Hall of Fame Comps
Posted: July 28th, 2010 | Filed under: Baseball | 161 Comments »
One fairly useless (but enjoyable) thing to play is the “If THIS guy in the Hall of Fame then THIS guy should be in the Hall of Fame” game. You know how it goes:
– If Bruce Sutter is in the Hall of Fame then Dan Quisenberry should be too.
– If Jim Rice is in the Hall of Fame then Dick Allen and Dwight Evans should be too.
– If Andre Dawson is in the Hall of Fame then Dale Murphy should be too.
– If Tom Yawkey is the Hall of Fame then every rich person who ever bought a premium baseball suite should be too.
– If George Kell is in the Hall of Fame then Ron Santo should be too (and if Ron Santo goes then maybe Ken Boyer should be too).
– If Ryne Sandberg is in the Hall of Fame then Lou Whitaker should be too.
– If Catfish Hunter is in the Hall of Fame then Luis Tiant should be too.
– If Ozzie Smith is in the Hall of Fame then Omar Vizquel should be too … more on this in a few minutes.
And so on and so on and so on.
The reason this is fairly useless (but enjoyable) is that nobody really believes the Hall of Fame line is drawn at the most controversial choices. Nobody wants a Hall of Fame that includes every single player who was ever as good as or better than George Kelly or Herb Pennock. Then, suddenly, you find yourself arguing why Danny Darwin is not in the Hall of Fame, and nobody really wants to have THAT argument (except maybe Danny Darwin, I don’t know).
The opposite is true too … if the Hall of Fame standard was Willie Mays and Walter Johnson as some want it to be, then there would be something like nine people in the Hall of Fame, and we would be arguing about whether or not, say, Bob Gibson belongs or Rogers Hornsby.
So, yes, player-to-player Hall of Fame comparisons, while fun, tend to be somewhat hopeless. There are 289 different people in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and each one of them creates his (or her, in the case of Effa Manley) own level. That Candy Cummings is in the Hall of Fame for inventing the curveball (which he probably did not invent) leaves open countless possibilities for future inductees.* That Henry Chadwick is in the Hall for tirelessly promoting the game in the early years and inventing numerous statistics and the box score leaves open countless more possibilities for future inductees**. That Bowie Kuhn is in the Hall of Fame for wearing short sleeves to pretend it wasn’t cold, snubbing Henry Aaron and losing every major battle to the Players’ Union leaves you wondering if everyone has just lost their minds.
*For instance, Eddie Cicotte probably invented the knuckleball sometime around 1905. It may not have been Cicotte, but there’s much more persuasive evidence for him than there is for Candy Cummings. Now, the knuckler, of course, has not had the same impact on baseball as the curveball … but it has had a big impact and it was clearly a MUCH harder pitch to invent. I mean, let’s be honest: SOMEBODY was going to figure out the curveball sooner or later. Hold the ball this way, put pressure points here, break your wrist, I mean, that was inevitable. That’s why so many people started throwing it around the same time. But the knuckleball, inventing THAT pitch — dig your fingernails into the ball? Throw it without spin? — well, that just seems a lot more impressive to me. Of course, Cicotte was one of the banned Black Sox and was probably the key figure in throwing that World Series so he’s not really eligible for the Hall. But I still think that Cicotte’s invention is impressive enough to be honored.
**Bill James, anyone? You know, Bill has never been a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, and as such is ineligible to win the J.G. Spink Award, which goes to BBWAA writers who have contributed to the game. I understand the point — the BBWAA wants to honor its members. But it seems absurd to me that Bill James, whose writing has changed the way people watch and follow baseball, has not been honored. For that matter, writers like Roger Angell, Roger Kahn and Tom Boswell — who have helped DEFINE baseball — have not been honored. I wish they would expand the definitions. I think I’m going to start writing Bill in every year for the Spink Award.
But here’s today’s question: It might not be fair to just choose a player in the Hall and build an argument entirely around him. But is it fair to look at a Hall of Fame trend? Here’s what I mean: The last five years, there only have been three players inducted into the Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers on first ballot:
– Rickey Henderson.
– Tony Gwynn.
– Cal Ripken.
That’s all. Three. Now, those three are pretty much unassailable for this reason: You would have a hard time arguing that there are any eligible non-Hall of Famers out there who match up to those three. Well, yes, you could argue that Tim Raines compares pretty favorably with Gwynn (Raines got on base more times than Gwynn, with a bit more home run power and was the most efficient base stealer in baseball history), but Gwynn’s eight batting titles and five Gold Gloves tend to pull him away in the minds of most. You could argue that Mark McGwire’s power numbers, taken at face value, are more impressive than Ripken’s sturdiness, but McGwire has his well-reported demons. You could argue for Pete Rose or Joe Jackson if you wanted to raise those ghosts again.
But for the most part, I would say just about everyone agrees that Henderson, Ripken and Gwynn are comfortable Hall of Famers, that including them does not in any way alter the Hall of Fame, that the line for entry is drawn well below their career achievements.
How far below? Well, this is where the trend comes in. Quick Trivia question: How many people have been added to the Hall of Fame the last five years?
Answer: 32.
No, seriously, the real answer: 32.
Yep. Thirty-two. We’ll even put an exclamation point after it for emphasis: Thirty-two! Even if you don’t include Henderson, Ripken and Gwynn there have been 29 others inducted into the Hall.
Who are these people? Well, seventeen of the 29 were voted in by a Negro Leagues Special Committee, though people generally tend to remember the one person they did not induct: Buck O’Neil. Um, it’s probably just best for me to avoid talking about that committee.
But even after that, there are still leaves 12 other people who have been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Who are those 12?
Well, here is who the veteran’s committees have elected:
– Commissioner Bowie Kuhn
– Owner Barney Dreyfuss.
– Owner Walter O’Malley
– Manager Billy Southworth
– Manager Dick Williams
– Manager Whitey Herzog
– Umpire Doug Harvey
– Second baseman Joe Gordon
Go ahead and try to pick a trend in THAT group. You have Kuhn, two owners, three managers, an umpire, and a player who retired 60 years ago. I can really only pick two things out of this group:
1. How preposterous it is that Marvin Miller is not in the Hall.
2. Something that Rob Neyer and others have already pointed out — how is former Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert NOT in the Hall of Fame? I mean, if you are going to include owners anyway … all Ruppert did was create the New York Yankees as we know them. He bought a team that had never won anything (and only three years earlier had the uninspiring name of “New York Highlanders”), bought Babe Ruth, signed Lou Gehrig, created Murderer’s Row and built Yankee Stadium (despite the nickname, Babe Ruth really didn’t build that house). Shouldn’t he have been the first owner inducted?
But none of that is especially interesting. What interests us, mostly, are the players. And the Baseball Writers Association, in addition to the three first-ballot guys, has elected four other players:
– Outfielder Andre Dawson
– Outfielder Jim Rice
– Reliever Goose Gossage
– Reliever Bruce Sutter
So … there you go. There is the BBWAA Hall of Fame standard as we now know it. A couple of things are worth noting here. One is that a Major League starting pitcher has not been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame since 1999 (not counting Dennis Eckersley, who was a starter for half of his career but is in the Hall mostly for his work as a closer). The 11-year drought is by far the longest period of time that has gone by without a starting pitcher being elected. I suspect the drought will end this year with the long-awaited election of Bert Blyleven … and I also suspect that Jack Morris will get in before the starting-pitcher-wave reaches shore and Roger Clemens, Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Tom Glavine, Mike Mussina, Randy Johnson, John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez all become eligible.* But it is fascinating (at least to me) that while the 1980s was clearly a pitcher’s era, most of the best pitchers of the decade — Stieb, Viola, Gooden, Welch, Valenzuela, Saberhagen, Guidry and others — did not last long enough and have received virtually no Hall of Fame consideration. Guidry, despite his many virtues, never got even 9% of the vote.
*One thing I’ll be interested in seeing this year is how many votes Kevin Brown gets. He won 200-plus games, for what that’s worth. His 127 career ERA+ is better than Jim Palmer, Juan Marichal, John Smoltz, Don Drysdale, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Nolan Ryan and a bunch of other all-time greats and just a touch behind Tom Seaver. His WAR is 34th all-time among pitchers, just ahead of Hubbell, Marichal, Smoltz and Palmer. He twice led the league in ERA (and was second twice), twice led in WHIP (and was second and third), and he was nasty at his best (both on and off the field). And there are also lots of negatives. It will be interesting to see if he gets any kind of meaningful Hall of Fame support of if he gets only a few votes and never becomes a viable Hall candidate.
The second thing worth noting is that there really isn’t a stable relief pitcher standard at the moment. Bruce Sutter and Dan Quisenberry had eerily similar careers, at least as performance goes, but Sutter was inducted into the Hall while Quiz fell off the ballot in his first year. The hard-throwing Gossage was inducted two years later (deserved, I thought), though it looks like the hard-throwing Lee Smith, who who set the saves record, probably will not get in. I happen to think Gossage was a more valuable pitcher than Smith (something Wins Above Replacement confirms), but it just feels that when it comes to relievers the writers are throwing darts in the dark at the moment …
The most noticeable thing the Baseball Writers have done the last two years, though, has been to elect outfielders Andre Dawson and Jim Rice into the Hall of Fame. Both had strong cases that you know all about. Both also had big negatives that I’ve written too much about. Quick review: Dawson’s .323 on-base percentage is now by far the lowest for any outfielder in the Hall of Fame … 20 points lower than Lou Brock. There are those of us who believe that no skill is more important for an offensive player than getting on base.
Rice’s .352 on-base percentage is also one of the lowest among Hall of Fame outfielders. But more, Rice did not have the speed of Dawson, he did not play defense as well, and much of his offensive production is a reflection of the fast-track that was Fenway Park in the 1970s and 80s.
Here are just a few of the non-Hall of Famers who have a higher WAR than either Rice or Dawson: Will Clark, Tim Raines, Jimmy Wynn, Willie Randolph, Sal Bando, Buddy Bell, Keith Hernandez, Dick Allen, Graig Nettles, Dwight Evans, Reggie Smith, Ron Santo, Alan Trammell, Bobby Grich, and Lou Whitaker.
You might think WAR is a flawed statistic that underrates those two players. Well … Bill James in his new Abstract used a completely different method and rated Frank Howard, Albert Belle and, most famously, Roy White ahead of Rice as left fielders. And he ranked Ken Singleton, Bobby Murcer, Bobby Bonds and Dave Parker ahead of Dawson as right fielders.
Of course, if you are down on WAR you almost certainly think Bill James’ rankings don’t do justice to Dawson or Rice. There’s OPS+, which is simpler … it just measures a players on-base-percentage-plus-slugging-percentage against the players of his era. Fred Lynn, Bobby Bonds, Jose Canseco, Jack Clark, Albert Belle, Dick Allen and many others have better OPS+ than Rice or Dawson.
Maybe OPS+ is not for you either. Maybe you like those simple traditional Hall of Famer markers like 500 home runs or 3,000 hits (neither player reached those markers). Or maybe you don’t like any kind of statistical guideline or analyst’s voice. The one thing that so many Hall of Fame voters believe about the Hall of Fame is that it is about feel, about aura, about character. Dawson’s Hall of Fame case was bolstered by this sense of dignity he brought to baseball — everyone respected him and his all-around game. Rice’s Hall of Fame case was bolstered by this sense of intimidation he brought to baseball — you would hear that no player was more feared.
But using nebulous standards like aura makes comparisons EVEN MORE tempting … Dale Murphy also played with great dignity and brought honor to baseball. So did Dwight Evans. Few players were more respected in their day than Reggie Smith. Fred McGriff was classy enough to be the voice behind a training video for kids. Joe Carter was the very essence of class and he hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history. Who was ever classier or more beloved than Gil Hodges?
As for intimidation, Rice certainly was no more feared than Dick Allen or Frank Howard or Albert Belle or George Foster or Dave Parker. Or Jose Canseco, for that matter.
And it occurs to me: Maybe in the end, the various player comparisons that Dawson and Rice spur are exactly the reason WHY they are controversial picks in the first place. Take Cal Ripken. You could argue, I suppose, that there are non-Hall of Famers who were better players than Ripken. It would be a tough argument to make — there is not a single eligible non-Hall of Famer with a higher career WAR than Ripken. But let’s say you think, oh, Dick Allen or Ron Santo were better players (I don’t think this … we’re just talking here). Even if you believe that someone else was as good or better, Ripken is STILL incomparable because he set the consecutive game record. He was the first great big defensive shortstop. He got 3,000 hits. No non-Hall of Famer matches up to those things.
And so maybe that is a good Hall of Fame gauge — is the player COMPARABLE? Bert Blyleven, in my opinion, has no non-Hall of Fame comparables. There are is no non-Hall of Famer with anything close to his 3,701 strikeouts or his 60 shutouts or his 90.1 WAR. If you add Blyleven to the Hall of Fame, there really isn’t a player out there who has a stronger case.
Jack Morris? Well, he’s our favorite test case because it’s very clear that there are numerous non-Hall of Famers who compare very well to him, even in his era. Morris ranks 79th among non-Hall of Famers in career WAR — that would be a seventy-ninth among NON HALL OF FAMERS — behind, among others, Tom Candiotti, Nap Rucker (who has his own claim to inventing the knuckleball) Vida Blue, Jimmy Key, Steve Rogers, Jamie Moyer, Kenny Rogers, Mark Langston and WAY behind his contemporary Dave Stieb, who I think was pretty clearly a better pitcher in both their primes. But it is true that one thing Morris has that none of them have is that brilliant Game 7 performance in the 1991 World Series. How you feel about Morris’ Hall of Fame case probably is built around how you feel about that single game.
If the BBWAA is saying that the Hall of Fame standard is now Rice and Dawson — and it does seem that’s EXACTLY what the BBWAA is saying — then frankly we need to open the Hall’s doors to quite a few more players who were every bit as good or better. That’s a fairly extensive list of players, I think. Rice seems to me more susceptible to comparison than Dawson — the Hawk’s issue is his low on-base percentage but few match Dawon’s defensive excellence and combination of power and speed. Rice, though, opens up the door to many, many players including his teammate Dwight Evans who was, I think, pretty clearly a better player (Evans ranks 88th in career WAR, Rice ranks 224th).
