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Here is the current 2012 list of former players up for election:

Bernie Williams, Bill Mueller, Lee Smith, Jeff Bagwell, Barry Larkin, Brett Murphy, Jack Morris, Don Mattingly, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro, Juan Gonzalez, Jeromy Burnitz, Vinny Castilla, Brian Jordan, Javy Lopez, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Terry Mulholland, Dale Murphy, Phil Nevin, Brad Radke, Tim Raines, Tim Salmon, Ruben Sierra, Alan Trammell, Larry Walker, Tony Womack and Eric Young.

Anyone here have opinions on who should get in from this list?

Next year's list will get real interesting!
Last edited {1}
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I'm not going to judge players on the extra curricular activities of the past twenty years. The game of baseball chose to ignore it. So will I. I start with the big stats players:

McGwire 500+ homers
Palmeiro 500+ homers, 3,000+ hits
Lee Smith 478 saves

Then I take care of a long time injustice:

Jack Morris was the winningest pitcher for a ten year era he played. He was a winner in the post season.

In future ballots I'm considering players like Bagwell, Murphy, McGriff, and Martinez.
Last edited by RJM
ignoring off-field stuff...

Yes - lee smith, jeff bagwell, mark mcgwire, palmiero

Maybe - bernie williams, juan gonzalez, edgar martinez, mcgriff, larry walker

Just short - barry larkin, jack morris, don mattingly, raines

No - bill mueller, dale murphy, burnitz, castilla, javy lopez, salmon, ruben sierra, trammell

How the heck did you get on the list? - brian jordan, mulholland, nevin, radke, womack, eric young
Using those who are in the HOF, like Ryne Sandberg and Roberto Alomar, I would vote for both Trammell and Larkin.
The numbers are quite comparative and better in more than a few areas.
I would also support Bagwell, Lee Smith, and a lifetime .312 hitter in Edgar Martinez.
The DH aspect is fully appreciated. A few years back the same discussion occurred about Frank Thomas and most at that point felt his DH numbers would get him a 1st ballot admit. While Edgar didn't have the power numbers, he is on par or above in other offensive categories.
Lifetime .312 as a DH, for me, is analytically comparable with the save numbers that got closers like Rollie Fingers and Eckersley admitted, and to my view, get Lee Smith admitted.
While he won't ever get in, it is wonderful to see Bill Mueller's name on the ballot. bbscout used to reference Mueller as one of those who got every bit of production, and more, from his ability. A real battler who did more than many in baseball every guessed would be possible.
bbscout probably would have a nice Smile
Last edited by infielddad
quote:
Originally posted by RJM:
I'm not going to judge players on the extra curricular activities of the past twenty years. The game of baseball chose to ignore it. So will I. I start with the big stats players:

McGwire 500+ homers
Palmeiro 500+ homers, 3,000+ hits
Lee Smith 478 saves

Then I take care of a long time injustice:

Jack Morris was the winningest pitcher for a ten year era he played. He was a winner in the post season.

In future ballots I'm considering players like Bagwell, Murphy, McGriff, and Martinez.


I also fall in this camp, as it seems many others here do.
It will be real interesting to see how the self-rightous BBWA members see things.
As someone else stated above, HOF voting is about to get real interesting.
Lot of good choices, next year will be even more interesting.

Surprised that Tim Raines isn't mentioned by anyone.
He played 23 years, LTBA .294 and is 5th all time in SB. 35th all time Walks. 2,605 hits (76th all time). 19th all time Fld % among outfielders and 11th all time assists for LF. 7 consecutive all star appearances.

He only received 37.5% of the vote last year, so I don't see him making it this year either. Too many good choices this year and even more so next year... Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Craig Biggio just to name a few.

Even if they put an asterick next to their name, I believe those that accomplished the most should be inducted. That includes Pete Rose! And how does someone like Palmeiro (500 HR, 3,000 hits) get left out? Though I think that is what will happen. Guy with the most hits ever... No HOF... Guy with most HRs ever... Probably No HOF... Pitcher with most Cy Youngs ever... Nope probably not. Bill Mazeroski... Yes he is in!

BTW, Mazeroski was a great 2B, but his life time .260 over 17 years, never hit .300. 27 SB, averaged about 8 HR a year, but one very famous one. Guess it is nice to see a defensive guy make the HOF.
To me I think there is a distinction between what Pete Rose did and the steroid kings. Granted what Rose did could have significantly hurt the integrity of the game, but at least he legitimately accomplished his records without cheating.

