Fenway didn’t hurt him more than it helped him. That’s why I can be open to arguments about his longevity and the failure to reach certain milestones that seemed like a lock at one time.
That superscout WATCHED Rice play and then made an egregiously stupid statement. “Bit of hyperbole” my ass. How on earth you turn that into *support* for your position is quite frankly completely beyond me.
And the problem with the “I watched Jim Rice play” argument (well, one of the major problems) is obvious pretty quick. I watched Jim Rice play, too. So now that we disagree on whether Fenway hurt or helped him and we’re both entrenched in our positions of authority having witnessed him play, where do we go from here? That’s where those numbers come in. They may not prove one of us 100% right, but they’ll almost always give a very, very good clue. In this case, the numbers contradict your perceptions. Your perceptions are from the subset of times that you actually watched him play (his stats are from every time), your particular biases (we can tease biases back out of numbers, which is in fact what is being attempted), and the fact that you’re relying on your memory. Human perception is weird enough on its own without throwing 20 years of lag time on top. If that’s what you want to stick with, that’s okay, that’s your prerogative. The rest of us will have to go a direction where there’s something to actually discuss past “I think this” and “I think that.”
Adding another voice that listened to late seventies Red Sox broadcasts growing up…
If Rice was hitting “only” 320/374/546 because the ballpark was hurting him, what’s explanation for his 277/330/459 road line? Fenway bribed the other ball parks to join in the conspiracy? Splits available.
On the other hand, I’m not sure where the retcon that he was an embarrassment defensively comes from. Yes, he wasn’t Evans/Lynn/Yastrzemski. He didn’t have the speed for CF, and probably not the gun for RF, but the implication that he was perceptibly bad out there just seems bizarre.
Y’all can say whatever you want, as long as I get the last laugh on January 12, I won’t care (and I’ve heard it all before anyway).
But one last thing about the “superscout” – the man was paid for his opinion because obviously his opinion was perceived to be worth something. He made his living evaluating ballplayers. And he knew Fenway hurt Rice.
Dan,
You misstated when you wrote “(the superscout) knew Fenway hurt Rice”. Such an uncontrolled observation is simply not credible, factual evidence for your definitive statement.
The only way to correctly state it is that he “believed” Fenway hurt Rice, which is simply his opinion, and not factual in any way. The same goes for your own observations of Rice’s “mammoth” home runs. Let me see your meticulously kept notes of every at bat at Fenway during Rice’s career, with bat speed and trajectory measurements to show exactly how many “home runs” were turned into “singles” by The Wall.
Of course, I’m being a little facetious – you can’t do it. If you’ve taken psych courses, you know that human memory is the absolute worst “recording device” because, like it or not, we’re all biased. Our memory is programmed to remember the things that reinforce our biases, and discount/forget what runs counter to them.
That’s why the data we have measured for us is light-years better than memory – it removes the biases. I’m probably at least as big a Sox fan as you, old enough to have watched and (barely) remembered the ‘67 series. But the evidence in this case is overwhelming, and indisputable. Rice was a monster hitting at Fenway, and pedestrian hitting on the road, where Fenway could not help him. He was helped greatly by his home park, case closed. Had he played in Yankee Stadium instead, we’re likely not even having this discussion.
I’ll sum by saying I believe Rice will be elected this year, and that by no means will he be the worst outfielder in the Hall when he is, but that will not change the fact that in my (and many others’) mind he will always be lumped with the guys who probably don’t deserve to be there but are. You’ll have the last laugh, if that’s your preference, but don’t try to make Jim Ed something he’s not – he’s a marginal, highly debatable candidate, just like Perez, Cepeda, and a host of others, and is NOT “the most feared slugger” of his time.
I never said any of those things, Chris and would never deny that
he’s a marginal candidate.
“1995, IIRC, was the first year he started looking big”
I was 10 when I got this card of McGwire after the 1992 season and was stunned by the enormity of his biceps. I think that he hit the juice far earlier than ‘92. Then, which players that came in contact with Canseco didn’t use the stuff? :\
http://www.checkoutmycards.com/CardImages/Cards/032/093/07F.jpg
While reading through this thread and checking the BR pages as I went, I noticed something a little strange. Apropos of nothing, really, but still strange.
Career earnings;
Rickey – 1985-2002 — $41,595,000
Larkin – 1986-2004 — $78,467,500
No wonder Rickey thought Rickey didn’t get his proper respect.