One last thing … my friend Keith Law seems to be taking a beating because he has said that Omar Vizquel is not a Hall of Famer in his book. I certainly don’t want any of Keith’s angry email, but it’s just worth pointing out that one argument I often hear for Vizquel is that he compares well with Ozzie Smith. I really don’t think that’s true. I think Ozzie Smith was a much better player than Vizquel. There’s no question that Omar was a defensive wiz, but he was no certainly no Wizard. He did not have Ozzie’s range, his remarkable ability to make the great play, his double play talents, etc. This is no knock — Ozzie is the best defensive shortstop in the history of baseball, I believe. And while Vizquel was a terrific defensive player, I don’t think he’s anything close to second-best — I think he’s in a massive pile with a lot of terrific defensive players ranging from Belanger to Burleson to Bowa to Barry … and those are just the Bs. And
though Smith was widely viewed as a weak hitter … he was actually a better offensive player in context than Vizquel. I’m using WAR a lot here, which might simply not be persuasive to you. But Ozzie Smith ranks 74th all-time among every day players in WAR. Vizquel ranks 209th. I simply don’t think if Ozzie Smith is a Hall of Fame standard, that Vizquel has a great Hall of Fame case.*
If Jim Rice is the standard, however …
*Update: Since several people have misunderstood the paragraph, let me clarify here: I am NOT saying that I will not vote for Vizquel. I am not ready to make that judgment yet … Vizquel has been a fabulous player and I’ll take the five years after retirement to let his career settle. I am only saying that the Ozzie Smith comparison, to me, does not hold up. Ozzie Smith is not my line of demarcation when it comes to Hall of Fame shortstops.
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Circle me Bert
Bert?
Kevin Brown will get VERY little support, but Curt Schilling will sail into the hall.
Guy that has always bothered me is Don Sutton. Despite 300 wins, he was rarely the best pitcher on his own team. By letting him in, Blyleven, Morris, Mussina, Pettitte and Schilling are no-brainers, and Tommy John also becomes more likely a HoFer.
If the HoF honors managers, players and broadcasters, why not honor people who had “hybrid” careers. Jim Kaat and Gil Hodges certainly deserve enshrinement for their efforts.
George Foster removed from the Big Red Machine’ lineup was ordinary, something like a slight improvement on Dave Kingman . Rice was always intimidating whether the Sawx had a good or a bad lineup. Stats might not measure that, but it was clear from watching their careers.
One problem with WAR is that it incorporates defensive value. People like to throw around WAR like a trump card that settles the issue when the fact is that we just don’t have defensive value nailed down all that well.
Don’t get me wrong – I want WAR to work. It’s elegant in its simplicity, but when you talk about confidence, well, I’m confident in wOBA, but UZR & friends have a way to go.
“Um, it’s probably just best for me to avoid talking about that committee.”
I really wish you would talk about that committee — not just about the Buck O’Neil exclusion, but about things like, you know, counting the votes of a dead man, the absurd selection of Effa Manley, etc…
More Omar:
1. Omar doesn’t need to be as good as Ozzie to be worthy. Ozzie was a 95% first ballot inner circle guy. You can be a lesser player and still a good choice.
2. Maybe it makes me a “big hall” guy, but I think there should be room for a guy who punched up 2700 hits and 11 gold gloves.
I really think Kevin Brown was good enough to be in the Hall of Fame. The thing is he didn’t look as intimidating as Smoltz or Schilling but he was probably better. And he didn’t pitch as long as Glavine and Mussina and thus has less wins, but he was probably better.
If Gary Carter and Caarlton Fisk are in the Hall of Fame, then Ted Simmons should be too.
Great piece Joe! I think you touched on it, and I believe that there are really two Hall-of-Fames in play. One for those players elected on the first ballot (or should have been – see: Alomar, Roberto) after 1954. And the other for those players who eventually make it, though many believe their numbers don’t match up – Dawson and Rice (more so Rice) as your examples. The latter group is not necessarily thought of as elite and draw strong comparisons to eligible non-hall of famers. This group is thought to lower the standards of the entire HOF; however, separating the two groups (IMO) helps me sleep at night.
Also, I always hated Mitch Albom’s hair cut – mostly the fact that he let his hair cover the top half of ears.. You gave me another reason to dislike the gentleman, and I use that term loosely.
If Jim Rice and Andre Dawson -why not Dave Parker? I can accept Rice because his best years were quite good and he was consistently great fro 10 years. But Why Parker? and please, for ol chubby, Joe will you review for us the case of Al Oliver – would you put him in HOF?
err I mean why not Parker. And why Not Oliver.
My first disagreement ever:
Vizquel, while not Ozzie (who is/will be?), was exceptional…and bordered, defensively, on extraordinary. His barehand plays alone could get him into the HOF, and then you factor in his range, amazing fielding percentage, and WOW factor…HOF, no-brainer.
And the best part of Vizquel’s act? The between-inning juggling of the baseball with his feet. I hit the head DURING away innings, just to witness his artistry with a baseball.
The HOF is a joke.
Bobby Grich got 2.6% on the first ballot.
IIRC his WAR/700 is over 6.0.
Anything over 6.0 is considered an MVP season. So he AVERAGED an MVP season for his career.
Lynn and Evans were better than Rice, but we all know that.
Raines, Allen, Santo, Blyleven, Larkin, Martinez, Trammell, Whitaker need to get in. Randolph, Hernandez, Bonds, Clark are more borderline looking on from the outside.
I never lived a day in t he 80′s, but what was Morris’ image back then? At the time was he seen as a stud pitcher, or is it just recently he’s gotten love from the media and former players?
I’m a Brown fan and he cuts it close. I kind of hope he gets in (although you know he will get like 8% of the vote).
Mussina better get in as well. He was overshadowed by the likes of RJ and Pedro, but he is every bit the HOF’er.
3 posts in a row!
I just want to add- I wonder what happens when Posada and Pettitte are eligible.
I don’t think either gets in because you don’t think “HOF” when you think of them, but looking at the numbers, both are A LOT closer than you would think.
Minor point here, but did you intentionally do away with your full-text RSS feed? This post only showed up as an excerpt, and I miss the full thing already…
I know people will not be crazy about this, but if you’re going to put “hybrids” (players/managers/ broadcasters etc) in the HOF, then you have to strongly consider Tim McCarver. A couple of All-Star games, 2nd in the NL MVP voting in 1967, and a long broadcasting career on a national stage.
And, he inspired the “ShutUpTimMcCarver” website, which is not FJM, but still…
sorry jack morris, and it seems, joe, single games (even world series games) do not a hall of famer make. see, larsen, don….
Thanks for another great piece Joe. On Ozzie, thanks for mentioning his bat. It’s true that the 1st half of his career, that he was a poor hitter. He did at least steal bases at a high rate to make up for part of that, but starting in the mid-80′s, he learned how take a walk and use his speed to his advantage. From 1984-92, he had an OPS + of 100 or greater 4 times and another 3 times, he was at 97+. Not George Brett or Tony Gwynn levels, but pretty good for a guy who wasn’t considered to be a good bat. Ozzie also stole 580 bases at an 80% success rate.
Dave Stieb: for some reason, one of my favorite pitchers growing up. Started two All-Star games in a row.
Please do not write-in Bill James for the Spink Award. It’s an award given to beat writers, and Bill never was one.
I’d be the first to acknowledge the huge impact James has had on the game, and more importantly, the generation of young fans who grew up reading his books. James is the reason why I became a sportswriter.
But what James does is different from what the beat writers do. Not better, neceessarily, just different. We wouldn’t give Ken Burns the Frick award (which goes to broadcasters), would we?
James deserves to be honored, but I think it does a disservice to journalism to suggest that he deserves that award, or that he ought to be a member of the BBWAA.
Evans is CLEARLY a better player, yet when the Boston Globe made a NE Top 100, they left Evans off the list entirely. Even candlepin bowler Stasia Czernicki made the cut.
It sure would have been nice if the Internet had existed in 1948, when the BBWAA elected two, count ‘em, two players with lower career WAR totals than Rice, Herb Pennock and Pie Traynor. (Just two of the nearly THREE DOZEN Hall of Famers with lower WAR totals than Rice.) Imagine the digital angst and gnashing of teeth that election would have spawned.
(sigh) Yet another RSS feed gets truncated. Super annoying to those of us that like to read while on the go.
If Travis Jackson, why not me?
I’m just mad I can’t have Jordan take the last shot… for my life! Not even as a write-in candidate.
Vizquel was a very good defensive player, but he wasn’t in Ozzie’s league. I’ll grant he did have a better fielding %, but I think part of that is skewed because Ozzie tried to get everything.
Ozzie’s range factor/9 innings: 5.22, the league was 4.78.
Vizquel: 4.62 to 4.61 for the league. Only twice, did Vizquel have a range factor per 9 of over 5.0, and one of those was when he played just 60+ games. Ozzie did it 13 times, with one of those being about a 50 game season at SS.
Ozzie had 8375 assists in 21786 innings at SS. Vizquel: 7632 in 22794 innings. Ozzie had 4249 putouts to Vizquel’s 4079. Vizquel did turn more double plays, 1726 to 1590.
Ozzie was worth, on average, 13 runs/season at SS, Vizquel: 7.
HOF voters used to be very consistent- IFs had to be better tan Nellie Fox, CFs better than Whitey Ashburn, 1b-types better than Orlando Cepeda. That’s why the selections of Rice and Tony Perez seem kind of weird.
How many SABR-types have a HOF vote? I wonder if some Rice voters were subtly telling the stat guys what they could do with their WARs.
IMO, the stat guys undermine the strong cases they make for guys like Blyleven, Raines, and E Martinez by advocating guys like Grich and Whitaker. I think they say “Grich is a HOFer” when what they really mean is “Grich was an excellent ballplayer and seriously under-rated”.
AaronB: great post, thanks for doing the legwork. I don’t think anyone is refuting that Ozzie is in a league of his own. Since you may still have those stats up/out, how does Omar rank vs. other HOF SS? That would be the interesting look.
What I really don’t get about Vizquel is that he even fails the standard evaluations that non-stat people use. He made 3 All Star games in his career. He received an MVP vote ONCE in his entire career.
I really can’t see any year where someone could say – yes, Vizquel was a top 10 player in the AL. He was a fantastic fielder – but not the best ever, and not good enough to make him one of the best players in the game at any time.
It’s ok for someone to be a memorable player to watch and not make the Hall of Fame. Vizquel still has a nice legacy – we just don’t need to honor him in ways that go way beyond his actual value.
“Bill James, whose writing has changed the way people watch and follow baseball, has not been honored.”
This is a reason NOT to honor Bill James. He has created a species of stat nerds who look not at the games as they are played, but at their Excel Spreadsheets and figure out who is better. I read an article where they asked pitchers in the late 70′s/early 80′s who was the one guy they feared the most when he stepped to the plate. Overwhelmingly, they said “Jim Rice”. To me, if a guy absolutely dominates his league, to the point where pitchers feared him for a period of 10 years, then you can forget about geek stats like WAR, OPS+, etc and put him in the Hall of Fame.
Yeah, I love reading Joe’s stuff, even though we are diametrically opposed on what makes a ballplayer good as opposed to great as opposed to all-time. And I’ll continue to read his stuff, even after you guys kill me for the next 50 posts. I think that’s part of Joe’s charm…he can spout the stats that drive me nuts, but still finds a way to make me come back for more.
@19- It appears that you think that Joe thinks Jack Morris is a Hall of Famer. Maybe I misread you. But if you do think that, rest assured, Joe definitely does NOT think that Morris belongs in the HOF. You can probably search this website and find 10 posts devoted to his mediocre-to-poor case for the Hall.
Hey Drew, like I mentioned, I wasn’t trying to insult Vizquel, he was truly an outstanding defensive SS. I was more trying to show how great Ozzie was.
I don’t have time right now, but I’ll look through the #’s and see how Vizquel compares to guys like Trammel, Honus Wagner (for kicks) Rey Ordonez, Marty Marion, Maury Wills, and some others.
@28
I think they say “Grich is a HOFer” when what they really mean is “Grich was an excellent ballplayer and seriously under-rated”.
——————————————–
And yeah, he is a HOF player among being excellent and underrated.
@31- Well done to you for coming back and reading people that you disagree with. It’s a discipline we don’t see very often in our culture. But it’s good for us to know that people that are smart and passionate can come to wildly different conclusions.
I think you might get killed for the continued usage of stereotype of what stat-heads are like and how stats are used. Stereotypes are no fun for anyone involved. The recipient is very often (as is the case here) mischaracterized to serve a point in an argument. The one doing the stereotyping undermines their own ability to make a point by getting the people they’d like to convince angry.
Stat people watch baseball games. They like to. I would consider myself a hybrid because I don’t always understand/agree. But I can say I like watching baseball alot. And I also don’t trust players all the time on other players because their perceptions can be so dramatically shaped by a few encounters. I don’t trust their opinion (completely… though I don’t think it’s worthless) because of what I see in myself. Sometimes my eyes deceive me. Sometimes I need objective measurements to confirm what I thought I saw/felt.
Anyway… I think you’re being more than a little unfair, but I do think you make good points about Joe’s writing and I think it’s awesome that people that disagree can still have conversations. It’s good stuff.
@Todd wrote: “but he was probably better”
I think this is what makes talking about the HoF so interesting. I completely agree that in some meaningful baseball sense, Kevin Brown was ‘better’ than Smoltz. Like, if I had to face a guy, I think I’d choose to face Smoltz over Brown.
But the part of me that became a mathematician, it hears that statement and all that part does is yell out obnoxious questions — Better when? At what? Under what circumstances? For how long?
That part of my brain would point out that right now, Sandy Koufax is a bad pitcher. If he pitched, at age 75, he would get lit up. And he wasn’t at his best his entire career, and he wasn’t as bad as he is now when he retired. So when we talk about Sandy Koufax ‘being’ a great pitcher, the obnoxious part of my brain pushes the discussion down this slippery slope. “Imagine,” it says, “Dave Burba was the best pitcher of all time for 5 minutes in 1998, but he was at the beach that day. So was he ‘better’ than Koufax?” Ability-better is so squooshy, while career-results-better (or peak-results better) is so much easier to define (even though those of us to measure it often get accused of being the ones operating in abstraction).