As for the steroid users, they flat out cheated, so in my view they should never be allowed into the HOF. Sadly their so called records will probably remain, but it is patently unfair to those who legitimately deserve to still be there. In my mind the single season home run champ is still Roger Maris, and the top career Home Run hitters are;

1) Aaron

2) Ruth

3) Mays

4) Robinson

5) Killebrew

6) Jackson

7) Schmidt

8) Griffey

9) Mantle

10) Foxx

As you can see, I have left all the cheaters out (Bonds, Sosa, McGuire, and Palmero)
Last edited by Vector
Hall of Fame ballots are in the mail

Who has chances for induction?

Returnees:
Jeff Bagwell,
Juan Gonzalez,
Barry Larkin,
Edgar Martinez,
Don Mattingly,
Fred McGriff,
Mark McGwire,
Jack Morris,
Dale Murphy,
Rafael Palmeiro,
Tim Raines,
Lee Smith,
Alan Trammell,
Larry Walker

I choose Barry Larkin & Jack Morris & Lee Smith to get 75% of the vote.

(13) first time balloters
Jeromy Burnitz,
Vinny Castilla,
Brian Jordan,
Javy Lopez,
Bill Mueller,
Terry Mulholland,
Phil Nevin,
Brad Radke,
Tim Salmon,
Ruben Sierra,
Bernie Williams,
Tony Womack,
Eric Young
I choose….. no one (to get 75% of the votes(

Veterans Committee vote that will take place early next week
I choose Ron Santo
Interesting dynamic forming on this question over just a few years on this site and I'd be willing to bet it is also taking place in the baseball fan community at large also. Already, more and more fans for various reasons seem to be willing to forget about the steroid question and just go with players who put up big numbers regardless. I kind of thought it might take a generation or so, maybe twenty years before enough people would just decide to accept the steroid era for what it was and elect the best players of that era. But now I see more posters are just starting say they will ignore the advantage players gained. Now I'm starting to feel the first positive steroiders will be in within five years max. We Americans just love to watch our heroes fail us, tear them down and then forgive them later. Very Interesting

I still feel Rose will not see the Hall of Fame in his lifetime.
Last edited by Three Bagger
quote:
Originally posted by Three Bagger:
Interesting dynamic forming on this question over just a few years on this site and I'd be willing to bet it is also taking place in the baseball fan community at large also. Already, more and more fans for various reasons seem to be willing to forget about the steroid question and just go with players who put up big numbers regardless. I kind of thought it might take a generation or so, maybe twenty years before enough people would just decide to accept the steroid era for what it was and elect the best players of that era. But now I see more posters are just starting say they will ignore the advantage players gained. Now I'm starting to feel the first positive steroiders will be in within five years max. We Americans just love to watch our heroes fail us, tear them down and then forgive them later. Very Interesting

I still feel Rose will not see the Hall of Fame in his lifetime.


I for one am not so willing to forgive and forget. IMHO these guys who made the choice to use "enhancements" extended their careers artificially. Watching a guy like Jeter break down and lose some ability used to be the norm for a 38 year old. There are lots of guys on that list that, I personally, just cannot vote for.

My picks out of this class would be for Jack Morris and Barry Larkin. But even picking these guys, you can never be 100% certain...
Last edited by birdman14
quote:
Originally posted by Three Bagger:
But now I see more posters are just starting say they will ignore the advantage players gained.


Didn't we all ignore it when it was going on? Owners, union, players, announcers, managers, fans? We loved to watch McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens, Palmiero.

Now we all act like we had no idea what was going on? Seems a little odd to me.
Lee Smith, Jack Morris, and Barry Larkin get my "virtual" vote. I've admired each of these players, and they have the stats to get in. Jack Morris has always impressed the heck out of me. I loved watching that guy pitch.

As for the "steroid boys" - McGuire, Sosa, Palmeiro, Clemens & Bonds, I'm going to sit on that for a while to decide what should be done. At the least, none should be a first ballot HOFer to send a message....which has already happened. I've heard the idea that we should create a special "Cheaters Wing" at the HOF, but that is not practical. I admit I did enjoy watching these players, but I had no idea what was going on at the beginning of the steroid era. I'd rather see some time pass before deciding on these scoudrels.
Last edited by fenwaysouth
quote:
Originally posted by biggerpapi:
quote:
Originally posted by Three Bagger:
But now I see more posters are just starting say they will ignore the advantage players gained.


