THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I happened to be reading Bill James’ 2001 Historical Baseball Abstract last evening, and he takes the exact opposite viewpoint.  Its clear he values how long a player remained effective in his player rankings, and would rank one pitcher over another due to the first pitcher pitching more innings, even if the second pitcher had a higher peak.

But I don’t think James really explains why this is important to them.  But people often make this judgement all the time.  I think most people would prefer an OK marriage that lasts thirty years over an intense marriage that lasts six years.

The Hall of Fame selections should be for a player’s entire career, in fact since what happens off field plays a role in the criteria, they should be for the entire life of the player up to time of consideration.  Halladay presumably isn’t going to disappear tomorrow, and be replaced by some other pitcher with the same name.  Since the same pitcher is going to pitch more innings, they would have to be included.  If he simply left the game tomorrow, the reasons why he left at the age of 33 are also fair game for consideration.

Otherwise, the plaques should contain the dates of the years that were cosnidered in making the selections, to make it clear that only the player who existed in those specific years is in the Hall of Fame, the player who existed at other points of his life is not being honored.

I think the minimum time of service requirement was written to make a specific pitcher who died in his tenth year in the Majors eligible.

Very reminiscent of Kevin Brown (211-144, 3.28 ERA), who had 58.2 WAR from his 27-36 seasons. He is on this year’s ballot, I believe.

Another good comparison to Orr would be Gale Sayers in football.

As a Penguins fan, a little bit of me died when you said it was a foregone conclusion that Gretzky, Orr, and Howe would be the top 3.

I agree with your thesis though.

2/ THE list is Bobby Orr, Sandy Koufax, Gale Sayers, and Bill Walton.

(Hockey,baseball,football,basketball)

What they have in common is they achieved greatness, but were injured at their peak and could not complete a great career.

Re 3. Especially when you considered that Lemieux’s peak was also shortened and diminished by sickness and early retirement. In my mind, there is no doubt that Lemieux should be in the conversation for top three hockey player of all time. But again, I’m from Montreal and might be biased.

I think that Lemieux was so good that it hid just how injured he was during his peak. Just because he was putting up 150+ points a year in the 90’s doesn’t mean he wasn’t noticeably limited by his health. He only had 1 year with both good health and competent linemates (Rob Brown and Bob Errey at that)… and that year he put up 199 points.

Lemieux was well past his peak already when he first retired. I don’t think there were any more 150 point seasons in him even if he had played through 1998 and beyond.

Is baseball’s emphasis on career value really unique?  (I’m not sure, not asking a rhetorical question.) It seems to me that most NFL greats had pretty long careers, especially given the short average length of football careers.  In basketball, again, aren’t most of the players considered great those with both high peaks and relatively long careers? 

As dq suggests, each sport has a player of this ilk (and maybe a few others), but it’s not obvious to me that baseball fans give much less weight to peak performance.  I suppose it is true that lifetime counting stats (HRs, RBIs, Wins) are given more attention in baseball than any other sport, which tends to undervalue this kind of player.  Still, I’m not sold on the thesis yet....

And I’m waiting for Patriot to weigh in with strong defense of career value.....

I’d say baseball’s emphasis on careers is at least somewhat unique. The way football is played has changed much more over the years compared to baseball. As a result, the compilers in football are less likely to reach the Hall. Curtis Martin and Jerome Bettis sit at number 4 and 5 of the all time leading rushers, and are likely borderline hall of famers, if that. Some players in the top 20 in receiving yards may not ever get in the Hall. The same is true for passing yards.

Despite this, players with significantly shorter careers but bursts of recognized greatness like Kurt Warner or perhaps Terrell Davis, may get in the Hall ahead of the compilers. Troy Aikman and Steve Young are already in. This is less likely in baseball.

A background on the hockey list.  That survey was done around 1997, close to the end of Gretzky’s career, and Lemieux just retiring.  So, there’d be a natural bias possibly against someone who was still 32 years old (right or wrong).