Like I said, that’s the part of my brain that got beat up a lot by the older brains when it was a kid. But that willingness (or lack of it) to believe that saying Kevin Brown was ‘better’ than Smoltz means something in close cases is where I think a lot of these HoF disconnects come from and what makes them so interesting.
Wow, Disco, we haven’t had a Brown fan on the board in nearly 60 years!
To see Omar occasionally was to see him as spectacular (did you see that play?), but to see him everyday was to see his defensive short-comings – his range was not spectacled by any means. He was a very smart player who seized every tactical advantage he saw. Unfortunately diving into first was one advantage he saw 30 times a year or so.
Joe:
1. It appears there are three ways to get to the Hall: (1) Have a approximately 5-7 great years of dominance (Dawson, Rice), followed by a bunch of decent years; (2) Have a long career with good statistics at the end, along with just a few years of dominance (Blyleven, Brock); or (3) Both 1 & 2 (All-time greats – Ruth, Ripken, Maddux). The problem with guys like Belle and Clark, while comparable via WAR, don’t fall into either category. Morris is a borderline (1), and definitely not a (2) or (3). Lately, writers have really been playing to (1) and ignoring (2).
While WAR can be a good measure (especially for guys like Blyleven), I think it fails to incorporate how much a guy was feared, or how great he was, at his peak. Lets take Pujols for example. If he were to retire today, I think we all agree that, with his 10 seasons of experience, he would be an automatic HOF, probably a first-ballot. Now lets say he plays another 10 years, batting around .230 during those years with only a few homeruns. For WAR purposes, this would greatly diminish his over candidacy for the Hall. So in effect, Pujols’ chances of making the Hall would go backwards by continuing his career.
2. What are your picks for most deserving Negro Leaguers (including Buck) who are not in the Hall?
“(Ripken) was the first great big defensive shortstop”
Slight quibble with another otherwise fine post. Marty Marion, who was 6-2, was the inspiration for St. Louis native Earl Weaver to move Ripken from 3B to shortstop. Marion must have been great defensively to win the 1944 NL MVP, with 6 homers and a .267 batting average. He had a 91 OPS+ that year and was 10th in the NL in WAR (and in a war year). He beat out the Cubs’ Bill Nicholson by one point in the voting.
@Chris: “He has created a species of stat nerds who look not at the games as they are played, but at their Excel Spreadsheets and figure out who is better.”
Chris, no one’s going to kill you here, but where’s this stathead who’s not *also* watching games? I’m not sure there are that many people like the one that you describe.
When I was young – loooong time ago – I became a fan of the sport because it was the best thing going. Anyone could play though few could play it well, you could think about it any time and use stats to back your thoughts up, etcetera, etcetera. Baseball remains my favorite sport and it isn’t really close.
My dad was stationed in Panama at the time I realized all that, so naturally there were no nearby MLB teams to follow. Thus I looked long and hard to find a team – by picking my favorite player. It didn’t take long to realize that was Stan the Man Musial and I became a Cards fan that day and for the rest of my life. Yes, even during the 70′s.
I was a fan of all things baseball and so I was a fan of the HoF. Maybe there was a player or two who didn’t belong but generally it really was a HoF (for players anyway – no one can understand Yawkey; he must have had nasty photos). There were a couple players who had been overlooked but…
Then they set up the new committee to correct those oversights and suddenly there were a lot of quite good players who simply did not measure up and the HoF lost much of its shine – for me anyway.
Over time, that just got worse until eventually the regular voters began putting in great (but not HoF) players. Now I no longer care about the HoF and generally avoid reading about it as well. I only read this one because you wrote it, Joe, and that is my tribute to you.
Maybe if they go back and put in an intelligent Committee to reassess and get rid of or add true HoF’ers, I’ll reconsider then but we both know that ain’t happening soon – if ever.
Oh and in my HoF Bert is a definite “maybe” while Morris is a “Hell, no.” I tend to be a bit more demanding than some but I can say that I wouldn’t have left the Hall behind because of Bert being in it, so he would be a much better choice for me than the likes of Rice or Dawson.
Of course some of that could be bias – I still am angry that the Hawk got MVP in 87 over the Wizard.
I honestly think that sometimes people’s names help to define them. It’s sometimes not fair that a “Kevin Brown” has to compete with a “Curt Schilling” or “John Smoltz”. I know it sounds crazy but I think if you are a borderline HOF kind of guy, if you have a fairly non-descript name (and you weren’t out in front of the camera promoting yourself/MLB), the yahoo half-brain dead HOF voters just throw you aside; like they couldn’t keep Kevin Brown’s career separated from Tommy Greene’s.
That’s when having a last name like Koufax helps….Except Sandy Koufax could have been named John Smith and he would have been a first-ballot guy – I would hope!
# 38- I agree. Usually, if the guy passes the “was he great” test, he also accumulated the numbers and vice-versa. The voters struggle with great players who faded quickly (like Rice) and guys who achieved milestones without having been great (Sutton).
Tremendous as always, Joe. The one issue I’d point out is that Jack Morris adds a lot of off the stat sheet intangible value similar to Ripken. While I don’t support Morris’s candidacy, I’m at peace with him getting in, because you can put together a pretty good HoF plaque for him. To use your argument, although he has a lot of comparable non-HoFers using ERA+ and WAR, he doesn’t have too many comps when you throw in two terrific postseasons, Game 7, the IP and CG for his time, even however many opening day starts he had. It’s a weak argument in the way I value players, but I can squint and see it.
Compare that to Rice … Rice’s plaque is a lot of run production at his peak and good MVP showings. Why him and not the guys you mentioned, or Mattingly, or Dale Murphy, or Juan Gonzalez? (And this is all an argument even independent of the Fenway Park factor.) Because of an extra 0.1 MVP shares? Because in a voter’s mind Rice’s FEAR was in 16 point font while the other guys’ were in 12 point? Because he was a league leader in several categories during his peak, which really overlapped with no other premier hitter’s peak? (That’s right kids, he had more RBI in the late 70s/early 80s than Don Baylor OR Ken Singleton!) There’s no line to be drawn there.
I think that on some level the reason voters are throwing darts when it comes to relief pitchers is that relievers don’t really belong in the HOF at all.
If you look at a ranking of career WAR the highest-ranked pure closer is Mariano Rivera. He’s ranked 226 and is tied with Ron Cey. Goose Gossage is ranked 425th, which puts him just behind Tony Fernandez. Good gravy. If you look at career Win Shares closers don’t fare much better, even though that stat weights high-leverage situations more heavily.
I love Vizquel, but I have to agree, he just doesn’t quite seem great enough for Cooperstown.
I hope Lee Smith isn’t voted in. He just doesn’t stand out when it comes to ERA in save situations. Especially when he’s so easily comparable to Todd Jones.
Kevin Brown… hmmm. I’m still thinkin’ about whether I think he belongs or not. Need to look into him more. Which says something in itself.
Also, wanted to throw this out there on Ozzie vs. Omar to see if anyone who watched more of Omar’s career than I have could give their opinions.
My take on Ozzie/Omar is pretty similar to Joe’s. The way I describe it is as follows: if you put together a 5 minute career highlight reel of each player’s defense, Ozzie’s would be 5 minutes of him turning hits into outs, whereas Omar’s would be 2 minutes of that and 3 minutes of him turning balls that an average shortstop would turn into outs into outs that are more fun to watch. A lot more value in Ozzie’s D, compared to a lot of Omar fielding balls with his bare hand and throwing balls with his glove hand. Does that resonate with anyone else?
(Also, for me, Ozzie is not necessarily in the HoF for career value or WAR … it’s because probably a consensus of fans would give his name when asked to name the greatest defensive player in the game’s history. That Omar had 85% or 90% Ozzie’s value, for me, doesn’t mean he deserves 85% or 90% of his HoF consideration. Ozzie is in (and got in overwhelmingly) for his uniqueness and greatness, not neessarily his career value.)
Chris @ 31, I won’t contest your statement, but I’d draw a line between “afraid of what a guy can do on solid contact” versus “afraid of the damage he does such that there’s no way I’m going to let him win the game.” Rice absolutely punished the ball, but when he was up with the game on the line, where were the intentional walks? Or even semi-intentional? Barry Bonds had ONE SEASON where he had about 150% of the intentional walks that Rice got in his entire career. Pujols will probably reach 50% of Rice’s total this year alone, and that with a recent MVP runner-up hitting behind him (who, as I recall, was getting noted for how well he was hitting after an Albert IBB early in the season). Even in you want to argue that managerial strategy has changed over time, Parker out-IBBed Rice playing in the same era. Rice could do hellacious things on solid contact, but pitchers gave no indication that he was a feared guy to face with the game on the line, at least not by their actions.
I have a simple question that I want everyone to consider (and since you doing this considering in your own head, be honest with yourself):
Why was Jim Rice described as a “feared” hitter, but not George Brett?
Why was Dave Parker described as a “feared” hitter, but not Jack Clark?
Why was Dick Allen described as a “feared” hitter, but not Eddie Mathews?
If the answer, or even a small part of the answer, is that the former player in each comparison was a large black man, then shouldn’t we really think twice about using that appellation as a standard for deciding who should be in the HOF?
Jim (#48)- yeah, I don’t quite get the “fear” thing. I think the best hitter is probably the most feared. In the AL from 1975-1980 this would have been Jim Rice. I dunno, maybe the fear lingered for a few years after that until the pitchers figured out they should be more afraid of Eddie Murray and George Brett.
With Rice’s IBBs, Yaz hit behind him most of the time as I recall. Maybe it was a pick-your-poison kind of deal.
Say it ain’t so… Don’t truncate the RSS feed.
Pretty pretty please?
Defense is just too hard to determine, IMO, to be putting too many people as purely “great” defensive players. Ozzie is certainly the greatest defensive player of the ESPN era at the most important position on the defensive spectrum (excluding pitcher and catcher from the spectrum), therefore the election of him doesn’t bother me. Mazerowski is more of a stretch, because a) it is less certain that he was the greatest defensive 2Bman ever (See, e.g. Roberto Alomar) and b) because 2B is not as important as SS defensively, but still he is a defensible choice (as is Rabbit Maranville, even though we cannot say for certain that he was a great defensive SS, because there are not any highlight reels from 1914, but given the lack of any reason for him to continue to play from his offensive stats, his appeal to the MVP voters of his day and how well he does in the defensive metrics that we can look at, he certainly must have been an exceptionsal defensive SS)
But I am loathe to award too many spots to “defensive” players in the HOF for a number of reasons.
1) It is impossible to compare players across eras subjectively on a defensive basis. For instance was Vizquel better in his prime than Aparicio? Who knows? Unless you lived in Chicago or Baltimore, it is unlikely you saw Aparicio play more than a handful of games ever (and if you lived in Pittsburgh or Milwaukee or any number of NL cities, you may never have seen him play, except for an occasional Game of the Week or in the WS in 1959 or 1966) Think about this, why do subjectively we think that Willie Mays and Brooks Robinson were great defensive players? Isn’t it because they made great plays in the WS, the only time that all of America could observe their play? Now, we see everybody’s great plays every night on SC and Baseball Tonight and similar shows. So how do we compare Vizquel, whose plays we saw nightly on highlights, to Aparicio, who we did not or even more pointedly, Maranville or Marion, of whom there isn’t any highlight film at all?
2) Our eyes fool us a lot when we compare defense subjectively. Cal Ripken and Omar Vizquel made a lot of the same plays. Who did our eyes tell us was the better defensive player? Vizquel. Why? Because our eyes are more impressed with the agile defensive player over the guy with a howitzer for an arm. But because Ripken had an incredible arm, he could play deeper than Omar (or even Ozzie), and on the play that they dove for and made a spectacular grab, he merely backhanded and then gunned the runner at first. But subjectively, we don’t register that Ripken played 3 steps deeper than Omar and Ozzie and, therefore, he doesn’t “seem” like he was making as many plays.
After reading Joe’s post twice, and after a slow review of comments from his Brilliant Readers, I have suddenly become a big fan of a Bigger Hall of Fame.
It is ludicrous less than 300 players have been enshrined out of the thousands that have played the game since the 1800s.
I also can’t get past the hypocrisy BBWAA writers employ to defend their choices.
Without naming names, there are at least a dozen hall of famers who had — or still have — serious character issues.
With that in mind, we can start the Hall Expansion Project by letting in Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson.
And we can also enshrine the one man I think everybody agrees had oodles of good character and integrity: Buck O’Neil.
Brent- I think you have to try. For 2B, SS, and CF especially. But maybe that uncertainty is why there are so many 1B-LF types in the HOF.
@31
Bill James has no control over the human beings that like his writing or thinking. The fact that he is sitting in a Major League front office and he had feature chapters in ‘Moneyball’ and Alan Schwarz’s ‘The Numbers Game’ tells you all you need to know about his influence on the game–as influential as Chadwick.
James’ ‘Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame’ (originally, ‘The Politics of Glory’) is the best overview I’ve read of the Hall.
@49 Brent:
Not quite sure I buy your comparisons…
George Brett never hit very many homeruns….in my mind, he’s a singles/doubles machine. I just looked it up, he had a career high with 30 homers in 1985 and even that number surprised me. He averaged 19 per 162 game season, not amazing for a 3rd baseman.
Jack Clark was nicknamed Jack the Ripper. I think that settles that.
Mathews hit over 500 homers, so I think his game spoke for itself and besides…he had a pretty good partner in the batting order…another guy who wasn’t “feared” but hit more than a few homers.
The players you mentioned were feared because they could turn the game around with one swing.
Has Keith Law written a book or am I just totally mis-reading that sentence?
I dunno where everyone else was from 1980-present, but George Brett and Jack Clark were plenty fearful. The thing about “most feared” is, does it matter how afraid I am of Jim Rice, or does it matter that I get him out? I can recall “most feared” polls, but I also recall “toughest out” surveys of pitchers, and usually those results were guys who fouled off lots of pitches and would do anything short of armed assault to get on base: scrappy gutty banjo hitters that nobody would stick in the Hall of Fame.
@ Chris F – I don’t live in a basement, watch plenty of baseball, and use stats to help me understand things I can’t personally see, or analyze long trends (such as comparing performance over months or seasons). As has been remarked, stats are nothing more than a description of what actually happens in ballgames.