Didn't we all ignore it when it was going on? Owners, union, players, announcers, managers, fans? We loved to watch McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Clemens, Palmiero.

Now we all act like we had no idea what was going on? Seems a little odd to me.


I certainly enjoyed watching it while it was happening, that much is true. But as far as having an idea and knowing what was going on, I have to admit to being ignorant to that.

Not sure what is odd about that?
I'd vote for sure for Bagwell, Larkin, Raines, Trammell, Martinez (with a screen name like "EdgarFan" this should come as no surprise), and Walker.

I hate what the steroid era did mostly to players who DID NOT juice (such as Edgar Martinez, who I strongly believe did not), but I do think there are more or less distinct eras in baseball and the only thing voters can really do is try to judge if a candidate was truly among the very best of the era in which the player played. I'd probably give a little mental "discount" to those I know or suspect used, and a little mental "boost" to those I am fairly certain did not, but other than that I wouldn't disqualify any of the known or suspected juicers. For me, that means Palmeiro and McGwire would also get my vote.

That's eight guys. I believe in voting for the maximum ten as long as you believe as a voter that all ten of those players should eventually get in. If voters don't start to do that within the next few years, there will be such a logjam of worthy candidates that some very qualified candidates are going to fall off the ballot. So, with that in mind, even though I have some reservations about their candidacies, I would probably vote for Lee Smith and Fred McGriff (another guy I don't think juiced, whose numbers look much worse than they should simply because others got an artificial boost).

I know many out there will be screaming "Jack Morris!" But for me, he was a very good but not great (or at least seldom great) player. I reserve the right to change my mind, and might even vote for him now (if I had a vote) if I could vote for 11, because I'm more of a "big Hall" guy. Under the rules right now, I don't see Morris being a better candidate than the ten I mentioned before him.

Also worthy of mention and recognition, but not a HoF vote IMO, are Don Mattingly and Dale Murphy. Both had great (but too short) peaks, fell too far from that peak, and didn't play long enough to get the deserved recognition that comes with the accumulation of great counting stats (such as Rafael Palmeiro).

I'll save my campaign stumping for Edgar Martinez for another post.
Last edited by EdgarFan
quote:
Originally posted by RJM:
"My arguement for Morris is the Hall is about the best in their era. Morris was the winniest pitcher for a ten year period. I don't understand why he's not in the Hall."


ONE ten-year period, cherry-picked mostly because it corresponds with what we normally think of as "a decade" - i.e., "the 1980s."

Pitcher "wins" is about as crude a measurement of pitching excellence as there is. Pitcher "wins" are really a team measure, and Morris in the 1980s got the benefit of playing with a lot of very good teammates, guys like Trammell and Whitaker and Gibson and Lemon and Parrish and Evans.

But even if you DO value pitcher wins, even by that crude measure, this "most wins in the 1980s" thing is seriously overblown, and you can see how silly and even poor an argument it is when you "de-randomize" the endpoints - in other words, stop looking at the decade of just "the 1980s" but any 10-year period within Morris' career, because there is no particular reason to care more about "wins" within a period that begins with a year ends in "0" and ending with a year that ends in "9" than any other ten-year period.

Hey, whaddya know? Frank Viola had more wins in the decade between 1984 and 1993, and Ron Guidry had more in the decade between 1977 and 1986. Nobody's clamoring for those two to be enshrined.

And Jack Morris when NOT pitching in the 1980s? 92-67, 4.32 ERA, 11 WAR. Nothin' special (except maybe "the game" - ONE great game that has somehow taken on the stuff of myth and legend, enough to carry a good but not great pitcher into the Hall of Fame).

Thankfully, today there are a lot better statistical ways to measure pitching excellence out there than wins. By one of them (and not JUST one, but this one for the sake of brevity), WAR, Morris was no better than the 12th best pitcher in the years 1980-1989, behind (in order) Dave Stieb, Bob Welch, Fernando Valenzuela, Bert Blyleven, Orel Hershiser, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan, Dwight Gooden, John Tudor, Bret Saberhagen, and Charlie Hough (and just ahead of guys like Mario Soto and Teddy Higuera). Now there are some Hall of Famers in there, but for the most part, that is not a grouping that screams out Hall of Famer. Beyond that, when you normalize pitching performance by looking at WAR per 200 innings pitched, Morris was the worst pitcher of the group of 21 "best" pitchers of the 1980s.