In any case, Lemieux came in 4th at the time.  It was obvious he could not usurp Gretzky.  Basically, everything Lemieux accomplished, Gretzky did it, and more.  Given that you can find different angles to put Orr ahead of Gretzky and Howe ahead of Gretzky, there’d be no angle that would put Lemieux ahead of Gretzky.

Even Lemieux v Orr would be a tough angle to take.  They both had the abbreviated careers, but Orr had the more peak years.  So, at best, you’ve got Lemieux as #3.

You could argue that it could have gone 99,4,66,9.  But, once you are in the frame of mind that you are considering Gretzky v Orr, and then Lemieux comes along, you quickly put Lemieux behind Orr, I would think.  And then to put Howe 4th would seem to ignore his 6 MVPs.  So, 66 ends up a 4th.

Well, Aikman was a starting QB for 12 seasons.  That must put him in the top half of 1% of all QBs.  It’s a short career for a baseball player, but it doesn’t strike me as short for a QB.  Young is a good example.  He’s kind of the anti-Koufax:  he was the best QB in the league in his first full-time season in SF, so everyone projects excellence for him retrospectively—we assume he was great well before age 30.  A good baseball parallel is Ichiro—we’ll see how the HOF treats him. 

As for top 20 yardage guys not making it, I agree not many top 20 RBI, top 20 R, etc. players fail to make the Hall.  But it’s also true that you can’t reach that level in baseball without being a great player, because the stats are mainly generated by that player (even RBIs).  A merely good (not great) WR or RB with a long career can rack up a lot of yards.  Harold Baines is the baseball equivalent I suppose, but it’s just harder to do this in baseball.

Gale Sayers: I don’t follow football history much, but wasn’t Jim Brown considered the best football player ever, and didn’t he have a 9 or 10 yr career?  I think you can probably find alot of football players with short careers who are considered among the all-timers, no?

And I remember back in the 1980s when Bird and Magic were routinely discussed as among the best players ever (that’s before they even played 10 years).  And then Jordan of course after his first retirement.  So, I think it would be easy to find many examples in basketball where players were considered among the all-time greats before they hit 30.

Hockey has alot of Bobby Orr’s (not at that high level of course).  Ken Dryden played like 8 years or something, and he was an immediate HOF.  Guy Lafleur had 6 peak years and nothing else (like Koufax), and an immediate HOF. Lots of examples like that in hockey.

Look at Pujols.  Dude matches Ted Williams first 10 years, but you don’t hear about Pujols as an all-timer yet.  Pujols should be part of any small-Hall.  It is far different in baseball than the other sports.

My impression is that in hockey, the greats were so much better than anyone else that the short career doesn’t matter.

Orr won 8 straight Norris Trophies, and it wasn’t even close.  Is there any baseball player who was the best at his position eight times in a row, and it wasn’t even close?

There has never been, IMO, such a dominant, overpowering player in baseball as there has been in hockey (Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr).  Halladay and Pujols are excellent, but maybe they’re in the top 2 or 3 every year, not the top 1.

Who was the best player in hockey from 1979 to 1989?  You don’t even have to think about it.  Who was the best player in baseball during 19xx to 19xx+10?  Unless you’re choosing the Babe Ruth era, you’d have to think about it, every time.

Tango, I think you’re mostly seeing that NFL careers are much shorter.  You don’t have to play 18 years to have a great career. 

And yes, look at Pujols:  announcers and writers compare him to the All-Time Greats all the time.  And if he were hit by a bus tomorrow, I think this generation of fans would continue all their lives to say Pujols was “the best hitter I ever saw.” Now, it’s true that baseball fans are more likely to add “...but let’s see where he stands at the end of his career.” But that’s just because baseball has a longer history, and its’ fans have a much greater sense of historical context.  The “modern era” in MLB begins in 1921, but much later in other sports.  So it’s much easier in the other sports to put up stats in your 20s that appear to establish you as an all-time great.