To put these two themes together – yes, Jim Rice was feared. I was there, I saw it first-hand. So, what was the result of all that fear? He had a stretch from ’77-’79 that was really fantastic: averaging 207 hits and 84 XBH, 320/376/596 slash marks… and what else? A big ’83, a big ’86, and a lot of reputation for a little production.
To put it in terms used above by mthel, he had that 5-7 years of dominance… barely. He had decent longevity. Did he do any of the mythological “raising his game”? Against the Angels in ’86 he hit 161/188/387, but three of his five hits were a double and two homers… and somehow, he scored 8 runs and was not stranded ONCE, which sounds a lot like his teammates picking him up. Against the Mets he failed to drive in a single teammate and they lost. Against the Angels in ’88 he fizzled (2-13 with no XBH).
To me that’s a no vote – based partially on his actual performance not living up to his “most feared” rep, based partially on the impression I got in the times I saw him, based partially on his numbers (both overall and his home/road splits; he was much less dangerous without a giant wall to bounce flyballs off of, or loft them over).
Your mileage may vary. That’s the fun of it. But please leave the stat-nerd stuff home. You dig the HR/RBI stuff, and heavens, those are stats too. Let’s be fair to each other, as befits the kind of classy blog our host likes to run.
Here is a list of 100% of the (seven) players who have more hits and more walks and more stolen bases than Omar Vizquel:
1. Ty Cobb
2. Barry Bonds
3. Rickey Henderson
4. Tris Speaker
5. Eddie Collins
6. Paul Molitor
7. Craig Biggio
Bill James has put out win-loss shares for several players in various articles. One of these (Bloggin’ from 4/20/09) compares Campaneris and Aparicio and mentions Vizquel and Ozzie Smith in the discussion. By his numbers, Smith is far ahead of these three in total win-loss shares.
In total win-loss shares, in terms of winning percentage, there is a small gap between Larkin-Jeter-Yount (in the .650 to .622 range), and Ripken-Trammell-Smith (.575 to .600 range).
Then there is a large gap after them to the Aparicio-Campaneris-Vizquel-Concepcion-Wills-Russell range (.480-.505). James has Vizquel as a .704 defensive player, and through 2009 I have him at 184-255 offensively (.419). His total win-loss pct. would be in the area of .480. I think he’s a lot closer to Concepcion and Aparicio than he is to Ozzie Smith. The “if Aparicio, then Vizquel” argument could be made, but then it would have to include Campaneris and Concepcion.
For other player comparisons on the James site, check out:
monday morning blog (6/15/09): minoso vs dawson.
monday morning blog (6/8/09): sutter vs lee smith
monday morning blog part 1 (5/25/09): parker vs evans.
monday morning blog (5/4/09): pinson vs cepeda.
Had no idea Jacob Ruppert was not in the Hall of Fame. Unbelievable. And just watch, Steinbrenner will probably make it.
@38: the problem with that is that many, many players — including Belle — had much more dominant 5-7 year stretches than Rice (and were almost certainly more “feared” than he was too, for whatever that’s worth). There’s just no category of HOFers you can create in which Jim Ed belongs, unless it’s “People who are in the Hall of Fame thanks solely to an impassioned and completely misguided hype machine,” in which case you could throw Rice and Rizutto in, probably among a few others.
@#31:
Reasonable people can disagree about how best to view ballplayers, and I appreciate your reading Joe’s work despite frequently disagreeing with him. Still, can we please disabuse ourselves of the notion that “stat types” base everything on spreadsheets and do not watch baseball games or understand how the game works? This is simply not true. Sabermetrics have been around for awhile by now, and have permeated the game enough that you’d think we could dispense with the “stat geek” stereotypes. There is no reason why you cannot evaluate statistics AND watch baseball games. The writer of this blog seems to do it just fine.
I’m not saying you have to agree with Bill James or other SABR-types, just base your disagreement on something other than the silly “all they do is look at excel spreadsheets” trope.
Somewhat related (and not really directed at said commenter): I’ve long had a pet theory – and this is purely my own personal opinion – as to why ballplayers are often so terrible at analyzing the game they play. I think being an elite athlete and a good analyst (of anything) require two very different kinds of intelligence. That’s not to say that ballplayers are stupid – to get to a high level, you’ve got have a pretty good baseball IQ. But I do think there is something about what I’ll call the “athletic mind” that just doesn’t lend itself very well to analysis. Athletes live in the moment. Analysts generally do not.
One is not better than the other, and some people can be both. A good front office will consider both perspectives, as well. But I do think there is something about the way athletes think that makes the generally not very good at analysis.
The biggest problem with this comparison game is that it exposes the fact that there is no standard – that the “standard” has vacillated widely throughout the years.
So what does the HoF mean, in the end? And really, why do we still care?
It is obvious that the HoF is a tourist attraction in a nice town in the middle of Nowhere, NY. It’s fun to visit. But as far as being an official arbiter of anything, it’s been losing ground for years. As baseball fans, we don’t NEED this quaint building with its (admittedly nice) displays of memorability, to tell us about baseball history and who did or did not play it at an exceptional level.
I have a really hard time believing that the election or non-election of any given player is going to have the kind of impact on their legacy that it did even 30 years ago.
So in the end, it’s an honor for the players themselves to care about. Kind of like the sportswriter award Joe wrote about the other day.
Hayden @59, that’s one of the silliest nonsense lists that has ever been created. Even Jayson Stark would be ashamed of that one.
Vizquel really has no business in the conversation. Being basically an average player for a long time doesn’t get you there.
http://www.thedailysomething.com/is-omar-vizquel-a-hall-of-famer.html
@56
Make of this what you will and I am not saying this is in anyway scientific but a google.com search of each of these players and “feared” results in the following:
Dick Allen: 270,000 hits
Eddie Mathews: 66,900 hits
Jim Rice: 554,00o hits
George Brett: 257,000 hits
Dave Parker: 620,000 hits
Jack Clark: 270,000 hits
Again, that certainly isn’t scientific proof of anything, but maybe it does hint at what I suggested. That a large black man standing at the plate waving his bat menacingly (another one of those loaded words that I think we should be a little careful of using) is a little more feared than a similar white player.
funny thing is Rice was not well-liked by the media (or anybody else as far as I can tell). So it was odd that there was all this momentum behind his candidacy.
Something about Rice stirs people up and they have trouble being fair about him. I was surprised he got in, but not at all surprised he got serious consideration. Early in his career, when folks were forming their impression of him, he was hell on wheels.
Well nobody answered me re Parker and Oliver -but I think I know why. I re-examined for myself and neither should be in Hall O’ Fame. Maybe Parker if Dawson -but not close enough. – And probably not Dawson either. Rice yes.
Mikey (45):
“…relievers don’t really belong in the HOF at all.
If you look at a ranking of career WAR the highest-ranked pure closer is Mariano Rivera. He’s ranked 226 and is tied with Ron Cey. ”
This is where statistics turn some people into fools. Mariano Rivera is arguably the most valuable Yankee since Mickey Mantle. His performance during the regular season is among the greatest of all time, and his performance during the post-season is off the charts. The Yanks have won 5 World Series with him in relief, despite the fact that there are many more post-season series in which a team can falter, particularly in the bullpen. He will probably own the all-time saves record when he retires. He is a Hall of Famer the way Walter Johnson is a Hall of Famer.
And WAR? That’s just something somebody made up. It isn’t real. It measures numbers some people deem important against the numbers of a phantom player who doesn’t even exist.
The World Series rings that Mariano Rivera owns, now those a real.
@66, I was pretty sure that Harmon (“Killer”) Killebrew would turn out to have been feared, but by gosh it looks like you’re onto something:
Harmon Killebrew: 6,000
Carl Yastrzemski: 13,000
Frank Robinson: 280,000
Brent – there’s something important skewing your numbers: namely, that Jim Rice, Dave Parker, and Dick Allen are controversial figures. They have borderline Hall of Fame cases and as a result attract a lot of media attention. Writers just reach for the “feared” adjective because of critical mass, the same way that you could Google “Eckstein scrappy” and get a ton of hits. (67,500, to be exact.)
On the other hand, George Brett is in, Eddie Mathews is in (and is an old-time player), and finally, Jack Clark is not and will never be. There’s no controversy about them. There’s no need to write anything about them, good or ill, “feared” or “pleasant.” Take another controversial player with borderline HoF cred – at more or less random – Will “the Thrill” Clark. “Will Clark feared” returns 1.52 million results. To winnow out author William Clark and his book “Speak Without Fear” I include the term baseball, and get 191,000 hits, still a substantial number (and Clark’s case never took on the critical mass Rice’s did). Jack Morris, FWIW, is at 167,000.
Further, I consider that Dick Allen is right there with George Brett and Jack Clark – a fact you obscured by sticking him with the lowest total, Eddie Mathews – and conclude that any incipient, unexamined societal racism is, in this case, a mirage.
The perception says one thing, the stats suggest something else.
Hm, Adam cross-posted with me. Robinson certainly is not controversial in the hall of fame. Then again, he was never the personable fellow that Killebrew or Yazstremski put forward publicly.
if Maz is in then FRANK WHITE should be!!
Finally a little love, albeit a very little bit, for the brilliance of Dave Steib. Here was a guy who but for some bad Cleveland bounces with 2 outs in the ninth would have pitched multiple no-hitters. As was previously mentioned started 2 All-star games and had one of the fiercest sliders in the game. Unfortunately for Stieb he pitched in Canada, Gasp!, and received little fanfare. He also pitched on a team in the mid 80′s which had an historically bad bullpen which cost him those voter pleasing wins we all like to talk about. During his 10 year prime no discussion abou the top 3 to 5 AL starters was complete without his name being discussed. I don’t want to go all homer and insist he’s a HOF’er because I’m a small Hall guy but with all the angst surrounding Morris, Blyleven, Schilling and the rest it’s nice to see a guy who was every bit as dominant as any of those guys ever were get some recognition.
PS: Don’t get me started on the jackasses who thought Robbie Alomar isn’t a Hall of Fame player. If he doesn’t get 90%+ of the votes next year they should just call the whole thing off.
A quick point on the discovery of the knuckleball… I agree that in the abstract, the knuckleball would have been more difficult to conceive than the curveball, but you may be forgetting one thing from your little league days: when a hitter really hits a ball “on the screws”, it knuckles. We see it occasionally in MLB games as we see a fielder’s knees buckle as he attempts to follow the path of the line drive that is screaming at his head. I play softball, and see this all the time as well. So isn’t it conceivable that a ballplayer from the early part of the 20th century would see the flight of a batted ball with no spin and then think “I wonder if I can reproduce that on the pitcher’s mound”?
@66 again, the possible racial aspect of “fearsomeness” doesn’t hold up if you put the players’ names in quotes when searching. It appears that having a very common last name really increases the number of google hits that associate your name with the words “fear” or “fearsome.”
Eddie (+Ed) Mathews 2,500
Dick (+Richie) Allen 6,300
Dave Parker 10,000
Jack Clark 8,700
George Brett 17,000
Jim Rice 16,600
Harmon Killebrew 5,700
Frank Robinson 15,000
Carl Yastrzemski 13,000
The one clear pattern that emerges is that fat guys aren’t considered fearsome. Well, except for Babe (220,000 hits) Ruth, of course.
Just a few more and I was actually a little shocked by these numbers (and I question my research methods even more now):
Jeff Bagwell and feared: 11,600 hits
Mark McGwire and feared: 49,000+ hits
Frank Thomas and feared: 10 million hits
Brent, the Frank Thomas/Mark McGwire comparison really shows the effect of common vs. less common names:
“Mark McGwire” and feared: 47,700 hits
“Frank Thomas” and feared: 56,000 hits
Different, but not hugely different.
@Brent & @Adam
I love this game, it could become some kind of index.
Killebrew is not “feared,” but do a search on “heart” and he comes up big. You know who was a “warrior?” Frank Robinson. Andre Dawson is a “gamer” and–this bodes well for his Hall candidacy–Tim Raines has “guts.”
Doing a google search on the player’s name in quotes and “guts”, “heart”, “feared”, “gamer”, and “warrior”.
Guts:
Tim Raines 109000
Andre Dawson 79000
Jim Rice 33600
Frank Robinson 32300
George Brett 30400
Harmon Killebrew 16400
Dave Parker 15800
Carl Yastrzemski 15400
Jack Clark 13700
Dick Allen 9580
Heart:
Harmon Killebrew 129000
Andre Dawson 78200
Carl Yastrzemski 35700
George Brett 35000
Jim Rice 30600
Frank Robinson 30400
Jack Clark 15300
Dave Parker 14000
Tim Raines 10600
Dick Allen 10100
Feared:
Andre Dawson 29300
George Brett 15700
Jim Rice 15600
Frank Robinson 14300
Carl Yastrzemski 11400
Dave Parker 8620
Jack Clark 7860
Tim Raines 5630
Harmon Killebrew 5070
Dick Allen 3980
Gamer:
Andre Dawson 333000
Frank Robinson 161000
George Brett 123000
Jim Rice 116000
Carl Yastrzemski 110000
Harmon Killebrew 76600
Jack Clark 56200
Dave Parker 56100
Tim Raines 50300
Dick Allen 34200
Warrior:
Frank Robinson 166000
Andre Dawson 45800
Jim Rice 21500
Jack Clark 12900
George Brett 11500
Carl Yastrzemski 7090
Dave Parker 5320
Harmon Killebrew 4580
Tim Raines 3700
Dick Allen 2960
@Adrian, nice variant. It led me to find this:
“Ernie Banks” + feared: 23,300
“Ernie Banks” + (be)loved: 125,000
“Hank Aaron” + feared: 55,300
“Hank Aaron” +(be)loved: 300,000
“Babe Ruth” + feared: 220,000
“Babe Ruth” + (be)loved: 1,200,000
“Barry Bonds” + feared: 126,000
“Barry Bonds” + (be)loved: 640,000
There seems to be a surprising similarity in the ratio of the two numbers for each player.
As much as it pains me to say it, Kevin Brown probably should have won the 1996 Cy Young instead of John Smoltz. Smoltz had a slight edge in innings pitched and a big edge in strikeouts, but Brown’s ERA was over a full run better and won the WAR 7.5 to 6.1. I’m not sure if having won a Cy Young would make all that much difference for Brown’s HOF case though. I do think it’s arguable that he was the best pitcher alive for the brief period between Maddux’s peak and Pedro’s peak, though I suppose that depends in part on whether you believe that Clemens’ numbers in Toronto were achieved fully on the up-and-up or not.