I know none of this means Jack Morris was not a good pitcher, and don't mean to suggest that it would be some kind of travesty if he made the Hall. But if he did, there would be a lot of demonstrably better pitchers on the outside looking in. Guys like Kevin Brown, David Cone, Bret Saberhagen, El Presidente, and Orel Hershiser. I am OK with those guys NOT getting in, too, but it bugs me more than a little that there is all this clamor for Jack Morris, and hardly a peep for any of these guys, who were just as good or better.

As Joe Posnanski wrote in his run-down of Hall of Fame candidates last year,

quote:
"I have spent way too much of my life explaining why I don’t think Jack Morris is quite a Hall of Famer. I have made the point that his 3.90 ERA would be the highest in the Hall of Fame, and I simply don’t see what Morris did that would make his Hall of Fame case especially compelling beyond that. He did not win 300 (254), he did not strike out 3,000 (2,478), he did not have any historically great years (he never even finished a season with a sub-3.00 ERA). His WHIP (1.206) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (1.78-to-1) are nothing special.

"And I’ve made this comparison before:

Jack Morris: 527 starts, 3.90 ERA, 105 ERA+
Rick Reuschel: 529 starts, 3.37 ERA, 114 ERA+

"The cases made for Morris have been, in my opinion, not particularly convincing or even intellectually honest. That Morris won more games than any pitcher in the 1980s is a nice piece of trivia, but even if you stay in the fairly uninteresting realm of pitcher wins it’s worth pointing out that Morris did not solely lead baseball in wins EVEN ONCE in the 1980s. Not a single time. In the strike year of 1981, if you want to count that year, his 14 wins tied him with Dennis Martinez, Tom Seaver, Pete Vuckovich and Steve McCatty for most wins. You would think that even the most passionate Morris fan would not trumpet that. But there is no other year to trumpet. Other than that year, he did not even tie for the lead in wins one single time in the 1980s.

"This would make Morris, in that pointed phrase that Morris fans seem to despise, a 'compiler of stats.'

"The other argument, that he was a big-game pitcher, is mostly built around his gutsy Game 7 performance in the 1991 World Series. He was very good that whole series, winning Game 1 and pitching six strong innings in Game 4, but it was his 10 shutout innings in Game 7 that secured his legend. The thing is that Morris already had a reputation as a big game pitcher — baseball people always wanted to believe in Jack Morris as force of nature. Game 7 against Atlanta in 1991 clinched that reputation forever.

"Was Morris a big game pitcher? This has been argued endlessly already, and there is both supporting and opposing evidence. I think the opposing evidence tends to be a bit more convincing. Bill James last year did an interesting study about how teams did against good and bad teams. It suggests that no pitcher in baseball history got more wins out of beating up bad teams than Jack Morris. He was 92-114 against the teams that Bill calls Class A and Class B teams — those are the average to better-than-average teams. Considering that he spent most of his career playing on a very good Detroit Tigers team, that’s not too impressive.

"I’ve written all this before, as mentioned. I guess my point here is to ask those people who think that Jack Morris belongs in the Hall of Fame to PLEASE make more appealing arguments."
Last edited by EdgarFan
If stats are elevated by playing for winners there are a lot of players who need to be tossed out of the Hall of Fame. Morris continued to have three more good seasons into the 90's. Morris won 254 games. Viola won 176. Guidry won 170. Winning games has been the #1 criteria for pitchers entering the HOF. Morris has 254. There are 28 HOF starting pitchers with less wins.
quote:
Originally posted by RJM:

"If stats are elevated by playing for winners there are a lot of players who need to be tossed out of the Hall of Fame."


That's not what I said. I said that pitcher "wins" are more a measurement of team success than individual success, and that there are much better measures of individual success out there. Yes, there are many players in the HoF who played with other great players. Whether they deserve to be "tossed out" or not shouldn't be measured by whether they played with other great players, but by whether statistics designed to measure individual success rather than team success show they deserve enshrinement.

I am trying to address that question, and I think if you look at the stats objectively, Morris comes up a bit short.