We can all trade anecdotes forever.  The question is, how do you quantify this?  To me, the question is:  are there short-career players you feel should obviously be in the HOF but are not (and where equivalent players in other sports are in their HOF)?

Great point by Phil.  Baseball has the narrowest spread of talent of the major sports.  That makes it much harder to quickly establish you are an all-time great talent.

Phil: Lemieux was MVP only 3 times.  He was not top 1 at his peak.  He was top 3 or top 5 most years (not all).

The equivalent to Lemieux would be Pujols and ARod.  After 10 years, Lemieux is HOF shoo-in.  Pujols?  ARod?  No, not shoo-ins (though they should be).

You also ignore Guy Lafleur who only had 6 dominant years, but was not #1 each year.  He had Dionne, and Clarke and Trottier and others that he was up against.

It’s not just the ridiculously overqualified like Orr, but the more natural short-career players like Lafleur and Ken Dryden, where none of us bat an eye when they are put in the HOF on short-career greatness, and we are not surprised that long-timers like Gartner and Ciccarelli and many many others are not.

***

Guy: I’m saying that ending his career tomorrow for Halladay and three years ago for Pujols, that they should be shoo-ins, automatics for the HOF.  And they would not be.  I don’t know of any players off the top of my head that ended their careers at age 30-32 like the other guys I’m talking about that were also all-time greats in their 20s.

"I’m saying that ending his career tomorrow for Halladay and three years ago for Pujols, that they should be shoo-ins, automatics for the HOF.  And they would not be.  I don’t know of any players off the top of my head that ended their careers at age 30-32”

The fact that you can’t think of an example is telling, I think. It suggests great players in baseball invariably do get the playing time they need to be considered greats by gans and sportswriters.  And in the rare cases they don’t—Koufax, Dimaggio (just 361 HRs!), Puckett)—exceptions are made.  So where’s the problem?

I think the difference here is mainly career length.  Looking at pitchers, 23% of all plate appearances are accounted for by pitchers with over 10,000 PAs (about 12 full seasons as a starter).  This is a total guess, but to account for 23% of all QB games started, I bet you would have to reach down to guys with careers of MUCH less than 12 full years.  Same for minutes played in NBA.  (No idea about NHL, but I’m sure you do.) My view is you have to judge players in context of typical career length for their sport.

Tango/15: OK, I see what you’re saying.  I think it’s just a manifestation of the HHOF having very low standards for who gets in.

If you’re talking about guys like Dryden and Neely and Lapointe and LaFontaine, yeah, that’s low standards, and that lets short-but-not-brilliant career guys in.

But Orr and Lemieux and Gretzky would rightly be in the HOF even if they had to cut half the players out.

Type Bobby Orr into google. Then click on videos. My recollections were confirmed. He could intercept a puck in front of his own net and then just skate past everyone the length of the ice to score a goal or get an assist.

Bobby Hull. Someone had to mention him. I think he still has the most seasons leading the league in goals. Anyway, on March 20, 1969, Bobby Hull scored his 54th and 55th goals of the season, to tie and break his own record. The 54th goal tied the game and the next one put the Hawks ahead 5-4. The Hawks had trailed that game 4-0. It was on the road. Their opponent? The Bruins. The crowd gave Hull a great, if not standing, ovation for each goal.

Then with 1 second left in the game, a young kid on the Bruins, who turned 21 that day, scored a goal. The game ended in a 5-5 tie. It was Bobby Orr. I think it was his 21st goal of the season and I think it set a then record for goals in a season by a defense man.

I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint Guy with a very dispassionate defense of career value.

A few disjointed points:

1. In baseball, this is usually only a problem with pitchers.  Career-ending injuries are less common then in football, certainly.  There are very few position players that were legitimate top of the heap stars over a 5-10 year period that didn’t go on to compile career value meeting HOF standards.  The guys you can argue for are generally of a lesser class.