Joe – which way are you leaning on Brown?
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Hall of Fame Comps [...]
Two totally unrelated things:
1) How does Pettitte’s stellar playoff record affect his HOF candidacy? He’s pitched over a season’s worth of playoff innings (almost twice as many as Schilling). How do you measure WAR for playoffs? Bernie Williams with his .850 playoff OPS in a season’s worth of PA’s might also merit some different consideration.
2) I have made an argument that Rickey Henderson is the greatest offensive player of all time. I said this mostly because of his walks*– these are different than Bonds or Ruth or Williams walks because NO ONE WANTED TO WALK RICKEY. The others, well, it was OK to walk them; better than them hitting the ball out. But Rickey might end up on second or third after a walk. Plus, hitters behind Rickey would have to see more fastballs with him on first, which makes hitting just a little easier (and pitchouts would too, for that matter). This led me to think about WAR’s WAR. How much does Carney Lansford’s WAR change if Rickey is a replacement player? I don’t know if I’m explaining this correctly, but this might be a way to further evaluate a player’s overall value to his team.
Love your stuff.
*The secondary reason I love to make this argument is I live in Massachusetts and it really riles up Teddy Ballgame fans.
Joe,
Thanks for the continued recognization of Dave Stieb on behalf of Blue Jay fans. While he isn’t a Hall of Famer, he is the best player the Jays ever had (including Roy Halladay). Of my entire childhood card collection, Stieb’s rookie card is one of two cards not buried in my parents basement somewhere.
Two fun Dave Stieb facts:
1. In 1982, he went 17-14 with 19 complete games and 288 innings pitched for a team that went 78-84. On a better team, he finishes higher than 4th in the Cy Young vote by winning more than 20 games.
2. He returned to the big leagues in 1998 at 40 years of age, after a 5 year retirement. Sadly, the Blue Jays largely left him buried in the bullpen pitching middle relief.
If memory serves me, his minor league contract forced the Jays to release him if another team wanted to pick him up as a starter. The Rangers wanted him, but the Jays called him up instead. Too bad it ended that way.
Chris Fiorentino=idiot
Sometimes I think the BBWAA selects controversial candidates simply to give their writers more to write about.
1) That starting pitcher drought…Tom Seaver made his debut in 1967. In 1984, Clemens and Saberhagen made theirs. But in between, there was no-one who won two Cy Young awards.
2) Kevin Brown…definitely under-rated. No Cy Young awards. Sure, he led the league in ERA twice, but they gave the award to someone with more wins. And he led the league in wins once, but he finished sixth in the voting, behind four guys with a better ERA. And Jack Morris.
@79 & 80:
The reason “heart” shows up so often with Killebrew is because his young granddaughter has a terrible heart condition. He’s been trying to raise money for her.
More info:
http://harmonkillebrewfoundation.org/caringforcaity.cfm
http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/97236209.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUo8cyai_47cQiU47cQUzyaP37D_MDua_eyD5PcOiU
I hereby forswear all further use of google hits as a measure of how a player was perceived, on the basis of this result:
Jim Rice + surly = 4,000 hits
Ernie Banks + surly = 5,000 hits
“I never lived a day in t he 80?s, but what was Morris’ image back then? At the time was he seen as a stud pitcher, or is it just recently he’s gotten love from the media and former players?”
As I recall, he was recognized as one of the better pitchers at the time, though I don’t think that he was considered a future Hall of Famer.
Pete Ridges @86: 1) That starting pitcher drought…Tom Seaver made his debut in 1967. In 1984, Clemens and Saberhagen made theirs. But in between, there was no-one who won two Cy Young awards.
Steve Carlton called. He’d like to show you his Cy Young trophies from ’72, ’77, ’80, and ’82.
I don’t know how you’d quantify “fear,” even if it WERE a valid baseball stat.
But for what it’s worth, I was a Yankee fanatic during Jim Rice’s career, and he frequently wasn’t the hitter I feared most in the Red Sox lineup, let alone the player I feared most in the American League. Truth to tell, Fred Lynn usually worried me more than Rice did.
And George Brett scared me more than either of them.
Joe P, All you needed to do in your SS paragraph was this.
WAR Career:
Trammell 66.9 : 102nd
Smith 64.6 : 117th
Vizquel 43.4 : 349th
and for kicks
Whitaker 69.7 : 83rd
http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/WAR_career.shtml
@89 & 90
It’s not scientific, but it is a start. “Heart” is certainly a suspect search term, in the way that “‘Ron Santo’ and Legs” is suspect.
However, I still think there’s validity in trying to determine, objectively, how someone was PERCEIVED. Perhaps facebook holds the key.
I used to think that the Jim Rice “fear” meme was a form of NY media bias. Rice really wore out the Yankees in his career, particularly at the Stadium.
Rice career — .298/.352/.502
vs. Yankees — .330/.387/.582
on road overall — .277/.330/.459
at NYY — .336/.386/.661
It was my belief that, much like New York players did better in HoF voting because of the large contingent of the BBWAA who were based in New York, Rice was doing better b/c of his work against the Yankees, and the fact that he was so often referred to as “feared” rather than just “good/great” was because these reporters were looking at him from the Yankees’ perspective.
Now, I think it’s been largely disproven that Yankees have been getting a boost in HoF voting, so take it for what it’s worth.
Pete Ridges @86 (again): Upon re-reading your post, I think I get what you’re saying now. You’re saying (I think) that no player who debuted between those years won multiple Cy Young awards. If so, my apologies for misunderstanding, and for being a bit snarky about it.
2000 hits is the missing part of the equation here. There aren’t many HoFers, who are not catchers or light hitting infielders who have less than 2000 hits. For sluggers, there are precious few. It looks like Hank Greenberg had less than 2000 hits, but he was awesome and he lost 3+ seasons to WWII. Ralph Kiner also had fewer than 2000 hits, but he also won 7 consecutive HR titles.
Thus, there are any number of players out there who have higher OPS+ than guys like Rice or Dawson, but they don’t have the apparently required number of hits.
The interesting thing regarding Rice’s contemporaries is that there are 4 players who played between 1970 and 1993, that I could find, and who had an OPS+ approx the same as Rice’s or better, and had 2000 or more hits. They are Dwight Evans (127 OPS+ and 2446 hits), Keith Hernandez (128 and 2182), Ken Singleton (132 and 2029), and Reggie Smith (137 and 2020).
Keith Hernandez has 11 gold gloves an MVP. Dwight Evans has 8 gold gloves and a couple of silver slugger awards. Singleton and Smith don’t have those type of resume boosters, but they do have higher OPS+ numbers and both made multiple all-teams.
What Rice has over all of these players, I think, is the fact that he led the league in HRs 3 times, RBIs twice, SLG twice, and so on. That’s a type of dominance that HoF voters seem to like. I think those somewhat meaningless attributes gave Rice the edge over these other players of his era.
Utek @ 69 –
Believe me, I’m a Mariano Rivera fan. I go to a fair number of NYY games and it’s still always a thrill for me to see Mo pitch in person.
But I do think that the value of closers is vastly exaggerated. If you don’t like WAR, look at Win Shares. Rivera is not close to being the most valuable Yankee since Mantle. A guy who pitches 75 innings a season simply can’t be as valuable as an everyday player or starting pitcher.
I think the following Google results are worth noting:
“Kurt Bevacqua” + moist: 216 results
“Cookie Rojas” + moist: 278 results
“Kurt Bevacqua” + handsome: 1,140 results
“Cookie Rojas” + handsome: 674 results
I’m reasonably certain this means that baseball fans found Kurt Bevacqua twice as good looking but only about 75% as moist as Cookie Rojas.
@94
…and Jack Morris, at 39.3 w.a.r. (430th). He’s right between Gossage and Tom Candiotti.
If Morris gets voted in, Trammell and Whitaker should carry him to the podium to drive the point home.
+1 on bring back the full RSS feed
Just be aware that all the oldest halls of this nature (and many new ones) are private for-profit enterprises. They were built as tourist traps, which is why they are often in strange places like Cooperstown, NY and not NY, NY. Canton, OH, Springfield, MA, Eveleth, MN, and so on.
Being a business, they would rather offer something for everyone than a few things for a few people. The easiest way to please people (i.e., customers) now is to admit players that people know now.
The fine line they walk is one of credibility…but even if they were to lose that, it’s not like there’s another HoF to take its place. We would just care a lot less about it.
I realize that most selections are up to the BBWAA, but as Joe pointed out, they also have special committees (and veterans committees) making these decisions, NOT on behalf of history or baseball, but on behalf of the the private enterprise known as the HoF. I am more prepared to accept what the BBWAA gives us than what any of those other selection groups do, and am happy that they have to vote publicly (unlike the NBA).
I think it would great if the HoF consisted only of the greatest players at their position in their era, but the only way I can make that happen is to open my own HoF. I feel pretty lucky that my favorite sport has a HoF that is as historical and exclusive as it is, even though it is owned and managed for profit. It could be SO much worse.
I just Googled “People who comment on sports blogs who are clueless.”
190,000
I’m just saying ….
If you’re interested in a statistical comparison of Ozzie, Omar, and other great shortstops, try this link:
http://www.thebaseballgauge.com/history.php?tab=3a
I’ve chosen to use Win Shares. Omar ranks 26th, with 16 HofF shortstops above him and 4 below. This may not be your perfect placement (or mine), but I find it reasonable.
Reasonble, in part, because I find Ozzie’s 325 career win shares a good presumption line. Larkin’s 344 confirms his case. Trammell’s 313 attests his place on the borderline (I could live with above or below). Another season and a third, Jeter will be 2nd in career win shares earned while playing shortstop.
Sorry, Rice is my personal windmill….
@31 “I read an article where they asked pitchers in the late 70?s/early 80?s who was the one guy they feared the most when he stepped to the plate. Overwhelmingly, they said “Jim Rice”. To me, if a guy absolutely dominates his league, to the point where pitchers feared him for a period of 10 years, then you can forget about geek stats like WAR, OPS+, etc and put him in the Hall of Fame.”
Simple question: what if they feared him because, at the time, the AL had no fearsome hitters? What if the reasons they feared him were illusions?
The cake is a lie….
Jim Rice is absolutely not a Hall of Famer. If we’re going to play the comparison game, how could someone like, say, Lance Berkman be denied entry in the future with career numbers that’ll make Rice’s look like dung. He was a far better all-around offensive player than Rice, but I’ve never thought of Berkman in a manner that suggests he’d be enshrined some day. He’s had some really, really good years. And anyone who uses “fear” as an argument for Hall consideration is a loon. Same goes for all those jackrabbits who hype up Dawson because he had messed up knees. WTF cares.
Bah, who cares anyways, I guess. It’s a just a stupid for-profit organization.
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“To see Omar occasionally was to see him as spectacular (did you see that play?), but to see him everyday was to see his defensive short-comings – his range was not spectacled by any means. He was a very smart player who seized every tactical advantage he saw. Unfortunately diving into first was one advantage he saw 30 times a year or so.”
I agree with all of that, except the last sentence. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think you’re mixing in your memory of Robbie Alomar, who did dive into first base pretty often.
I’m a huge Cleveland Indians fan and have been since the early ’70s and I just don’t see Omar Vizquel as a HoFer. He was a fine player, sure. He was a very good defender, but a bit overrated and definitely not in the same class as Ozzie Smith. He was an adequate hitter, but that’s about it. He hit well enough that he didn’t hurt you. He stole a lot of bases in his career, but he was actually a pretty poor baserunner. I don’t think I’ve seen a player make more bad outs on the bases. (I’m not saying they aren’t out there. I’m just talking about players I’ve actually watched and I watch the Indians, so…)
He’s been a good player, but I find the idea that he’s a HoFer baffling.
Why is the RSS feed for your blog—home of curiously long posts—now truncated? Please tell me this is just an experiment.
One argument that could be made for Omar is this: he’s comparable in one way to Eddie Murray, Eddie Collins, Brooks Robinson, Ty Cobb, Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, and I-Rod.
That is, he’s played the most games at his position. (I’m not saying this is justification enough. I’m just sayin’ it’s a starting point for argument.)
All those who are #2 in games played are in, too, except Graig Nettles. Omar’s longevity makes his case similar to Nettles’s. Or Jake Beckley’s.
Remember Jake? For 88 years, from 1905 to 1993, he had played more games at first base than anyone. In 1971, 53 years after he died, he was inducted at Cooperstown. I will say without fear of contradiction that if Omar continues to hold the record for games played at shortstop — currently 106 more than Luis Aparicio — for 86 more years or for 53 years after his death, whichever comes first, that Omar will then be voted into the Hall of Fame.
Some more news and notes from Google:
“Buddy Biancalana” + feared: 4,040 (only current member of the name/feared 40/40 club)
For the guy looking for a racial angle:
“Bud Black” + feared: 7,470
“Frank White” + feared: 22,100
For fans of David Letterman:
“Larry Bud Melman” + feared: 1,160
Which further proves my point: Germans love David Hasselhoff.
I think the column and comments are overanalyzing the “logic” behind Rice and Dawson in the Hall. The simple fact is, at the time they played, 99% of baseball fans defined hitting ability as HR, RBI, and BA numbers with no park or position adjustment whatsoever. If you hit 30, 100, .300 you were a world-class hitter. A little more of one stat made up for a little less of another.
Even today, if you spend most of your baseball time in knowledgeable stat fan circles, it can be easy to forget how very many fans still only pay attention to unadjusted HR, RBI, BA. The other day the Chicago paper did a piece on Hall chances for current Chicago players, and listed only their raw career HR, RBI, BA numbers.
So to answer the question about what standard Rice or Dawson sets, it’s simple: the big HR, RBI, BA numbers guys will continue to get in.
If Tony Perez is in the Hall of Fame then … almost everyone should be in. Those damn RBIs.
The BBWAA , this year , elected Bill Madden into the writers wing of the HOF.
That was the last straw. First, I dont stand on ceremony , second its all hoopla , politics , and BS.
There isnt a baseball writer alive who can make me snore on command like Madden.
