THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I wonder if Olerud and McGriff will move up as people take another look at them as a clean players.  McGriff, for some reason, didn’t catch the wave of the offensive explosion of 1993.  Without looking at any stats, I’d knock off Clark and Ventura.

Has there every been a second base class like this?  Biggio, Kent and Alomar are all deserving.

Let me regroup the players based on position class.  That might make it a bit clearer.

Another example of how catching wears on players.  I’ll have to look to see who were the top catchers behind Piazza.

I’m leaving Edgar, knocking out 8 guys:

56 1967 ventr001 Ventura Robin

Outfielders:
67 1970 edmoj001 Edmonds Jim
65 1967 loftk001 Lofton Kenny
64 1968 shefg001 Sheffield Gary
67 1966 walkl001 Walker Larry

Firstbasemen/DH:
58 1964 clarw001 Clark Will
51 1963 mcgrf001 McGriff Fred
57 1968 olerj001 Olerud John

Larry Walker is the next guy in, though that might just be Canadian hometown bias.  He’s a lock for the Canadian baseball hall of fame, anyway, so he probably doesn’t care whether he gets into Cooperstown.

Olerud, McGriff, Lofton (not sure I trust his defense was THAT good), Ventura, maybe Kent.  It’s a very strong group.  Sosa on the merits is surprisingly borderline.

This is the generation of players I first started watching, so I do have some biases towards them. Some absolutely excellent players come from this era, but I’d say a lot of them are “underrated” in the eyes of most fans.

Knocking off seven guys seems very tough. My personal cutoff is 60 for some reason (I started looking into HoF stuff with Edgar, so I like the 60 WAR range), so anybody under that I probably would push aside. That certainly takes out Olerud, Clark, Ventura, and McGriff, guys who I never thought of as HoFers anyway. I’m surprised that Piazza fell short, though I suspect it was the tail end of his career that did him in. I’d be hard-pressed not to put him in though. Kent is sort of in the same boat to me, an amazingly strong offensive player at a traditionally weak offensive position.

After those six guys, the going gets really tough to me. Sosa, Lofton, and Edmonds are the qualitative questionable ones. I know Sosa, Big Mac, and Palmeiro are going to have a hard time for non-production reasons. But none of them seem bad enough to take off the ballot. I’ll probably look at a WAR chart to compare a few of them.

I updated the main blog entry to include pitchers.

I’d have a hard time arguing for including a DH (Edgar) but excluding a better hitter who played the field (Sheffield).  Sheffield was about 5 wins better as hitter/baserunner.  Edgar ends up ahead in WAR because his combined defensive contribution (fielding plus position adjustment) is -124 runs, while Sheffield is -257—13 wins worse.  Maybe Sheffield was that bad in the field, but was he really that much less valuable than if he DHed?  And if so, do we blame him or the GMs/managers who failed to make him a DH?

I’m amazed that Alomar ranks as high as he does, even though Rally’s system rates him a below average fielder. 

Looking at Piazza’s WAR, I wonder if the catcher position adjustment (about 8 runs) needs to be increased, given Tango’s finding that catchers have a hitting penalty (in addition to their defensive value).

Amazing that Pujols (67.4) would already fit comfortably in the middle of this pack.

Guy: I absolutely agree that, for the purposes of HOF, you have to limit the downside of the pos+fielding to what it is for the DH minus 0.5 wins per year (because of the DH penalty).  I suspect therefore that Sheffield’s pos+fld will match Edgar’s.

Agreed that we need to take a closer look at catchers.  I don’t know what Rally’s adjustment is, but I think it’s lower than mine for catchers.

***

As for Pujols, I think he would and should have been guaranteed enshrinement after 6 years.  Maybe even 5.  (Silly 10 yr rule notwithstanding.)

If all Bonds did was 2001-04, he’s in my HOF.

By the way, the 1951-1960 birth class (led by Rickey, Ripken, Brett, Boggs) ALREADY has 14 nonpitchers in the HOF.

The best players who are not yet in, and might still make it, via Holy Writers or Holy Veterans:

Dawson
Dw Evans
Ke Hernandez
Raines
Trammell
Whitaker

That would put the list to twenty non-pitchers.  Not to mention:
Buddy Bell
Willie Randolph
Jack Clark

Of course this period also marked the low point for pitchers, with Bert Blyleven the only great pitcher in the lot.  Eck and Goose are in the HOF.  Otherwise the best pitchers:

Candiotti
Hershiser
Langston
Martinez De
Morris Ja
Stieb
Tanana
Viola
Welch

So, you can see why 20-25 is the reasonable number for HOF per birth decade.  We already have 16 for this period, and we can see how 4 should eventually make it, and another few have a good claim.

There were EIGHT nonpitchers born in 1968 with a WAR of at least 55.  This is unprecedented (before or after).  No single year even comes close.  Here are those players:

WAR retroID players
80 bagwj001 Bagwell Jeff
76 thomf001 Thomas Frank
64 shefg001 Sheffield Gary
64 alomr001 Alomar Roberto
60 sosas001 Sosa Sammy
59 kentj001 Kent Jeff
59 piazm001 Piazza Mike
57 olerj001 Olerud John

47 willb002 Williams Bernie
41 knobc001 Knoblauch Chuck
38 salmt001 Salmon Tim

I KNOW what you guys are thinking: PED.  QED.