I know that Rickey started in 1980 and probably didn’t make enough before 1985 to skew the stats, and that the last years of that figure are post-peak, but hey, that’s a lot of scratch..
I’m glad other Red Sox fans were able to chime in objectively on the Jim Rice case, but it seems as though Dan’s made up his mind.
I have no doubt there were instances where Rice hit a laser at Fenway that would have been a home run elsewhere, but I also don’t doubt that, more often than not, Jim Ed was helped by Fenway. I think it’s more likely for a biased hometown fan to watch one of their guys hit a home run and not think twice about whether it would have gone out in other parks, but to lament what they perceive as their guy being “robbed” when things go the other way.
For the record, Dan, how much do you think Fenway hurt Rice? Would he have hit .330/.400/.600 with 250 homers if it had had normal dimensions? .350/.450/.800 with 350 homers? 1.0000/1.000/4.000 with all homers, all the time? No matter what you believe, the empirical evidence shows that Jim Rice was measurably, considerably worse when not hitting at Fenway, and with more than 4,000 at-bats both at home and away, it’s extremely unlikely that this is just coincidence.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not going to lose sleep if Rice makes it in (and he almost assuredly will). As Chris said, there have been worse people elected in the past and it’s not as though I worry terribly about them. Hell, if Rice had been elected last year, at least I wouldn’t feel the need to try to point out misinformation as it’s used to bolster Rice’s case.
Some nice discussion here about the different HoF candidates. I’ll just throw in a few quick-hits:
Puckett – I used to put some stock into the “team X would not have won without player B” argument, but no more. The problem is that, once you’ve proposed one hypothetical — player B being unavailable — you can’t just stop and say that everything else would have gone the same way. In ‘real baseball’, if a team loses a star player for the season early on, they don’t just sit there and shrug their shoulders — they might make a deal for a rent-a-player or rush a talented youngster up to the bigs to replace him. If you’re not going to consider the reactions to the hypothetical that you’re talking about, then your initial point isn’t really valid, and you can’t really accurately estimate what outcomes the reactions to your original hypothetical might create.
Case in point — Bucky says ‘the Twins would not have won without Kirby’, but that’s really a hard position to defend. In 1987, Puckett didn’t lead the Twins in RBI (Gaetti did), or in OPS+ (Hrbek did), or in HR (Hrbek, Gaetti, and Brunanski all had more). Puckett did lead in runs by 1 over Gaetti. It was a weirdly-constructed offense: the main leadoff man had an OBP of .312, two of the most frequent #2 men had OBPs of .310 and .298, and Randy Bush, a left-handed power-hitting platoon outfielder played nearly fifty games where he started either as the leadoff man (12) or the #2 hitter (35). Gaetti led the team in RBI while hitting fifth, behind Puckett (OBP .367) and Hrbek (OBP .389). Tom Brunansky, hitting sixth, had nearly as many RBI as the cleanup man.
So let’s say you lose Puckett in game 4 and he’s out for the season. That club also had a 25-year old Billy Beane on the roster; who’s to say that shifting Hrbek, Gaetti, and Brunansky up in the order and replacing Gladden with Beane might not have been just as good for the offense as a whole? If you say, well, we know what Beane’s career was and he was never that good for a full season, I respond, well, we also know that Puckett never missed anything close to a full season — he played at least 100 games every year, and had just three seasons with less than 145 games played. Which is the bigger hypothetical?
The hypothetical works a bit better, perhaps, for 1991, based solely on Puckett’s play in Game 6 — not only the game winning homer off of Leibrandt, but also a leaping catch against the left-field plexiglass early in the game to rob Ron Gant of a possible run-scoring double. In which case, Jack Morris owes much of his Hall of Fame argument to Puckett, because if the Twins lose Game 6, Morris doesn’t pitch Game 7. So did Kirby Puckett make Jack Morris a Hall of Famer?
Also, this argument can be taken too far — if Puckett’s play in 1991 was integral to the Twins winning the Series, then so too was Kent Hrbek’s play in 1987. Does that make Hrbek a Hall of Famer? That doesn’t mean the argument is entirely invalid, but you’ve got to use it sparingly — this argument alone can’t really be the deciding factor as to whether a man gets in or not, because all kinds of players have seasons where their play decided the team’s eventual fate. They can’t all be Hall of Famers.
Morris/Blyleven: Richard Aronson points out that Blyleven beat Morris when they went head-to-head in the ‘87 ALCS, and it wasn’t close — the final was 6-3, and Morris had allowed 5 runs by the end of the fourth.