You, on the other hand, are trying to avoid that question, make my argument into something it is not so you can set up a straw man ("if it is somehow a negative to play with other great players, then a lot of guys need to be tossed out") that you can easily knock down. That's not that hard to do, and certainly a lot easier than addressing my argument on the merits, which is what I did with yours.

quote:
"Morris won 254 games. Viola won 176. Guidry won 170. Winning games has been the #1 criteria for pitchers entering the HOF. Morris has 254."


Again, you are not addressing my point, which was to refute that Morris was the best pitcher over a ten-year period, by showing how meaningless that can be, as two other guys who were the winningest pitchers in a decade within Morris' career (but by chance not having begun with a year ending in "0" and ending with a year ending with "9") - guys who nobody is suggesting are good or even marginal Hall of Fame candidates - were just as good as Morris was. That was designed to refute your argument that since Morris won the most games from 1980-89, therefore he was "the best pitcher of his era," and therefore he deserves enshrinement. But obviously, it isn't as simple as that.

Well, you say that's because Morris won 254 games, and these other guys are 25-30 wins short of 200. OK. So it is about wins and only wins, then?

Jamie Moyer has 267 wins. Moyer has a slightly worse (4.24 to 3.90) career ERA, though he played in more of a hitter's era, and when adjusted for league, era, and ballpark (ERA+), Morris and Moyer are very similar - Morris with a career 105 ERA+ (5% better than league average) and Moyer with a career 104 ERA+. Morris has a slightly better career winning percentage (.577 to .567), but not enough of a difference to be hugely significant. Moyer has a little less than an average season's worth more innings pitched (4020.1 to 3284.0, 196.1 IP), which pretty nicely accounts for the 13 more wins he accumulated, since on average he won 14 games per a 162-game seasonal average in which Moyer typically pitched 208 innings.

But Moyer has a lot more career WAR (baseball-reference version) than Morris does - 47.3 to 39.3 - and if you want to look at their performance during peak years with the teams they are most known for, Moyer was better then, too: 32.4 WAR over 11 seasons and 2093 IP with the Mariners for Moyer, versus 34.5 WAR over 14 seasons and 3042 IP for Morris with the Tigers.

Here are each of Morris' and Moyer's 10 best seasons, as judged by WAR, best to worst:

MOYER MORRIS
5.7<===5.1
5.3<===4.9
5.2<===4.8
3.9===>4.7
3.7===>4.1
3.3===>3.4
3.1===>3.4
3.0====3.0
2.7===>2.8
2.6<===2.3
TOTAL TOTAL
38.5===38.5

That's right, in their ten best years, Moyer was a fair bit better in his three best, with Morris having a bit of an edge with better consistency in the middle, but overall, they were dead even over their ten best years. That seems to be true whether you look at "old school" things like wins and winning percentage, or "new school" things like WAR and ERA+.

Compare Moyer and Morris here.

Is Jamie Moyer a Hall of Famer?

quote:
"There are 28 HOF starting pitchers with less wins."


So? Wins are a poor stat to judge pitching excellence by, and the "Player X should be in the Hall of Fame because he is better than the bottom 10% or 20% of the Hall" argument is a pretty poor one, IMO.

How many Hall of Fame pitchers are there with a worse ERA than Morris' 3.90? None. Among all pitchers who've pitched at least 1000 innings career, Morris' ERA ranks 738th. The highest ERA among Hall of Fame pitchers is Herb Pennock's (#500 on the list) at 3.598. Morris would be the highest, by a longshot.

Even if you want to look at newer stats, like ERA+ (to account for differences in era, league, and even ballparks), or WAR, it doesn't really help Morris' cause. Morris' career 105 ERA+ ranks 479th (where he is tied with 50+ other pitchers). Only one Hall of Famer ranks lower - Rube Marquard, at 103. It gets a little better when you look at WAR, where Morris ranks 141st at 39.3. However, the closest Hall of Famers to him are either relievers (Goose Gossage, above him at 40.0, and Bruce Sutter and Rollie Fingers below) or widely considered to be the bottom-of-the-barrel, worst pitching selections in the history of the Hall (Chief Bender, Burleigh Grimes, Herb Pennock, Catfish Hunter, Monte Ward).

There really is no way around it: Jack Morris has a very poor statistical case for the Hall of Fame, and if he were inducted, he would rank among the very worst pitchers in the Hall in nearly all of the most widely-accepted statistical measures of pitching excellence. Except maybe wins, which does more to explain why wins is a poor stat to judge a pitcher's candidacy by than anything I could ever say. Winning games may have traditionally been "the #1 criteria for pitchers entering the HOF," but that doesn't mean that it should ALWAYS be the #1 criteria, or even that it is a good or worthwhile criteria.