The 8 players I eliminated are McGriff, Palmeiro, Olerud, Ventura, Clark, Alomar, Sosa, and Sheffield.

Just to pile on wrt catchers, Rally has Piazza #6 all-time amongst catchers, unless I’ve missed somebody, and it’s hard to imagine excluding the #6 player at a position.  Some notables:

Bench 71
Fisk 68
I-Rod 66
Carter 66
Berra 62
Piazza 59
Torre 56 (*)
Dickey 54
Ewing 52
Cochrane 51
Simmons 51
Hartnett 50
Tenace 49 (*)
Schang 44
Freehan 43
Munson 43
Posada 42
Porter 41
Lombardi 39
Bennett 38
Campanella 36
Parrish 36

(*) significant appearances at non-C position

Strangely, neither Ray Schalk nor Rick Ferrell are in Rally’s top 500.  My faith in the Veterans Committee is shattered.

I give catchers a +10 adjustment per full season.  Most catchers will have a +7/+8 since none catch every day.

For seasons before 1953, catcher defense is based on very little data, just PB and errors.  SB/CS data doesn’t exist.  Still, Schalk picks up 46 runs on defense.  He was just a terrible hitter.

Ferrell was about average hitting, and ranked about average on defense.  If he was actually a great defender, then full data would have him ranked much higher.

Excluded:
Olerud
McGriff
Clark
Ventura

easily, they are never thought of as HOF players that I know, and numbers agree.

McGwire
Palmeiro

both are borderline, and adding their behavior during the steroid witch-hunt, I don’t see how writers could put them in. Not when there are 4 players at their positions who were better.

Lofton

simply, he is considered journeymen, not HOF player, and most of his value came from D

Walker

Bonds should be in, he was too dominant; Sosa will go in because of his 60+ HR seasons, unless there is at least Palmeiro/McGwire level of evidence about steroids, so, with that many outfielders, Walker will be out because of his Coors years.

I think there are 11 no brainers (and, obviously, I don’t give a hoot about steroids): Piazza, Alomar, Biggio, Larkin, Bonds, Griffey, Sosa, Bagwell, McGwire, Palmeiro, and Thomas.  Next up, we get Kent, Edmonds, Walker, Sheffield, Thome, and Martinez as maybes, while Ventura, Lofton, Clark, McGriff, and Olerud fall just below my line.  Each of those maybes has real potential to be included, and I could easily be convinced on their candidacy.  And if you want to put Will Clark in, too, I won’t object; he was my favorite player growing up.

In his “steroids will make you younger” article previously discussed here, Bill James made what was to me an interesting point.  He argued essentially that with borderline HOF cases, the benefit of the doubt should be given to players known NOT to use steroids when many of their peers did use steroids, and vice versa.

Barry Bonds’ talent was so obvious that I think its ridiculous to use steroids to keep him out of the Hall.  Put him in based on his achievements with the Pirates at least.  Nor does this threaten the integrity of the game in the same way as gambling (lets see what happens with the NBA in the next few years for more perspective on this).  Its one of many side things that you take into account when comparing talent.

In his article, Bill James specifically mentioned Will Clark as a borderline candidate who should get the benefit of the doubt because he didn’t use steroids.

I also thought pitchers were generally ranked more highly compared to hitters if they pitched in a known hitter-friendly era, like the 30s, and vice versa if they pitched in a know hitter-unfriendly era.

"the benefit of the doubt should be given to players known NOT to use steroids”

But who, pray tell, are these players?  Is Piazza on this list?  Bagwell?  Kent?  Edmonds?  I have no idea.  And I can’t imagine James does either....

I have seen a lot here about how well Mussina, Schilling, Glavine, Smoltz, and Brown do according to Smith’s WAR. They are all near 70 WAR, when the median WAR for HOF pitchers is closer to 60. I have been in a lot of discussions lately defending the HOF legitimacy of these pitchers. Before continuing these debates, I would like to know if there are any outside factors that WAR may be whiffing on that would make any of them a “non” HOFers? Biases with Total Zone? LQ? Some type of “# of times through the lineup in comparison to older pitchers” thing?

Basically, should I continue to use their high-WAR totals as solid evidence for HOF status, or are there too many question/doubts regarding WAR that it may not be worth it? How high of a WAR does a pitcher need to eliminate doubt concerning their HOF deservedness? Is there any reason to believe that any of them are in reality noticeably better or worse than their WAR would indicate? 

Finally, question for Rally - is pitcher defense considered/separated out from team defense in WAR or not.

Thank you!

I would say regardless of WAR, if you were asked to come up with the 9 best starters of players born in 1962-1971, it’s those 5, plus the big 4.  Add in Mo, and that’s 10. 

And that sounds about right to me, historically.