OK — I understand he’s been at it for 30-some odd years. But I’ve been breathing for 38 years and no one is putting me in the oxygen Hall of Fame.
And for all those who bashed Lupica on a recent thread. He deserved it. Because his tribute to his colleague Madden was about as boring as it was hollow.
I wanted to do my best Denzel –in Training Day –impersonation and tell Mike — thats amazing !! that you could cover sports with a guy for thirty years at the same paper and the best story you could come up with for your readers is about a drive into Chicago.
Want to know what a nice guy Madden is?? He had a book about Steinbrenner , waited until the old mans health was fading, fading, fading — quick!! drop the book — then died. He is on the NYT bestseller list.
What a bleep. Now, a HOF bleep. Go figure.
Well, not really, as I’m pretty sure Paul Konerko aint getting in despite his “big” numbers in the crude stats.
It’s about perception, and flowery attributes given to these guys. I mean, jesus christ, Jack Morris was as average as average gets for a very long time – but he played one fantastic World Series game and he’s suddenly a shoo-in to the old timers. No way. And I’m a Tigs fan.
Thanks to Marco-#5 for making a point that doesn’t get made enough.
It’s worth repeating:
Marco: “One problem with WAR is that it incorporates defensive value. People like to throw around WAR like a trump card that settles the issue when the fact is that we just don’t have defensive value nailed down all that well.
Don’t get me wrong – I want WAR to work. It’s elegant in its simplicity, but when you talk about confidence, well, I’m confident in wOBA, but UZR & friends have a way to go.”
I just googled sportswriters and clueless and got 110,000 results. Didn’t see Joe’s name there though
I lived through the whole decade of the 1980s. To answer the person who asked about Jack Morris, he was a good pitcher, durable, workmanlike and always willing to take the ball. For most of his career, the Tigers were a good team, so he piled up victories. He won more games in the decade of the 1980s (162) than any other pitcher.
After he left the Tigers, as I’m sure you know, he threw a 10-inning shutout in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series to win the Twins their second title.
He hung on at the end of his career, pitching poorly, and added several points to his final career ERA, which wound up at 3.90, higher than any Hall of Fame pitcher. If he had retired after the ’91 season, with 216 wins and a 3.71 ERA, I think he’d be in now.
But to be honest, he was just a good pitcher. I saw Jack Morris pitch tons of times, and I never saw a Hall of Famer, not even in that Game 7. If the Braves don’t make a baserunning error, he loses that game. The real Hall of Fame caliber pitchers of the 1980s just didn’t have long enough careers.
As for Kevin Brown, he’s kind of the anti-Morris. If Morris ever gets in, it’s going to be for the memory of that Game 7. My strongest memory of Kevin Brown is his abysmal effort in the Yankees’ 2004 ALCS choke. I suspect I’m not the only one, and that it will keep him from serious HOF consideration.
AsGaylord Perry is in-an admitted cheater-then no committee of sportwriters having so admitted such a man can now complain that McGwire, Clemens, Bonds and Alex Rodriguez should never be admitted. Otherwise they should explain when and how they drew a line about one kind of cheating is acceptable while another kind is not.
In fact it would be a fun exercise to see what writers with a vote did so for Perry and now beat their keyboards with venom over those guys and Pete Rose.
Curse whomever started cutting blog posts on RSS feeds. What’s the point of a RSS reader if you can’t read the bloody post?
My office computers have all blogs blocked, but I can get my RSS feed through google. I’ve spent many a lunch with you, Joe. But no more…
Joe – don’t you think HGH will play a big part in Kevin Brown’s votes?
@49 and your followup tripe,
Why was Babe Ruth described as a feared hitter? Cause he whaled the snot out of the ball.
Why was Henry Aaron described as a feared hitter? Cause he whaled the snot out of the ball.
Why was Ted Williams (he of Hispanic origin) described as a feared hitter? Cause he whaled the snot out of the ball.
Why was Hank Greenberg described as a feared hitter? Cause he whaled the snot out of the ball.
Why is Albert Pujols described as a feared hitter? Cause he whales the snot out of the ball.
Does (NOT did) racism exist in baseball and in the press box? Sure. It stinks, but short of my favored manner (tossing someone out of the venue face first and onto the field during a game), there will always be bigots in the press box.
Sadly this crap still happens – Jackie Robinson or no Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente or no Roberto Clemente. There will always be small-minded, petty jerks writing and broadcasting in the name of racial garbage.
But @49 comes straight out of the Pat Buchanan-Jesse Jackson Nexis of B.S. Normally I’d ignore it, but Andrew Breitbart, Megyn Kelly (knew her at Albany Law and she was a snobbish jerk then), Erick Erickson, and those idiots at MSNBC and Faux have, well, kind of pissed me off of late.
So my apologies to Joe and everyone on this site, but, with all due respect, @49, take your crap to Breitbart’s BigBaseball site. If there isn’t one, build it and maybe he will come.
P.S. Especially my condolences to @31 and @35. You have both been arbiters of benevolent discourse. I should follow your lead with @49. I should be more forgiving of that garbage, but I’m not. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have my benevolence back.
Maybe the players Vizquel is to be compared to are Appling, Aparicio and Mazerosky, rather than Smith.
By the way, saying that Bowa is comparable to Vizquel defensively feels preposterous.
By the way, yes, Vizquel was an average hitter at best. However, having followed him since his beginnings in Venezuela’s winter baseball I can tell you something: he couldn’t hit even if he used a door.
He worked like hell to improve and hit +2700 hits.
He may, or may not, be a HoFer, but he sure was an extraordinary, hardworking, intelligent baseball player.
Really wish you would go back to the full RSS feed.
Nice article.
To those that fail to understand Bill James contribution, he did not and was not a stat nerd that replaced watching games with spread sheets. What he did was ask himself if there were better ways to understand baseball and which skills/occurrences contributed most to winning. James was the driving force behind a movement that has led to much greater understanding of which aspects of play on a field improve a team’s chances of winning.
Now, if you aren’t interested in greater understanding, that is fine. But then, you won’t be able to have a particularly informed opinion in many discussions. Every baseball fan uses statistics to back up their arguments, some just use better metrics of performance than others.
I agree that the case for Jack Morris’ HOF candidacy is borderline, but people only seem to bring up Game 7 of the ’91 Series and then say, “Well, if you vote him in for that, then you’ll have to do the same with Don Larsen.” In Morris’ defense, he also was great in the ’84 post-season (2-0 in the World Series).
Most Tigers fans who grew up watching Jack Morris never thought of him as a Hall of Fame pitcher. Too streaky, too volatile. “Winningest Pitcher of the 1980s” was good enough. But none of us were surprised by his World Series heroics for Minnesota, because that cantankerous S.O.B. truly hated to lose.
By the way, Joe, how’d you like Gary Smith’s new Hall of Fame article on Floyd Little? Awesome, says me.
Just a quibble about Joe’s comment that Rice benefited from “the fast-track that was Fenway Park in the 1970s and 80s”.
Fenway was actually a worse hitter’s park in the 70s and 80s than it is now. Here are average team runs scored per game at Fenway by decade:
30s: 5.13
40s: 4.87
50s: 5.16
60s: 4.68
70s: 4.82
80s: 4.93
90s: 4.96
00s: 5.11
You can see that run scoring at Fenway in the 70s and 80s was 4.82 and 4.93 r/g, respectively, while in the 90s and 00s it was 4.96 and 5.11 r/g.
During the same decades, AL teams overall averaged r/g values of:
30s: 5.15
40s: 4.51
50s: 4.44
60s: 4.06
70s: 4.16
80s: 4.47
90s: 4.87
00s: 4.91
If you compare runs/g numbers at Fenway in the 70s and 80s (when it was apparently a supreme hitter’s park) to the average runs/g numbers of every team in the AL in the 90s and 00s, you get:
Fenway 70s/80s: 4.82/4.93
AL 90s/00s: 4.87/4.91
They are pretty much the same. In essence, the entire AL during the last two decades was playing in a “fast track” of a hitter’s park, akin to Fenway in the 70s and 80s.
I understand the point of Joe’s comment was that in the 70s and 80s Fenway was a much better hitter’s park than other parks of that era. Thus, when Rice is compared to his contemporaries, this should be taken into consideration.
However, saying Fenway was a great hitter’s park in the 70s and 80s glosses over the fact that the entire AL was playing in a hitter’s park over the last two decades. Thus, any comparison between Rice (or anyone who played primarily in the 70s and 80s) and players from the steroid era must be considered with those numbers in mind.
These are more of the traditional measures:
Rabbit Maranville: range factor/game of 5.8 compared to 5.6 for the league (less K’s in those days) .952 fielding %, league was .940. He was clearly better than his contemporaries.
Martin Marion: range factor/game of 5.05 to the leagues 5.2, field % o .969 to .955 for the league. Slightly below range but a much better fielder than his contemporaries.
Aparicio: he was worth 8 runs/year, which compares to about Vizquel. Showed better range than the league, 5.05 range factor/9 innings to leagues 4.89. .972 fielding % to league’s .962.
Dave Concepcion: Red’s fans won’t want to here this, he was worth about 3 runs per season. His range was just above league average, but his fielding % was .971 to .964 for the league.
Alan Trammell: was worth 5 runs/season. Range was just below league average while his FP was .977 to .967 for the league.
Ripken: worth 10 runs/season at SS. Slightly above league average on range, but better FP: .979 to .968
Larkin: worth 2 runs/season. Range was just over league average, but better FP, .975 to .967.
Rey Ordonez: worth 8 runs/season. Range was a bit above league at 4.6 to 4.51, FP was better: .976 to .969.
I know these aren’t the preferred stats for defense, but one thing I can take out of this:
Ozzie Smith’s range compared to the league was insane. All the others I mentioned had good range compared to the league, but the differences were much smaller compared to Ozzie Vs the league. As for fielding %, Ozzie was at .978 for his career, which puts him pretty much into the same range as those mentioned, but slightly higher.
In short, Ozzie’s range, to me, is where he stood out. He could get to balls that no normal SS would even dream of. Also, he played the last 10 or so years of his career with a torn rotator cuff. He had no arm.
Kevin Brown has a higher WAR than Smoltz?? Wow.
@ Mark Daniel…I think you’re drawing a slightly wrong conclusion from those numbers. Pure runs per game is not the issue. We all know scoring is up across the board from the 70s and 80s. The issue is Fenway compared to the AL average.
So in the 70s, teams averaged .66 more runs per game at Fenway than across the league (and actually that understates the difference between Fenway and the other parks because the league average INCLUDES Fenway).
In the 80s, teams average .48 more runs per game at Fenway (again with the understated difference).
In the 90s, teams averaged .09 more runs per game at Fenway (still with the understated difference)
And in the 00s teams average .2 more runs per game.
Fenway was clearly more of a hitters park in the 70s and 80s compared to the rest of the AL parks, than was in the 90s and 00s. So Fenway was more of a boost to Rice, in terms of comparing him to his contemporaries than it was to Manny Ramirez in comparing Manny to his contemporaries.
A sports blog posting on the HOF is like a mens mag posting a Hottest Chicks Evuh poll. The problems are the same: lack of foundation, faminess and hottitudinality being such notoriously self-defining qualities. That Dawson and Rice are in and Tim Raines is out says nothing bad about Raines, but an awful lot bad about the HOF.
Its not that we need a new standard; we need A standard.
Joe could start, here and now: just define the terms of qualification. That would be a fascinating process, and worthy: the book Bill James wrote on the HOF showed us all what it is; Joe should inaugurate a what-it-ought-to-be.
Fill the niche, Joe: start building the Posnanski HOF — with a proper foundation.
@Bill C. I agree with you. You have to adjust Rice’s stats using park factor to compare him to his contemporaries. That’s why Rice’s career OPS+ of 128 (based on a raw OPS of .854) is lower than Ken Singleton’s OPS+ of 132 even though his OPS was only .824,
The problem lies with comparing Rice to guys from the steroid era. The adjusted stats don’t translate well. For example, the highest OPS+ of all players whose career fell between 1967 and 1994 is 147, and that’s Mike Schmidt.
If you look at the steroid era, Bonds (181), Pujols (171), McGwire (162), Frank Thomas (156), Manny (155), and Jeff Bagwell (149) have higher OPS+ than Schmidt, Edgar Martinez and Jim Thome have the same OPS+, and Lance Berkman, Miguel Cabrera, Vlad Guerrero, Albert Belle, Jason Giambi, Ryan Howard, Chipper Jones, Mike Piazza, Prince Fielder, Gary Sheffield, Larry Walker, and Travis Hafner have OPS+ numbers at or above the next player on the 1967-1995 list (Reggie Jackson, 139).
If you expand the list to 1960, you can throw in Dick Allen (highest at 156), Willie Stargell (147), Willie McCovey (147).
So 35 years of baseball history (1960-1994) gave us 5 players with an OPS+ of 139 or higher, and only one was higher than 147 (Dick Allen) Four of those five were fist-ballot HoFers. But an OPS+ of 139 or higher has been achieved by 20 players who played all or the bulk of their careers in the steroid era.
I don’t know, but that just doesn’t seem kosher. Generally, stats are adjusted and then players from different eras are compared. I believe there is a flaw in this system. I don’t know how to correct it, but it does seem to exist.
“1. It appears there are three ways to get to the Hall: (1) Have a approximately 5-7 great years of dominance (Dawson, Rice), followed by a bunch of decent years;”
This would appear to describe Ron Santo to a “T”. From 1964 through 1969, he was the best player in baseball (per WAR). Yes, better than Mays, Clemente, the Robinsons, Brock, Yaz … everybody.
And yet, when a article appears in a Chicago paper regarding his HOF candidacy, the message boards get filled with “I saw him play, and he’s no Hall-of Famer!”.
I saw him play, too. My life won’t change whether he is inducted or not, so I don’t really care. But it seems odd that such an outstanding player elicits such negative responses.
Marvin Miller is not in the Hall of Fame because he never worked in MLB in any capacity–not as a player, not as a manager, not as a coach, not as an umpire, not as an owner. He was a labor leader. If there’s a Hall of Fame for labor leaders or collective bargainers out there, he’s a slam-dunk first ballot inductee.