2. Gale Sayers is a good football example; Jim Brown is not.  Jim Brown, at the time he retired, was #1 all-time in rushing yards.  He amassed a tremendous amount of career value, even using a zero baseline. 

Also, Brown is still 23rd all-time in carries.  Unlike baseball, in which 9 batters have to take turns, a great back gets many more opportunities than an average back.  Brown in 9 years might have got as many carries as an average NFL back of his day would have gotten in 15 (or not; I don’t really know).

3. Curtis Martin and Jerome Bettis were compilers to an extent that few baseball players have ever been (I’ll leave it to others to explain what differences in the sports create this phenomenon).  Martin averaged 4 yards a carry, Bettis 3.9.  The NFL avg is usually in the neighborhood of 4, so their “Yards Abv Avg” might actually be negative. This just doesn’t happen in baseball.

4. With respect to hoops, the impact of a superstar on his team’s record is much greater than that of a comparable baseball player.  I was still excited to watch the Tribe after Belle and Manny left; it will be years before I waste my time on a Cavs game.
The championship impact gives a good reason for someone just focused on the player’s contribution to the team to favor a peak-only basketball player, but not much at all to favor a peak-only ballplayer. 

I think the same argument probably applies to quarterbacks.

5. I disagree with Tango/11.  Pujols is widely regarded as an all-time great.  ESPN announcers fall all over themselves to say it when the Cards are on.  He already ranked as Ken Griffey’s equal in Chone’s WAR before the season started, so it would take a very small hall for even an extreme career value proponent (like myself) to exclude him.

It’s true, I don’t consider him to be the equal of a Gehrig or a Foxx yet at first base--and I don’t see why I should.  Gehrig and Foxx both had the tremendous peak value of Pujols, plus additional seasons as excellent contributors.  It may be extreme to downplay peak as much as I do, but it’s also extreme to just ignore anything outside of the peak, and give no credit for going beyond that limited time frame.

Bottom line for me: I think that individual players in a team sport should be evaluated not on whether their own individual talent is the best among other individuals, but to what extent their talents allows them to contribute to team success (wins, championships, and meant in a theoretical way, not “Count the Ringz").  Being the best basketball player in the world means having a much larger impact on team success than being the best baseball player does, and that means that peak performance is a more important consideration, because the championship impact is much greater.

There is definitely something to the length of most careers in the NFL vs. MLB, but I’m not sure that explains all of it. Part of it also may be that, generally, if you are done in the NFL, that is it. A team can’t move you to left field, first base, DH or the 5th starter role to continue your career. In baseball, it is expected that you be able to contribute for more years than in the NFL.

I don’t think baseball necessarily gets it wrong, but guys like Juan Gonzalez, Dale Murphy, Bret Saberhagen, and Denny McLain are all two-time MVP/Cy Young award winners and would have a much easier time making into the Hall in the NFL with those qualifications. Troy Aikman may have played 12 seasons, but he only had 5-7 good ones and the stats of Mark Brunell aren’t all that different.

Regarding Pujols, if he retired today, he would be somewhere around 35th all-time WAR among position players. My guess is that, with a little argument, many would place him into the top 20. In the NFL, the argument would be more likely to revolve around putting him in the top 5. Joe Montana played in close to 100 games less than Favre, Elway, and Marino yet when discussions of greatest quarterback of all time are had, Montana is right at the top of the list. The same is true for Jim Brown and Barry Sanders despite having played in fewer games than Emmitt Smith and Walter Payton. In the NFL, the peak is much more important than longevity. Longevity still has an impact, but not near to the level as baseball.

Patriot, I said “strong,” not “hysterical.” Your comment is well stated, and therefore exactly what I would have expected....

Another factor with respect to quarterbacks and a comparison like Aikman/Brunell is that mainstream football “analysis” consists largely of conflating the success of the QB with the success of the team. It doesn’t matter whether Aikman or any other QB has a larger effect on the team’s success than a comparable ballplayer--people believe it to be true.