Like I said, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Jack Morris was elected to the Hall. There are just more deserving candidates who should probably get there first.
Last edited by EdgarFan
HOF voters don't research all the estoteric statistics you're delving into. I don't have time for all that research nor am I that interested in doing so. I'm not an, esoteric sub level stats geek. Therefore I'm going by how they do vote. Esoteric stats are great for determinging a players potential or breaking down a given season. Over the long haul the player either got it done or he didn't. Morris got it done 254 times.
And one more thing, RJM, from the "sub level stats geek":

If it is all about wins, and you can't be bothered with any "esoteric" stats (not even, apparently, that new-fangly thing called "ERA") beyond wins, how do you differentiate between the Jamie Moyers of the world and the Jack Morrises? You've got to drill down somewhere to find meaningful distinctions....
Last edited by EdgarFan
quote:
Originally posted by PGStaff:
"EdgarFan, You are a real word master! BTW, I mean that as a compliment!"


Thank you, PGStaff! I took it as a compliment, even before you clarified that you meant it that way. Wink

I was just trying to engage somebody on a good HoF debate, using...uhhh, actual statistical evidence to back up my arguments. One thing I *am* truly a "geek" for is a good HoF debate. I wasn't trying to p*ss off anybody, though I do take some offense at the "sub level stats geek" comment. Maybe I should just own that - change my screen name and all!
EdgarFan, you can't win this argument with people who are still going by the stats that have been proved to have very little meaning in overall scheme of proving value as a player. RJM, as intellegent as you usually are, and I mean that complement sincerely, I can't believe you are trying to act like these modern stats that truly tell us how a player performed are some kind of mysterious "stats behind the stats". Things like pitcher wins and RBI's are arcane numbers that were accepted for a long time as showing value just because they had always been, but this didn't make it right. I'm 57 years old and have learned that there is a much better way of looking at who the great players are, we just have to learn to accept it.
Last edited by Three Bagger
quote:
Originally posted by Three Bagger:
EdgarFan, you can't win this argument with people who are still going by the stats that have been proved to have very little meaning in overall scheme of proving value as a player. RJM, as intellegent as you usually are, and I mean that complement sincerely, I can't believe you are trying to act like these modern stats that truly tell us how a player performed are some kind of mysterious "stats behind the stats". Things like pitcher wins and RBI's are arcane numbers that were accepted for a long time as showing value just because they had always been, but this didn't make it right. I'm 57 years old and have learned that there is a much better way of looking at who the great players are, we just have to learn to accept it.
They weren't the stats used in the past. I doubt many of the people with Hall of Fame votes use them now. As time has gone on it's been more about certain number plateaus .... 3,000 hits, 500 homers, 300 wins. The rest has been about who comes the closest, all-star appearances, MVP's and Cy Young awards.

The deep stats are great for a GM trying to build a team. They're great for managing game situations in a long season. I doubt many HOF voters look at them, much less understand what they mean.
quote:
Originally posted by RJM:

"[These 'esoteric stats'] weren't the stats used in the past. I doubt many of the people with Hall of Fame votes use them now. As time has gone on it's been more about certain number plateaus .... 3,000 hits, 500 homers, 300 wins. The rest has been about who comes the closest, all-star appearances, MVP's and Cy Young awards.

"The deep stats are great for a GM trying to build a team. They're great for managing game situations in a long season. I doubt many HOF voters look at them, much less understand what they mean."


I don't think that's true, not even among older voters, although I do concede that for most older fans they are unfamiliar (I wouldn't use the word "esoteric" but YMMV), and I get that. They are unfamiliar to a certain segment of the HoF voting population, too, but I for one find that unconscionable. These voters have been given what I consider a sacred trust, and to willingly and stubbornly refuse to learn anything that might advance their understanding of their task (especially when the excuse is, you know, ... "tradition!") is, to me, plenty reason to take their vote away. They are free to value certain stats over others, but to completely disregard the advancement of our statistical understanding of the game...again, unconscionable.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that things like ERA+ are not "esoteric" or "deep stats" that reside somehow beneath more basic and easily understandable stats. [Come to think of it, if you didn't know anything of "earned run average," that might very well qualify as an unapproachable and "esoteric" stat. But now, it is familiar....] As I explained in the other thread (the Koufax thread), ERA+ and OPS+ are simply ways to standardize a player's performance in ERA versus league average during a particularly period (which by definition addresses issues of park and era effects), so that we can judge a player's dominance versus the league in ways that allow for comparisons of relative dominance from era to era.