To continue briefly on the “what kind of a guy was Morris?” I’m a Yankees fan, but he was always one of my favorite players during my teen years in the ’80s. He was a great competitor and a grinder. He logged like 35 starts and 250 innings almost every year for 14 years (1979-1992). When he was doing it, maybe it didn’t seem that incredible because we were coming off the 1970s, when a lot of guys were workhorses like that. But, in retrospect, Morris was really a throwback, a dinosaur, an icon… he even had the ’70s mustache… and then he capped things off with the great Series win. No, he was probably not considered a Hall-of-Famer in his day, but seeing what’s mostly become of pitching since he retired (which Nolan Ryan is famously trying to reverse), I think Morris deserves some consideration for the HOF, just for being the “last man standing.”
I mean someone made that comment about the Braves base-running error contribuing to his famous Series shutout, but he was only able to take advantage of it, because he kept showing up and pitching. I think voting Morris into the Hall would kind of be a nod to baseball’s blue-collar past, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
@Ralph. If not the best I’ve come across, yours is certainly my favorite argument for Jack’s inclusion in the HOF. In no small part because you don’t actually argue that he SHOULD be elected. I’d venture to say that most fans without a personal stake in his candidacy know that his numbers don’t quite make the grade. That doesn’t mean that other, more sentimental arguments can’t be put forth, however. In your words, giving Morris the nod “wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.” I can agree with that.
#138, 139 – agreed. He would not be the worse player there and he does have some good career markers (not to mention game 7). But, for reasons I cannot articulate, it just would not FEEL right.
But as an earlier poster said, it is not going to change my life one way or another.
If he is not elected by the writers, he will almost surely go when he gets to the Veterans committee.
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Hall of Fame Comps [...]
Perhaps someone already replied to this, but the point about Pujols is very true (how would he be viewed if he played 10 more years at a mediocre level). I have often wondered the same about Koufax. The two things I think about re: Koufax are dominance and W/L percentage (apologies to all). Now, what if he had been able to hang on as a junkballer at about replacement level plus, 4th starter but just good enough to keep his job somewhere. By #38′s standards (which I think are about right), he would have the years of dominance but not really the long span of decent years, nor would he have the counting or rate stats when his career was viewed as a whole.
I’m not arguing against Koufax, I just think it’s something to ponder when opening up the can of worms of “did” or “didn’t” do. I think, conversely, if you don’t consider that, then one can judge, say, Dwight Gooden, on only his peak years and pretend the other years don’t exist.
I haven’t sat down and created a theoretical career for Koufax or Pujols, but I do wonder – would they get in if you tack on 10 just-holding-on years? I’m not sure they would.
Seems to me Charles O. Finley should be in the Hall. He built a team that won three consecutive World Series, and was the greatest judge of raw baseball talent since Branch Rickey. His irascible persona, though, will always stand in his way.
[...] Hall of Fame Comps (Joe Posnanski). Honestly, the recent inductions of Bruce Sutter, Jim Rice, and Andre Dawson should open the door for dozens of guys… most of whom won’t ever get into the Hall without a ticket. [...]
[...] Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Hall of Fame Comps [...]
Marc @ 142
You asked how Pujols would be viewed if he is mediocre for the next 10 years, or how Koufax would be viewed had he hung on at replaecment level.
Well, these are interesting questions, but we do have examples of guys like this. Frank Thomas was pretty much identical to Pujols for the first 10 years, then faded. He’s still a first ballot HoFer, but he defninitely slipped out of sight for the second half of his career.
For Koufax, you can compare him to Pedro. Still a first ballot, but the past few years have been very dissapointing. Would he be more appreciated if he had quit after say 2004?
There are all kinds of favorable and less favorable players who have fit this mold. Juan Gonzalez, Andruw Jones (maybe making a comeback now, who knows), Cecil Fielder, Jose Canseco, Vida Blue, Gooden, etc…
Fun to think about
Marc, the Koufax question is a great one. What if Dwight Gooden had retired after 1991 – maybe it has to be 1993, so he played 10 years – either way, he WALKS into the Hall of Fame. But because he stuck around, and dirtied up his resume, he’s got no chance.
Bill Simmons’ Pyramid makes the most sense – there are different levels of Hall of Famers.
BTWm regarding “feared” hitters and racism, is there any doubt that Frank Howard was considered a “feared” hitter by every pitcher he faced?
Barack I completely agree about Pedro. I almost used him as another example, like Gooden.
Right – if he retired after 2004, he’d have been one of the highest % vote-getters ever. Now – still a locked in HOFer, but with a little less gloss.
Hadn’t thought so much about JuanGon, Andruw Jones, etc. but you are right on target.
I was serious before about Tim McCarver. I think he belongs, when you take the total career into perspective.
Tom Candiotti! Loved reading his name again.
I assume someone has done this, but has anyone ever established an “HOF euclidean distance” between baseball players? I.e., a standard way for quantifying how close two careers were (from an HOF perspective)? Because this could allow you to figure out if there is a natural HOF cluster or if it’s just judgement calls all the way down.
Chris@31, I saw Jim Rice play. He didn’t scare me. If I were drafting my own team, depending on the season, he might have been the third Red Sox outfielder I drafted. Being a HOFer in the best hitter’s ballpark in baseball at the time does not make you a HOFer overall. Outside of Fenway, he was average, and even in Fenway he was weak defensively and had no speed. I saw Jack Morris play, and while I don’t think he’s a hall of famer, I recognize that part of his value was reliability, something teams value in top of the rotation types, and that unlike Rice, Morris didn’t have any glaring weaknesses. I think I like Vizquel better than either of them.
AND I like stats, and numbers, and detailed analysis, and strange hybrid calculations like WAR. I like looking at Jim Rice, who never scared me as an Angels fan watching him in Anaheim, where he had a career OPS of .697. That’s not a HOFer, unless you field like Ozzie. That’s barely a major leaguer. Okay, so maybe it was just geography, or the Angels knew how to get Rice out. But for his career, Rice had an OPS of .920 in Fenway, which is a solid argument for HOFworthiness. And he had a road OPS of .789, which is only HOFworthy for an outfielder who steals bases like Raines or Rickey or catches balls like Gary Pettis. Put it all together and Rice had half of a HOF career: the home half.
Way back when, in the early days of the Baseball Abstract, Bill James wanted to identify the hidden elements, the game behind the game. One of those was ball park adjustments. Jim Rice is precisely the kind of player that James was trying to analyze. He was a HOFer in Boston, but for the most part he wasn’t one on the road. He was a HOFer against the Yankees, the biggest media market in baseball, which is why he is in the HOF; not because he deserved it overall, but because Jon Heyman only believes what he sees.
According to B-Ref, Rice played at least 130 games (against the Mariners) and at most 194 games (Indians). That’s roughly 13 seasons, one against each of the other AL teams. That makes Rice a PERFECT candidate for HOF examination. Lets also assume that any season over 1.000 for OPS is standout, MVP worthy (not necessarily winning, based on competition, but a great season), one that makes people start thinking of you as a Hall of Famer. No, lets make that .950, because those were simpler times; Rice had three seasons in the top three in OPS, and in all three his OPS was above .950. Then lets go down to .875 as being a season supportive of HOFworthiness from quality, and seasons below .875 as not being HOFworthy (although of course they add to counting stats). This isn’t a fancy stat like WAR or OPS+; this is pure unadjusted OPS, which is highly favorable to Rice. By those standards, Rice had one season (opponent) that was so good it must garner HOF consideration, and that opponent was the Yankees. He had five seasons that support his HOFworthiness (.875 or better). And he had seven opponents that he did not look at all like a HOFer, with an OPS ranging from .753 to .857. (Just for comparison, chronologically he had three seasons above .950, and one more above .875; four really good seasons form about 100% of his HOF candidacy, and none of those really good seasons compares with the best seasons of Ruth, or Williams, or even Albert Belle, who few think is HOFworthy), and those numbers hold whether you use OPS of OPS+. So for more than half of the AL, Rice wasn’t even in the eligible via counting numbers support category. That’s before you consider he was a net negative defensively and on the basepaths. That’s just evaluating, without park adjustments, the one thing he did best: hit the baseball, mostly at Fenway.
For his career, Jim Rice was 154th in OPS. That means there have been 153 guys who hit the ball better than Rice, and that includes the big numbers eras of great hitting back before the 1960. He’s 197th in OPS+, meaning that as much as his career was hurt by playing in a generally pitcher’s era, it was helped even more by playing in Fenway Park. So you’re looking at about the 200th best hitter in baseball, a lousy fielder, a lousy base runner, a guy who hit better when the Red Sox had losing teams (ain’t B-Ref grand!?). But he sure hit the ball against the Yankees. And that is why he’s in the HOF, because Sports Illustrated is in New York, and ESPN is between New York and Boston, and what really determines HOFers is media coverage and swollen ego analysts who insist that only what THEY saw really matters.
For four years fairly early in his career, Rice’s most similar at age were HOF center fielders Mays and Snider. That includes Rice’s MVP season. Three straight years of OPS around .970, ending at age 26. For a player to have that kind of run up to the meat of his career suggests a clear HOFer. But the rest of his HOF career didn’t happen. With ten more seasons to go, only once did he have an OPS above .875, only once did he hit more than 28 home runs. So what Rice was was three incredible seasons establishing in everybody’s mind that he would become a HOFer, and then only one more season that even supports the notion. But the impression remained.
That’s why I love the stats. I can tell Jon Heyman that he loves Rice because Rice’s best opponent by far was the Yankees. I think Rice was an average left fielder, at best, because he was below average against the Angels. The truth is between the two, natch, although I think my case is compelling that if his best opponent was the Rangers and his worst the Yankees, he would not now be in the HOF. And that’s why stats *are* important; they help identify the failings of a New York centric system such as we have.
@151 Richard:
I totally agree with your stance on Rice and why he shouldn’t be a HOFer. I also agree that the Heyman types are fools. I agree with almost everything in your post.
But the one aspect of your message that I think is really off-base is this idea that the HOF voting is heavily biased towards the Yankees and Red Sox. I find the east coast bias stuff to be quite a bit overblown, especially when it comes to the HOF. Keep in mind, I am neither a Yankee nor Red Sox fan.
I didn’t see David Cone get much HOF support and he had 20-win seasons ten years apart for each NY team, threw a perfect game at Yankee Stadium and won four World Series with the Yankees. Sure, his resume is borderline at best, but if we’re to believe playing in NY gives you such a huge boost, he surely didn’t benefit from it.
David Wells won 239 games and is most famous for his stint in pinstripes. Again, I’m not arguing he should be a HOFer (he shouldn’t be) but if this bias exists you would probably hear more Wells HOF discussion.
Then there’s Mike Mussina, who I believe should absolutely be in. But what are the odds of him getting in on the first few ballots? Probably not great.
As much as everyone loves those late 90′s Yankee teams, I’ve never heard Bernie Williams or Paul O’Neill get legitimate HOF buzz. Pettitte is starting to get some buzz now, but I think that’s more because he’s having a great year at age 38 and people love win totals and postseason performance. I think those factors have more to do with it than the fact that he’s a Yankee (though yes, being a Yankee is the reason he’s been in the postseason so often).
Doc and Darryl fell off a lot in the second half of their careers for well documented reasons but you didn’t see anyone pleading their case.
John Franco has the most saves ever by a lefty and pitched in NY for 14 years. He has gotten zero support.
We all know Dwight Evans was better than Rice. He played in Boston for 20 years. Didn’t help him get into the HOF.
Simply being in a big market in places other than the east coast also hasn’t helped. Ron Santo didn’t get extra credit for playing in Chicago and Orel Hershiser didn’t get serious consideration for excelling in Los Angeles.
Heyman is a moron for all the reasons you outlined, but I don’t believe that he and other Rice supporters even realized how well Rice had done against the Yankees because of their own refusal to actually look at the numbers. Even if they saw it with their eyes at the time, it’s doubtful they remembered how well he did at Yankee Stadium 30 years later.
Yes, #146 – I had forgotten about Frank Thomas. Almost perfect example, though he did have a few good years every now and then.
And yeah, I think his peak qualifies him for me. Man was a monster.
Too, you brought up Andruw Jones. I don’t think so at all, but then again, as has been dragged to death in the Vizquel debate, it’ll be interesting when we get a better handle on what defense really means – for ten years, until he got out of shape/old(?) he played a mean centerfield. Some part of Glavine getting into the Hall he’ll owe to Jones.
@151. While I agree that Jim Rice probably doesn’t deserve to be in the HoF, I do qualify that statement with “probably”.
Your reasoning falls into the trap that everybody falls into, namely that you’re comparing everybody in history to Jim Rice. You just can’t do that. Even adjusted stats don’t make up for the huge differences in eras, especially the high scoring 30s and the steroid era compare do the 60s, 70s and 80s.
For example, you mention that Rice’s raw OPS is 154th in history. Of course, that’s all of history, dead ball era, 30s, steroid era included. If you look at more comparable eras, i.e. a 50 year period from 1945-1994 (which basically is post-WWII and the start of baseball integration all the way up to the start of the steroid era), you’ll see that Rice has the 22nd best OPS of all players who played during that time period. You’ll also see that only 2 players from that time frame have OPS in the top 25, Mantle at #12 and Kiner at #25. Compare that to 8 active players in the top 25, and 13 players who would be described as products of the steroid era. So basically in less than 20 years of baseball (the steroid era), 13 players are in the all time top 25 in OPS, while only 2 players from the previous 50 years of baseball history make that list.
But I know that Rice’s OPS is unadjusted. So if you look at OPS+, Rice is tied for 44th of all players whose careers fell between 1945 and 1994. Those numbers are a far cry from 154th and 197th.
Maybe it’s possible that players from 1945-1994 were simply not as good as players from the steroid era and the 30s. Or maybe factors beyond players’ control made offensive success more difficult. I don’t know. But the assertion that Jim Rice was the 200th best hitter in history is false. I’m not saying he belongs in the Hall of Fame. But based on comparing him to players of his era, he’s certainly in the conversation. I’d rather he be outside looking in, really. But I just get a little bothered when people conclude definitively that he was basically an average hitter. It’s just not true.
I agree with #6.
Since he has touched on it for the second recent post, I wish Joe would expound on:
“Um, it’s probably just best for me to avoid talking about that committee.”