By that line of reasoning, Montana, with 4 championships, is the undisputed modern era career value leader among QBs (well, him and Bradshaw, who’s not nearly as well-revered, which shows that there’s a little more that goes into ranking QBs than counting rings).

If you’re talking about guys like Dryden and Neely and Lapointe and LaFontaine, yeah, that’s low standards, and that lets short-but-not-brilliant career guys in.

Neely and Lafontaine are good examples of what I am talking about, Neely especially.  Basically, in hockey, the “padding” of stats doesn’t help you (much) in your HOF chances.

In baseball, it’s a huge deal.

"The equivalent to Lemieux would be Pujols and ARod.  After 10 years, Lemieux is HOF shoo-in.  Pujols?  ARod?  No, not shoo-ins (though they should be).”

Patriot already addressed the comment on Pujols, but I can testify that it seems that every other article written on ARod in the New York media seems to have a “of course, if he retired now, he would be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame” comment, even ones that are critical of him.

I think the minimum time of service requirement was written to make a specific pitcher who died in his tenth year in the Majors eligible.

I think the 10-year rule is just an arbitrary number.  The only player I can think of who would fit who you describe is Addie Joss, who died just before his tenth season and was ineligible for years because of the rule.  After a handful of writers/advocates spent a couple decades campaigning for him, the Hall finally relaxed the rule in 1978 and declared Joss eligible, and he got elected at that point.

As far as other sports go, do any of them even have a minimum career length requirement for their respective Halls?  I think that has some influence on how baseball players are viewed, in that fans are conditioned to think in terms of some sort of length requirement being requisite for greatness.  One bizarre example is Dizzy Dean, who pitched 55 innings with a 5.40 ERA in his last 2 seasons (plus a 4-inning publicity stunt appearance 6 years later), but who would not be in the Hall without those years added to his record (or at least one of them).  His brilliant peak was enough to get him enshrined, but only because he managed to hang on for a couple years after he was pretty much done, when he was adding nothing substantial to his career, in order to meet the length requirement.  If he’d just retired when he stopped being effective, his career would be no less spectacular, but he wouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame.

I think Ralph Kiner is an example of someone who had a brilliant start but gets mostly forgotten about because he was forced to retire so early.  It took him a long time to get elected to the Hall, and I think even then his election was fairly unpopular with a lot of fans at the time.  How would he be viewed in other sports?  Certainly not among the inner circle of all-time greats, but probably higher than he is in baseball?

It seems to me that baseball fans are more likely to think of Jimmie Foxx (who ended up having a pretty long career) as a great who was brilliant but faded relatively young than someone like Kiner who actually had a short career.  Much less than Foxx, and players start to get overlooked I think, with the exception of active players.  I think people do talk about Pujols as an all-time great quite a bit, but that is with the caveat that Tango mentions of letting him finish his career first.  People used to say that about Griffey all the time when it looked like he was on path to break the home run record, but not so much anymore.  If Pujols ends up like Griffey, I don’t think he’ll be talked about the same way anymore either.

Being the best basketball player in the world means having a much larger impact on team success than being the best baseball player does, and that means that peak performance is a more important consideration, because the championship impact is much greater.

I like that.  It basically sets a continuum from say golf/tennis on one end, and say soccer on the other end.  The more that a single individual is tied to the ultimate championships in your sport, the more the peak consideration is what matters.

So, Bjorn Borg winning 5 Wimbledons is 5 years, then retiring is legitimately one of the best tennis players of all time.  Koufax’s 6 years, while almost Pedro-esque, may not be enough necessarily.  While it’s very impressive, it still isn’t as impactful as say Don Sutton might be (just taking a name out there… put whoever is appropriate… Phil Neikro or whoever).

Basically, it comes down to “theoretical championships added”.

If we consider the NHL to be somewhere between NBA and MLB, then we can see why Lafleur makes it easily in the NHL HOF, while it might not be a foregone conclusion with a similar level of player in MLB.