This is part of what bugs me about the ‘Game 7′ argument; Morris’s supporters are using Game 7 as if it was an example of how well Morris generally pitched in the post-season, though the best example.
That’s not to say Morris sucked as a playoff pitcher — his ERA in the postseason only rose to approach his career ERA after being pummelled for 7 runs in less than 5 innings in his second start in the ‘92 Series (which the Blue Jays won despite Morris losing both of his starts).
Of the twelve post-season starts he had that weren’t Game 7 in 1991:
- four were complete games, two of those were complete-game losses
- of the eight games he didn’t finish, three were games in which he was pulled mid-inning for ineffectiveness; Morris’s own record in those games was 1-1 with a no-decision; his bullpen bailed him out so that the team finished 2-1 in games where Morris was pulled.
- none of his other games were shutouts; Morris had two games where he allowed one earned run, four where he allowed two, one allowing three, two allowing four, one allowing five, one allowing six, and one allowing seven. He had as many games allowing 3+ runs as allowing 2 or less, again not counting Game 7.
If you wanted to draw a line after Game 7 and ignore his post-season performance in 1992, he looks a lot better as a post-season pitcher. Of course, Toronto signed him as a free agent after 1991 precisely because of his big-game post-season rep, so it’s an open question how much of that rep was really accurate.
Oh, and the Game 2 loss to Blyleven in the ‘87 ALCS? When Blyleven returned to the mound in Game 5 on three days rest, Morris did not face him — instead, Blyleven faced Game 1 starter Doyle Alexander, whom the Twins knocked out of the box in the second inning. The Tigers were apparently saving Morris for Game 6 and a matchup with Les Straker.
Morris’s achievement is spiritually similar to Don Larsen’s World Series perfect game, and Larsen isn’t in the Hall of Fame for that. (Though admittedly, Larsen’s actual career isn’t anywhere near Hall of Fame standards, while Morris’s is much closer.)
David, point well taken. I should have said that the Twins would have had a harder time winning. More important, I don’t think that the two WS titles should be why Puckett is in the Hall, although I suspect that is the case.
He was the ALCS MVP, for what that’s worth, and he had a tremendous Game 6 in 1991. He is also claimed to have been a clubhouse leader, although those claims are often a bit suspect.
I think he was elected partly out of a sympathy vote, partly out of projecting what he would have been. On the other hand, he DID actually play on championships and Mattingly did not. I think we can reward people a little for this, especially if they are on the bubble. As for Mattingly’s defense, it’s still at first base. Defensively, I suspect the Twins got a lot more out of Kirby than the Yankees got out of Donnie.
I also wonder if your chances for the Hall aren’t better if you get injured after a short career (Puckett, Koufax) instead of struggling with injuries but missing substantial time during the career (Mattingly) or simply getting old in a hurry (Murphy, Parker).
“Y’all can say whatever you want, as long as I get the last laugh on January 12, I won’t care (and I’ve heard it all before anyway).”
Uh, how do you get the ‘last laugh’? It doesn’t affect me in the least if Rice gets elected.
“But one last thing about the “superscout†– the man was paid for his opinion because obviously his opinion was perceived to be worth something. He made his living evaluating ballplayers. And he knew Fenway hurt Rice.”
1) It is possible for an opinion to be worth something and yet that something be not much. There are good scouts and bad scouts, and you’re the only one characterizing Clary as a “superscout”. Everything I’ve read just now, from six different sources including the NY Times, says he was a funny guy and worked in baseball for a really long time. Not one mention of a guy he signed. Compare that to the obit/bio of any “superscout” and note the differences.
2) It is possible for an opinion to be worth less if it is uninformed by knowledge that comes later. If Paul Krichell were quoted saying “Cigarettes make a guy play better”, he’s still Paul Krichell, that’s still a stupid statement.
3) Scouts are wrong all the time, a guarantee in a field where you’re paid to make subjective judgments. Please don’t natter about the infallibility of scouts, it’s unbecoming and unproductive.
4) Scouts are not paid to figure out how to adjust statistics for context. A financial planner and an investment analyst both work in the same general subfield of finance, and you could say the FP is “paid to make evaluations of investments”. That doesn’t mean he has any more idea than you of which investments a pension should make, or how a corporation should get more liquid. He’s an expert, in his field. So, presumably, was Clary. This is not his field. I’m no expert, either, but I’m not claiming I am one, yet you’re handwaving away decades of research on the basis of Clary’s opinion and your memory.