One thing that drives me crazy about the Hall of Fame is the emphasis on first ballot. There’s no first-ballot wing of the Hall, there isn’t a platinum membership; you’re either in or you’re not in. This is nothing more than writers feeding their egos. It’s similar with Pete Rose; his ban burns so many writers not because they necessarily want him in — they just crave the opportunity to decide his fate.
Maybe (probably?) Joe has voiced this opinion already, but I wonder who he feels are the 10-20 outsiders who should definitely be in the Hall of Fame. As much as I love Blyleven, the most outrageous snubs in my mind include a number of folks who either didn’t play or made contributions beyond playing: Buck O’Neil, Marvin Miller, Bill James and (just from reading this blog) Jacob Rupert.
@154 – I disagree about people falling into a trap of comparing players of all eras. Frankly that is what a HoF is – a listing of the very, very best players over all MLB history.
The trap is thinking that there has to be players from every era in the Hall. If Jim Rice really is the best era of his era, then the truth to me is that no one from that era deserves to be voted into the Hall.
It is perfectly reasonable to say that a player should have at least been among the best of his generation but doing that doesn’t make him hall worthy by itself.
How did Jim Bunning get in?
And if rice was such a terrible baserunner how did he lead the league in triples twice?
@ 158: Bunning made it because:
a) the stats that matter are compelling,
b) he was the best pitcher in the game over the five-year period ending the last year before Koufax moved into Chavez Ravine,
c) over a fairly long career, he was better than over half the pitchers in the Hall, and
d) 25 years following his retirement, the Veterans Committee suddenly realized that a), b) and c) were more relevant than the fact that the entire MLB universe detested him — still.
There were rumors. Well, there was A rumor, oft-repeated.
The gist of it was that the membership of the Veterans Committee received sage and somber counsel from outside its ranks, which had a sobering effect. The implication was that committee members were urged to focus with greater intensity on the status of the Hall in particular and The Game more generally as an enduring institution.
And by status, that would mean with regard to all contextual nuances, including, in case they had missed it, that the members might wish to consider that among the candidates was one about to complete ten years as an elected representative in Congress. And by The Game, as a matter of course that would include ALL its most sacred traditions — of which the effective antitrust exemption enjoyed by MLB at the pleasure of said Congress is among the longest lived.
Then a closing word or two on his demeanor — purely as a reminder.
Again, all rumor.
Here is something I wrote a few years ago. Jack Morris is more than one game (although waht a game it was)
I grew up with baseball numbers in my head. I was always good at math because I started out figuring out batting averages when I was 7 years old. Only kids who became baseball fans at the age of 7 know that 2 for 7 is a .286 batting average. The numbers 714 (Ruth’s home run total) 56 (Joe Dimaggio’s consecutive hitting streak), and .406 (Ted William’s average in 1941 when he went 6 for 8 in the last doubleheader against Philadelphia) stuck in my head for a lifetime.
So now I’m an adult and the steroid era has destroyed one of the great assets of the game; the statistics. How do you justify the statement that the greatest “non-juiced” home run season since Maris’ 61 in 1961 is Luis Gonzales’ 57 in 2001 (if even that was a non-juiced year). The icon of truth and justice is Jose Canseco. Really? That’s what we’ve come to.
And then I look back at the 80’s and see these ballplayers getting jobbed by the Hall of Fame Committee because they’ve spent the last 15 years with these outrageous numbers/statistics as the milestone, and guys like Bert Blyleven and Jack Morris (and until recently Jim Rice and Andre Dawson) can’t live up to them. Well, I’m not one to look back on those days of yesteryear when everything was peaches and cream, but some of these 80’s guys are clear hall of famers, especially in contrast to what has gone on over the last 15 years. Well, here’s an argument for Jack Morris, one of the toughest pitchers this game will ever see. He belongs in the Hall of Fame and this is my justification.
Gary Zwillinger
THE CASE FOR JACK MORRIS
INTRODUCTION
In his first year of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2001, Jack Morris received 101 out of a possible 515 votes cast (19.61%). In his second year, Morris received a similar number and percentage (97 votes out of 472 votes cast – 20.55%). His third year bumped that percentage to approximately 23%. Over the last few years, his numbers have risen to approximately 52.4%. In order to be elected, a candidate must receive at least 75% of the votes cast.
The question is why would the man who: (i) won more games than any major league pitcher during the decade of the 1980’s; (ii) is generally credited with having pitched the defining 7th game of a World Series; (iii) whose 254 career wins exceeds the career win totals of Hall of Famers Carl Hubbell, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Jim Bunning, Hal Newhouser and Bob Lemon, among others, and (iv) was called by Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons, the “best of his time, especially when it counted. It never dawned on me that he wouldn’t be a first-ballot winner”; be on a course to languish among the large group of “good but not worthy” pitchers over the course of a “solid” career.
The answer, as set forth in this presentation, is that the absence of one or two magnificent “career” years or one meteoric statistic has allowed a clearly worthy Hall of Fame career to be obscured.
The purpose of this presentation is to set the record straight and make the case for Jack Morris’ entry into the Hall of Fame.
THE FACTS AND THE ARGUMENT
The game of comparisons among pitchers from different decades is a tricky one. The use of the total number of wins as the basis for either side of an argument (e.g. Morris won 70 less games than Don Sutton but was clearly more dominant and worthy, or Morris won 89 more games than Sandy Koufax but never reached his heights) provides support for Mark Twain’s distrust for statistics. However, a pitcher’s dominance in comparison to the other pitchers of his time, during the bulk and prime of an extended career, must be a valid yardstick for analysis.
Morris’ prime was the 14-year period from 1979-1992 (he pitched only 151 innings before 1979 and only 2 years after 1992). During that period, his 233 wins were not only the most by a major league pitcher, they were shockingly the most by 41 games (Bob Welch was next at 192, 174 for Dave Stieb and 168 for Nolan Ryan).
The purpose of this analysis is not to detract from Nolan Ryan, but it’s hard to ignore that during a 14 year period of what is Ryan’s “second prime” (it is, after all, Ryan’s longevity and strikeout numbers which propelled him into the Hall so overwhelmingly), Morris outwins the near unanimous first rounder by 65 games.
It’s instructive that 14 consecutive years seems to be an accurate yardstick for great pitchers who stake their Cooperstown claim on the strength of their “prime” (we’ll call them the “Prime Pitchers”) as opposed to the group of great pitchers who base their claims on longevity (we’ll call them the “Endurers”).
Step back 10 years from Morris’ prime and look at the great pitchers of the late 60’s and 70’s. In what is the prime of the great Tom Seaver (1969-1982 – remember 1969 is the “Miracle Mets” year when Seaver wins 25), Seaver wins one game less than Morris in his 14 year prime (233 for Morris and 232 for Seaver). The 14-year period from 1961 to 1974 for Bob Gibson shows Gibson winning 242 games, 9 more than Morris. Jim Palmer’s 14 year prime (1969-1982) has him winning 240 games (7 more than Morris). Steve Carlton’s 14-year prime (1969-1982) is the best of that era at 258 wins followed by Gaylord Perry (14-year prime from 1966-1979) at 255 wins. Ferguson Jenkins’ 14 year prime (1967-1980) is next at 251 wins. Other than the somewhat earlier era career of Warren Spahn (the tops at 270 during his 14 year prime from 1947-1960), the only other two post World War II pitchers to win more than Jack Morris in their 14 consecutive year primes are Greg Maddux ( 1987-2000 – 238 wins – 5 more than Morris) and Juan Marichal (1961-1974 – 237 wins – 4 more than Morris). All of the above are Hall of Famers (including the certain future entry of Maddux)
The following Prime Pitchers fall short of Morris’ 233 wins in his 14-year prime:
• Whitey Ford (1953-1966) 225 wins (Hall of Famer)
• Jim Bunning (1957-1970) 221 wins (Hall of Famer)
• Roger Clemens ((1986-1999) 231 wins (Certain Future Hall of Famer)
• Don Drysdale (1956-1969) full career – 209 wins (Hall of Famer)
• Tom Glavine (1987-2000) 208 wins (Maybe Future Hall of Famer)
• Dennis Martinez (1977- 1990) 159 wins (Unlikely Hall of Famer)
• Robin Roberts (1949-1962) 227 wins (Hall of Famer)
• Bob Welch (1979-1992) 192 wins (Unlikely Hall of Famer)
When we jump to the “Endurers” and give each of them the benefit of the doubt by counting only their “best” 14 years as the basis for the comparison (rather than any one 14 year consecutive period) Morris’ case for immediate entry into Cooperstown is only strengthened. The near unanimous first rounder, Nolan Ryan’s best 14 years gives him 10 less wins than Morris’ prime (Morris’ 233 wins to Ryan’s 223 wins). Bert Blyleven’s so far unsuccessful attempt is based on longevity and strikeouts. Blyleven’s best 14 years are the same as Ryan’s – 223 wins and 10 less than Morris’ prime. Other relevant Endurers and their best 14 years are as follows:
• Orel Hersheiser —196 wins —37 less than Morris’ Prime (Unlikely Hall of Famer)
• Bob Feller —242 wins —9 more than Morris’ Prime (Hall of Famer)
• Catfish Hunter —222 wins — 11 less than Morris’ Prime (Hall of Famer)
• Jim Kaat — 228 wins — 5 less than Morris’ Prime (Maybe Future Hall of Famer)
• Jimmy Key —185 wins — 48 less than Morris’ Prime (Unlikely Hall of Famer)
• Phil Niekro — 236 wins — 3 more than Morris’ Prime (Hall of Famer)
• Don Sutton —228 wins — 5 less than Morris’ Prime (Hall of Famer)
• Early Wynn — 237 wins — 4 more than Morris’ Prime (Hall of Famer)
• David Cone — 182 wins – 51 less than Morris’ Prime (Unlikely Hall of Famer)
Whether it’s the “Prime Pitcher” analysis or the “Endurer” analysis, the answer is the same. The only pitchers greater than Morris are the consensus Hall of Famers: Seaver, Palmer, Gibson, Carlton, Jenkins, Perry, Marichal, Maddux (when he retires), Feller, Niekro, Spahn and Wynn. The others who have made it as well as those who haven’t are not at his level and the numbers bear that out.
On a more typical time analysis, the winners of the most games in every decade in the 20th century are all existing. or in the singular case of the 1990′s and Greg Maddux, future Hall of Famers except for one; Jack Morris. The 00’s found Grover Cleveland Alexander as the pitcher with the most wins. The 10’s was led by Walter Johnson; the 20’s by Burleigh Grimes; the 30’s by Lefty Grove, and Hal Newhouser was the winningest pitcher in the 40’s. Probably more instructive is the comparison of Morris with the “modern” pitchers. When you make that comparison, Morris is right in the middle of that group and belongs with them in Cooperstown. They are as follows:
? 1950’s Spahn 3 more wins than the next highest, Robin Roberts
? 1960’s Marichal 33 more than the next highest, Don Drysdale
? 1970’s Palmer 8 more than the next 3 highest, Jenkins, Seaver and Carlton
? 1980’s MORRIS 22 more than next highest, Dave Stieb
? 1990’s Maddux 12 more than next highest, Tom Glavine
Jack Morris is in the rarified air that Hall of Famers occupy. His absence would be a great injustice.
MORRIS’ RESUME
Morris’ curricula vitae is as follows:
• Greatest 7th game pitching performance in World Series History (Game 7, 1991, 10 IP – 0 ER – 7 hits- Winning Pitcher in 1-0 victory over Braves)
• One of the Innovators of the Split Fingered Fastball
• 1979-1992 – 233 Wins- 41 more than the next highest total and 65 more than Nolan Ryan
• 254 career wins in 527 starts – comparable to Jim Palmer’s 268 career wins in 521 starts (consider the talent of the Orioles teams over Palmer’s career against that of Morris’ Tigers)
• 3 seasons with 20 wins or more – compared with Don Sutton’s 1 season- Jim Bunning’s 1 season
• 5 seasons with 17 wins or more (but less than 20 wins). Ryan had 3 – 17+ seasons
• 3824 innings pitched – 6X 250+ innings – 11X 200+ innings
• Pitched on 4 World Champions – Ace of 2, maybe 3 of those teams (perhaps not the ace of the ’93 Blue Jays) with a World Series record of 4 wins – 2 losses and a 2.96 ERA in the World Series
• Acknowledged big time clutch pressure pitcher
• Unquestioned Pitcher of the 1980’s
• Pitched a No-Hitter
• Started 14 consecutive Opening Day games during his career, tying him with the great Walter Johnson for most consecutive Opening Day games
• Acknowledged number one pitcher on 1984 Detroit Tigers – one
of baseball’s all time great teams
Absent from the c.v. is any Cy Young Award. He never led the league in ERA. He led
the league in strikeouts only once, innings pitched only once and games won twice.
CONCLUSION
The picture is clear. While he never dominated for one year in a Koufax or Gibson mode, he did, perhaps more importantly, dominate his era with a magnitude that is the equivalent, at least, of the greatest modern day pitchers. He was the clutch pitcher of his generation and his success in the World Series venue bears that out. When you stack up the numbers, Morris is outperformed only by the most “elite” pitchers of the modern day. Other than those most elite (Seaver, Palmer, Gibson, Carlton, Perry, Spahn, Maddux, Jenkins) existing Hall of Famers fall consistently short of his greatness.
Morris is a Hall of Famer, plain and simple. The absence of a few stellar years or a Ryan like strikeout ability has to be the answer for the results of his first 2 years on the Hall of Fame ballot. BBWAA writers should take note and correct this mistake. Morris may not be the media friendly quote machine of someone like Palmer, but his dominance of his era over an extended career means he belongs there beside Palmer, Seaver, Gibson and Carlton (or maybe more correctly, Ford, Bunning, Sutton and Roberts) in Cooperstown.
Damn, when did Omar Vizquel start to get so much HOF support? I honestly wish he retired a few years ago instead after the 2006 season instead of sticking around to put up OPS+ seasons of 61, 45, 71, and (so far 93)
while bringing his hit total up near 2800 instead of 2472. He’s become Pete Rose but half as good for his entire career and not actually the one penciling himself into the lineup.
He’s not Ozzie Smith. He never was an he never will be. Ozzie was a 5-6 win player in his prime peaking at 6.9
Vizquel 2-3 win player except one year when he inexplicably hit .333/.397/.436