It’s a good argument, well-framed, debatable.  And it probably helps Halladay’s cause under this framework.

but I can testify that it seems that every other article written on ARod in the New York media seems to have a “of course, if he retired now, he would be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame” comment, even ones that are critical of him.

I said 10 years, not 15!  ARod started his (full-time) career in 1996, so 10 years would be after the 2005 season. You still think he would be an automatic at that point?  I don’t think so.

Dizzy Dean is another good example.  Baseball DOES value the high peak/short career guys, it just has proportionally fewer of them.  Another way to state what a lot of us are saying is that the correlation between peak value and career value (or career stats) is just a lot higher in baseball, especially for position players.  Brilliant players generally come up younger and play to a later age.  In the other sports, this is less true, mostly because injuries end more great career prematurely, and also because they almost all play college ball first so no matter how good they are they don’t play fulltime until they are at least 22.  (And in football, great QBs sometime have to “wait their turn” in a way a great pitcher never would.)

David Gassko had an article in 2007 called “Pennants Added.” It is at

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/pennants-added/

He has links to articles by Michael Wolverton in Baseball Prospectus 2002, and another by Dan Levitt in By in By the Numbers. I don’t see where David has a list or ranking, though. Dan has the top 25 among Hall of Famers.

Adding on to the spectrum regarding individual sports, the NFL would have two different spots: one for the quarterback that is nearly the golf/tennis player, and one for every other position where Barry Sanders, Anthony Munoz, and Champ Bailey are the equivalent of Ernie Banks. Winning the Super Bowl definitely helps the visibility and impact of hall of famers, but I am sort of getting off track here.

In the other sports, this is less true, mostly because injuries end more great career prematurely, and also because they almost all play college ball first so no matter how good they are they don’t play fulltime until they are at least 22.

NHL players come up 0-5 years before MLB players do, and their careers are just as long.  (League leaders in games played, seasons-wise, is the same for NHL and MLB.)

I agree that injuries kill careers in the NHL. I’ll give you another great one: Mike Bossy.  Ten years, almost every year was great.  Automatic HOF.

Perhaps the argument exists in hockey because we don’t need theoretical arguments in hockey: we see it all the time.

In baseball we don’t see many short-career players, because they end up playing a long time anyway, hanging out because baseball is setup to allow for that (DH, swingman, 1B, etc).  So, the discussion is not centered on peak v career, because of that.

And when they do, the writers mess up (Puckett).

And that if more careers ended early, that maybe Halladay and Pujols would be considered shoo-ins already, and the Puckett thing might not have happened.

Adding on to the spectrum regarding individual sports, the NFL would have two different spots…

Excellent point! (To the extent that it’s true.)

We know it’s true if a huge number of MVPs (or theoretical MVPs) are QBs.

I step away from my computer and this thread explodes.

Anyway, I think the difference for baseball is the emphasis fans put on statistics. This is why compilers are valued more in baseball than other sports. How many hockey fans know Gretzky’s point total? How many baseball fans know Hank Aaron’s home run total? So, statistical milestones are more important in baseball. Don Sutton is in the HOF because he won 300 games. Bert Blyleven is not because he finshed a few games short of 300. Would an NHL player ever NOT make the HOF because he finished a few goals short of 500?

With regard to the Lemieux discussion… I’m not sure I would judge Lemieux’s career based on the number of MVP’s he vs the MVP’s Orr, Gretzky, and Howe won (context anyone?) I don’t want to hijack the thread though, so I’ll stop there.

8-19/Jim Brown retired to make movies. Sayers was hurt. Sayers was not as good as Jim Brown.

Sayers was better than Halladay, but not quite a Bobby Orr.

Without adjusting for eras, Brown was probably the best running back ever.

The name not brought up yet is Tiger Woods. Some people won’t concede him the greatest ever until he passes Jack for most majors won.