Quoth Chris:
["You misstated when you wrote “(the superscout) knew Fenway hurt Riceâ€."
"The same goes for your own observations of Rice’s “mammoth†home runs."]
Quoth Dan:
“I never said any of those things, Chris and would never deny that he’s a marginal candidate.”
Well, Chris quoted you the first time, so you most certainly said that. As for the second, you never said the word mammoth, but “the vast majority of his hits were line drives, and towering “home run anywhere†moonshots” is, well, the same thing.
I think there are a couple of ways to look at the Hall of Fame ballot.
Career Numbers
Being maybe the best ever over a short amount of time
I also think there is a 3rd way to look at it though, which I think should be considered: “If you were to tell the history of the game and it’s great players, would you feel the need to include this person’s name?”
I think undoubtedly, Ricky Henderson, Mark McGwire and Tommy John get in just on these standards. I think it is virtually impossible to tell the story about baseball during the 80s and 90s without mentioning these names.
Blyleven certainly makes a case on the 10 great years — but it’s very close. I feel the same way about Trammel. Outside of those, I think only Raines has a case.
I love Murphy, but honestly, if it weren’t for WTBS, I really doubt people would remember him the same way. THat average is just dreadful. Although not all his fault, because he was the only good hitter on so many of those Braves teams, I would just have a hard time putting in a guy with that average without huge power numbers to go with it.
[...] Posnanski takes an in-depth look at the players on the Hall of Fame ballot. He also posts an all-time team by lineup position. Ruth should bat third and Gehrig fourth, [...]
Afer the first paragraph about longevity being uder-rated I thought Joe might be starting up an early Jamie Moyer for HoF campaign!
I just voted on the Hall of Fame and I find it amazing that Rickey only got 96% of the vote.
FYI, I voted for Rickey, Bert, Alan, and Timmy. I might vote for Lee Smith and McGwire in the future…
OK, Joe. I’m REALLY not a baseball fan. It’s a failing in me, I’m sure, but, though I grew up in Philly in the 70’s and watched those teams, I just never took to baseball as a wider sport than watching the Phils. So maybe this is an ignorant question. But…
You frequently point out that wins don’t mean that much for a pitcher, and I’m down with that. But when you combine wins with complete games, it seems to me that it could end up screwing up ERA+, a stat you do seem to like, for obvious reasons. Let me explain.
If you’re ahead (or even behind in the AL, where substitutions for hitting don’t matter) in a 1 run game in the 7th inning, you throw your best stuff that you have at that moment. You need the outs. But if you’re ahead by 4 or 5 with nobody on, as I understand it, you throw strikes. You need the outs.*
* Imitating you with the asterisk. I still remember, even as a non-fan, when the Giants met the Angels in the Series, and there was “K-Rod” on the mound against Barry Bonds, who had hit everything into the next time zone all season. The Angels were up by 2, so Rodriguez was throwing fastballs. To Barry Bonds. The expected happened, and Rodriguez had my favorite quote. “I just wanted to see how far he could hit a ball…”
But, from a baseball perspective, he was right to do it. You have a two run lead. Don’t let him get on base easily. Throw your best stuff. If he hits it, he hits it. Giving up a towering homer made as much sense to me as giving him first base, and Rodriguez wasn’t getting him out without his fastball. Now, back to my point…
This kind of pitching gives up hits, and maybe a run or two. But you can afford to give up a run or two. As we all know now (hell, even *I’ve* read “Moneyball” and the critics of the book), it’s the walks that correlate with the 4 or 5 run inning. So don’t give those up, and stay ahead.
But pitchers, like Morris and Carlton, who prided themselves on going 9 innings, were going to see that situation more than other pitchers, certainly more than today’s 100 pitch count pitchers. What effect did this have on their ERA’s? Doesn’t this make wins a more important stat, since they pitched differently in some of those wins, at least in the late innings, than they did in their losses?
Just a question. Baseball is such a stat game that I have little doubt somebody has thought about this. THANKS!
One thing that is a huge difference between Raines and McGwire when it comes to PEDs: Raines flat out came out and said, my bad, I need help and kicked it. That, to me, earns a lot of points. And he had a solid career after that. It’s no surprise his worse season came while in the middle of the addiction.
I’m going to be honest. If I never read another word about Jim Rice, it will be too soon.