This is just a way to measure how much better than a league average pitcher (defined as a 100 ERA+) any pitcher was - for instance, a 150 ERA+ indicates a pitcher was than a league average pitcher. It is no more "esoteric" than ERA itself is, and the only "unapproachable" thing about it is probably that most people don't know the math behind it. [It is pretty simple: 100*[leagueERA/ERA] with an adjustment based on the player's home park effects.]

Same with OPS+, except that it is a comparison of OBP+SLG, a shorthand which has been proven to have a reasonable correlation to winning that is based on two concepts (getting on base, and power) that people already understand, use, and accept. There are better stats, but OPS is usually good enough, and OPS+ allows us to look across eras and make good enough comparisons for "ballpark" judgments. It is no more "esoteric" than its components - OBP, and SLG, which aren't "esoteric" at all.

If you want to be a bit more precise, then you move on to things like WAR, which uses more precise measurements of every event that takes place on a baseball field and takes into account not only offense (or in the case of pitching, moves beyond ERA to things like "Fielding Independent Pitching" to account for the fact that pitching is part and parcel of team defense), but things like defense, baserunning, positional scarcity, and the difficulty of playing one position (say, C or SS or CF) versus the relative ease of playing othes (say, DH or 1B or LF). It's not perfect, but it is more certainly precise than OPS or ERA (and a lot more precise than things like RBI or wins). If you make a list and it doesn't at least roughly correspond to things like OPS+, ERA+, or WAR, there is probably something inherently wrong with your list. And this matches the voting habits of HoF voters, too - it is rare to look at a ranked list of these stats where a Hall of Famer isn't found bunched right up at the top. There is a reason for that. That isn't true of all the tradtional stats (though it is more true of offensive stats - the traditional BA/OBP/SLG slash line still tells a meaningful and easily understood story; pitching is a bit harder to peg.).

The other thing I think you are increasingly wrong about as each year goes by is the extent to which BBWAA voters use "new" stats. I think this is more true of pitching, but both ERA+ and OPS+ are widely used and understood by voters.

For example, think of recent years' Cy Young votes as the loss leader in this regard. Both Felix Hernandez and Zach Greinke won Cy Young Awards despite extremely low win totals, because voters understood the importance of underlying stats (including some of the newer ones). I expect you are going to start seeing some of the same thing creeping into Hall of Fame voting going forward.

I've been involved in a project that tracks published Hall of Fame ballots for several years now. MANY voters use and understand these newer concepts, and the number grows each year. And things like "magic numbers" of wins, hits, home runs, and the like are used in decreasing frequency, at least without some additional supplementation by more advanced statistics. [That's not to say that there isn't a sizeable and fairly incalcitrant bloc of troglodyte voters who refuse to engage in any but the most rudimentary analysis, even to the point of resorting to the "I know one when I see one" argument and little else.]

I will say this, though: I understand a little better where you are coming from in this and the other (Koufax) thread. Who gets in, and who is left out, IS sometimes extremely perplexing, even though justbaseball spoke very truthfully in saying (essentially) that there is not one standard - there are as many standards as there are voters. But there ARE patterns, and I'll try to put some thoughts together about what I think I see of those, especially in recent years.

And whatever those are, I think there is one thing we can reasonably ask of all voters: consistency of thought and the application of whatever standard they choose across different players, and eras.
EdgarFan,

Great post and I agree with everything you said. I also still enjoy pitcher wins and RBI totals as "fun" stats but I no longer believe that the Morneau's of the world are an MVP because he happened to lead the league in RBI's, when he really wasn't even the most valuable player on his own team. You are right that times they are achangin with the voters and if we don't at least adopt a rudimentary attempt to understand the new ways of evaluating players, we will be left out of the loop and can't begin to argue a position.
As I've said in past threads, even though he was one of my biggest influences when I was playing, I don't feel he should be put into the Hall of Fame as long as he is alive because he broke the most basic rule in professional baseball. This rule is posted in every clubhouse in the ML's but he thought it didn't apply to him. His managing was almost certainly compromised by the bets he made on his own team.

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