At what point did you/do you consider him the greatest golfer ever?

I don’t consider golf period.

simple counting stats are far, far more important to fans of baseball than to fans of any other sport:  that one fact explains about 90% of this discussion, imo.

I suppose the fact that in golf, basically only golf majors count would be relevant here.

how many of you know how many WINS behind Jack Tiger currently is--as opposed to the four-major gap?

"Is there any baseball player who was the best at his position eight times in a row, and it wasn’t even close? “

Mike Schmidt is the 1st name that comes to mind.
Then probably Honus Wagner.

maybe these guys:
Hornsby, Bench, ARod , Bonds, Grove, Spahn, Boggs, Berra, Gehringer, Ozzie Smith,

Mays Mantle cancel each other out. Gehrig probably gets hurt by Foxx/Greenberg

Tiger Woods could actually be a good test case if someone wanted to run a survey.  Something like:

Is Tiger Woods the greatest golfer of all-time?

A)Yes, even if he pulls a massive Jean Van de Velde for the rest of his career

B)Yes, as long as he ages somewhat gracefully and plays quality, if not dominant, golf for a few more years and doesn’t fall off a cliff

C)I think so, but I want to see where he finishes his career first

D)Only if he passes Jack

E)No

And then ask that to different groups of people and see if the baseball fans answer differently from other sports.

Similar to Woods, I remember when Federer was still early on in his streak of massive dominance, and some tennis analysts/broadcasters were already calling him the greatest ever, or at least talking about it.  That would fit with the hypothesis that peak performance carries more weight in perceptions for more individualized sports, and that longevity has less importance.

Woods has been the leading money winner on the PGA tour 8 years. The only other golfer to lead for 8 different years was Jack Nicklaus. Woods’s 8th year came when he was 31 years old. When Nicklaus did it for the 8th time, he was 36. So Woods beat him by five years. The next two highest totals for years leading the tour in money are Tom Watson and Ben Hogan, both tied at 5. So it really just comes down to Nicklaus and Woods. Nicklaus was the leading winner 8 times from 1964 through 1976 or 8 out of 13 years. Woods led 8 years from 1997-2007 or 8 years out of 11. So with Woods taking fewer years to do it and doing it at a much younger age, it shows he clearly has the edge. Even if he retired now, it would be a no brainer that he is the greatest.

Plus Woods did it a 9th time in 2009 at age 33.

Tango/23:I thought stat padding didn’t help in hockey either...and then Dino Ciccarelli was voted into the Hockey HOF this year. I was very disappointed to see the Hockey hall headed in the direction of baseball, where career totals are everything.

Brian K: Yeah, I think most hockey fans would think 92 (goals in a season), 215 (points in a season), 9 (Hart trophies), 4 (Stanley Cups won), or even 47 (points in a playoff run) as significant numbers for Gretzky, rather than 2857 (career points). That’s as it should be, IMO.

As to your last point, I wonder if Joe Mullen makes the Hockey HOF without hanging on a couple of years to hit 502 goals. But he was really a borderline case.

I have no idea what you’re talking about concerning ARod.  Essentially all of his career value and peak value would have occurred before then for the simple reason that he stopped playing shortstop after 2004.  He had two MVPs, a second and a third.  Three Hank Aaron awards and two ML Player of the Year Awards (in years he did not win the MVP).  He had led the league in batting once, RBI once and in home runs four times, as a shortstop.  Every single player to whom he was most similar at any age in his career was in the Hall of Fame except Griffey.  He was a million miles ahead of the average Hall of Famer on the Gray Ink or the Black Ink test.  If he had turned into Kirby Puckett after the 2005 season, there was zero precedent for him not going into the Hall of Fame.

When you consider how fans view players with high peak value but relatively low career value, I think you have to draw the line between 2 different situations.

1. Player A had great peak for X years, and he suddenly retired. (injured, lost interest in sports, etc.)

2. Player B had great peak for X years, and he continued playing. He struggled for next couple years without any significant reasons (ex. massive injury), and he retired.