“But pitchers, like Morris and Carlton, who prided themselves on going 9 innings, were going to see that situation more than other pitchers, certainly more than today’s 100 pitch count pitchers.”
For a non basesball fan, you make a good point. That that point has already been made and researched and discussed is immaterial to my being impressed that you came up with it on your own. To the point itself: it is a known factor. Speaking very generically, it’s easier to put up better rate stats (something like ERA, or even Winning Percentage, that does not inherently denote the amount of what it’s measuring, as opposed to a counting stat like homers, which does not denote the rate) when one can go all out at every opportunity. But what you’re describing is known as “pitching to the score”, and it has been researched. And in fact, Baseball Prospectus did so specifically for Jack Morris, here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1815 . Conclusion? Not a repeatable skill, a necessity (by dogma, though reasoned dogma and accepted by me) to say that it’s done in real life or is able to be done.
Additionally, there is the counterbalance that in times of high run scoring, where it is easier to put up a high ERA+ (because it’s easier to deviate from a large number than a really small one), you *must* bear down against all hitters as they can all hurt you. The amount of IP where you’ve got the kind of lead that you can just fling BP fastballs over the middle are so small that they’re of tiny effect on the overall ERA+.
I don’t mean to imply that this is not a valid point. It is. It’s been (so far) researched to the somewhat weak determination that it is a valid, yet small, impact on ERA+ overall and not a repeatable skill which we should credit to the pitcher. This would mean that its application for someone like Morris and the judging of his career is not advisable. Now you’re talking about even a subset of pitching to the score, pitching to the score in late innings. You can make a really small adjustment to the career ERA+ totals for guys who threw a lot of CGs relative to their leagues, but it’d be less than a full point total, so there’s little practical effect.
Oops, as for “making wins more important”, no. Wins are quite simply colored by too many other factors to attribute them to the pitcher. We can tell how well he pitched by looking at any number of other things that are colored much less or not at all. The very slight impact of pitching to the score can’t overcome that in the slightest.
Trammell will not be elected to the Hall of Fame for the same reason he didn’t win those MVP awards or receive more accolades during his career: he played in Detroit and wasn’t flashy. He kept his head down, never mouthed off and did what he could to help his team win. If the situation called for a bloop single, he’d hit a bloop single. If it called for a double, he’d hit a double. He had better power than his numbers reflect because he didn’t swing for the fences all the time. Still, if he had put those numbers up in pinstripes, he’d be in by now. Those pinstripes are really the only thing keeping Mattingly on the ballot, and, honestly, if Jim Rice had played for the Toronto Blue Jays, would we be having this annual discussion? I doubt it. There are certain teams and towns that lend their players a better chance at the Hall than others. If Bert Blyleven was a Cub or a Dodger or even a Cardinal, he would have been in on his first or second ballot. In the end, the Hall is the ultimate popularity contest and unfortunately for Trammell, he was always second-best to someone else on the national stage, whether that was Ripken or Ozzie or Jorge Bell, or whoever, and it remains so. Hell, even among Detroit fans it’s tough to separate Trammell from his conjoined twin Lou Whitaker. If he had been loud or angry or funny or tried to make himself larger than the game, more people would have noticed how impressive he actually was. But he wasn’t those things. He was a quietly great ballplayer turned sacrificial managerial lamb and he did it all with pluck and aplomb. I hope for his sake the Cubs can pull it together this year and get him another ring, because he’s not making the Hall. Shame.
Frank Howard in his best ten years?
1969 178 OPS+ 48 Hrs
1970 170 OPS+ 44 Hrs
1968 170 OPS+ 44 Hrs
1967 153 OPS+ 36 Hrs
1962 149 OPS+ 31 Hrs
1963 147 OPS+ 28 Hrs
1971 144 OPS+ 26 Hrs
1965 138 OPS+ 21 Hrs
1966 127 OPS+ 18 Hrs
1961 119 OPS+ 15 Hrs
What a terrific hitter with those numers in the core of the worst era for hitters and playing in Dodger Stadium and RFK Stadium.
Hondo deser
2B: It’s laughable to keep denigrating Hornsby because he was an ornery cuss. So were Bonds, Cobb, Ted Williams, even Jackie Robinson.
I would LOVE to see a “10 best years” comparison between Joe Morgan and the Rajah. I do know that for their careers, here were their OPS+ numbers:
Morgan 132
Hornsby 175
Uh, yeah. Give me the guy who hits better than Mickey Mantle or Albert Pujols.