I think fans’ view of A and B would be vastly different. In A case, fans think “A might’ve achieved much more than this if not for injury(or other significant factor)”, and they consider A’s peak more important. However in B case, they think they saw everything of B. And they probably remember B’s bad times as much as B’s good times. That’s why they don’t consider B’s peak value as important as A’s.

Hockey, football, and basketball have many As than baseball. Baseball has a lot of Bs. That’s the biggest difference I guess. (Baseball version of player A would be Sandy Koufax, and as far as I know, he is considered as one of the very best pitchers of all time by many fans.)

Dino Ciccarelli?

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=532349

Wow, I missed that memo.  And he was the only one?  Wow, bad bad bad job.

They had such a huge backlog after the last couple of years with all those all-timers, that they could only agree on Dino?  Wow.

I’m still in shock about Dino.  This pretty much means that Doug Gilmour can never be voted in.  Adam Oates not?  Is Mike Richter in yet?

No Eric Lindros?  He’s the perfect example of the peak player with the injuries stopping his career, the exact opposite of Dino Ciccarelli. John Leclair, Pierre Turgeon, Joe Niewendyk were all first-year eligibles.  Maybe those guys will get their due later on.

The problem (or is that the good thing) with the HHOF is they don’t give out the counts for voting.  They pretty much force it as a celebration of who got in, rather than put out a list of guys they rejected, like the BBWAA’s list is interpreted.

That’s either good or bad, depending on how you see it.

My feeling is that Eric Lindros will never get in because he was such a polarizing figure and because he failed to meet unreasonable expectations. People judge him on what they thought he should have been, not on what he actually was (which was a HOF player imho). And then there are the folks who will never forgive him for the way he started his career.

If AP5 pulled a Barry Sanders and retired at 29 after the 2009 season, he would have ...

(1) ROY
(2) 3 MVP
(3) 8 Top 5 MVP Votes
(4) 7 ASG
(5) 2 SS
(6) 1 GG
(7) Every season better than .300-30-100 (or whatever metric you want to use.

All within 1 decade. Combine that with being viewed as the best player of his generation, and I don’t see how they could keep him out.

There has never been serious PED suspicion, and without PEDs in baseball he may have 5 MVP in 9 years.

How many HoF’ers can match that, even when playing double the years? Not that many.

He’d have to be an exception, and all that is without mentioning he is playing in the most diverse and global time period to this point. Lead Pipe Lock.

Thankfully, he’s still playing. We Cardinal fans are enjoying every minute of it and hope to have 5-8 more years of him, even if it costs 25M per ... He’d still be underpaid significantly for his career.

Slightly off-topic, but ...

One of the reasons Pujols is held in such high regard is his consistency.  Suppose that you took two of his .320-ish years, and changed them to .270 and .370 respectively.

He’s still got the same value, right?  But now his record has a blemish.  That would hurt his HOF chances compared to his real record, wouldn’t it?

Circle: what if he played seven years (retired after the 2007 season)?

I would still have him as a lock, for the same reasons I mentioned above.

Dominating an era or decade (or 7 years) trumps longevity stats for me. He is unanimously the best hitter in the game for the time period he played, whether it be 7,8, or 9 years doesn’t really matter fir me, since so few can make such a claim.

I realize that longevity plays a major role for a good number of players (acculation of counting stats), but when someone comes along that so dominates his time, you have to reward that. I think a similar case can be made for Bonds had his career ended before he went to SF.

I don’t want to deride any HoFers ... We all have our opinions on who should or should not be in, but even looking at Koufax’s home & away splits during his peak reveals something. Is there any such “knock” or good reason that Pujols should NOT be in, even if his career did end after 2007?

If one were to look up AP5’s comparables over the same number if consecutive years, how many players would be similar? And I’m guessing all of them are “top shelf” HoF’ers.