“Livik!”
-Rutherford, Star Trek: Lower Decks
Sheffield was a better player than Fred McGriff across the board. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t get in.
Maybe at some point in a veterans committee, but I don’t see him getting another 20% of the vote this year, which is his last on the ballot.
Attempted whoosh? Maris had for awhile there a fairly vocal fanclub trying to promote his election.
It would be a considerable upset if he DID get in. It’s wildly uncommon for voting percentages to jump that fast. I can only think of one player, Larry Walker, who did what Sheffield would have to do.
Maris is the reason why the Hall is more than just a series of plaques. The only reason he should be in is due to his one season hitting 61 dingers. That can be accomplished by having a nice little ‘Roger Maris broke Ruth’s HR record display’, wedged in between Curt Schilling’s sock and the ball that Willie Mays caught in the '54 World Series. The accomplishment was an artifact of the game, but not worth honoring the man’s entire career.
Other than his home run record, he had a relatively short career with only a 3 or 4 season peak, with the rest of his time being hampered by injury. Even as a power slugger, 61 in '61 was his only claim to fame: he hit 39 in his next highest HR season. I’d put John Olerud in before Maris.
Well, he did win back-to-back MVPS in '60 and '61, but overall I don’t think you’re wrong.
But is he a “truly special player” like the other inner-circlish HoFs listed? He’s borderline at best.
Welp I know that, I thought we were all wondering if Jasmine understood that.
The job of a baseball player is to, if he’s a pitcher, prevent runs from being scored and if a hitter, manufacture runs. While WAR and WAA are interesting stats and in most cases shows who the best players really are, it has it’s flaws as RickJay pointed out.
To me, the best stats are OPS+ and ERA+. They show a player’s value in if they can manufacture or prevent runs. To me, OPS is flawed in that you are counting hits twice and it’s weird to add two averages but IT WORKS. Teams scoring the most runs have the higest OPS. Same for ERA. In fact, it would be better to calculate the OPS allowed by pitchers but we are not given the stats needed.
These stats evaluate a player against his peers and thus the era the player played in does not influence them. That’s why I like them. You can then figure out which players fall into the top 10% by ERA+ and OPS+ and those would be my Hall of Famers.
This does not take into account defense unfortunately. That’s the reason Ozzie Smith with an OPS+ of 87 is in, voters put a lot of value to his defense. But I’m not sure his value is as great as the voters placed on him. Sure, he was spectacular at the position but so were others like Tony Fernandez. With just a handful of plays per game, I’m not convinced that even a great shortstop like Ozzie prevented that many more runs than say a Tim Foli did or Garry Templeton for whom Smith was traded for. I believe it was Whitey Herzog that said Ozzie saved at least a run per game for his team. I say that’s BS and can be shown in stats. Still, if possible, it would be good to have some sort of fielding+ stat.
Tony Fernandez was a hell of a fielder, but Smith was better, and was an elite defensive player for a remarkably long time. There is a fairly solid argument that Ozzie was, in fact, the best fielder who ever lived, at any position.
It’s like comparing Jose Bautista to Babe Ruth. Jose was a hell of a hitter, but not on THAT plane. I don’t think Ozzie saved a run a game - actually, I know he didn’t - but it is not at all unreasonable to say there were years he was saving a hundred base hits a year more than an average shortstop. So, imagine if he was an average shortstop and hit about .380.
My ballot would be:
Carlos Beltran
Adrian Beltre
Andruw Jones
Joe Mauer
Manny Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
Gary Sheffield
Chase Utley
David Wright
That’s only 9 - I could maybe see voting for Helton but I think he’s just short.
As you can tell, I don’t consider the steroid stuff a disqualifier.
And I’m big on peak value, which is why Andruw, Wright and Mauer make it for me.
Jayson Stark wrote a good article on the Athletic in the last day on Wright’s case for the HOF. Like him, I don’t think he’ll make it, but I had forgotten how good he was before he got hurt. If you’d have asked about no doubt future hall of famers at the end of 2013, he would have been near the very top of the list.
One note on @RickJay’s note about Brandon Phillips - it’s true that he did make his MLB debut with Cleveland, but he was actually drafted by Montreal. In 2002 he was part of a blockbuster trade that sent Phillips, Cliff Lee, Grady Sizemore and Lee Stevens from Montreal to Cleveland for… fellow first time HOF candidate Bartolo Colon.
By analytical methods anyway, Wright’s peak wasn’t especially impressive, so I’m surprised you’ve got him on your list.
His top five WAR totals, spread over a period of nine years:
8.3
7.1
6.9
5.2
4.8
Compare Helton’s five best seasons by WAR, compiled over a group of…five consecutive seasons:
8.9
8.3
7.8
6.3
6.3
Basically, Helton’s best seasons are each about a full win better than Wright’s, and over a much more compact period of time. Couple that with Helton’s longer career (61 WAR to 49 WAR if I’m reading it right), and I’m not seeing any advantage to Wright over Helton. Obviously, you vote for who you wanna vote for, and Wright did have some fine, fine seasons, but peak value doesn’t seem like an especially compelling argument…
It seems reasonable that if you’re the best ever at something, that qualifies you for the Hall of Fame.
Defense is often discounted. To hear some people talk, baseball is a game where the pitcher pitches, the batter bats, and everyone else just stands around with their thumbs up their asses. But defense is a big part of what makes baseball interesting.
WAR, though flawed like any other baseball statistic, helps illustrate why a player like Ozzie Smith belongs in the Hall and Omar Vizquel does not. Even though a lot of their numbers seem similar, Smith averaged 4.8 bWAR per 162 games while Vizquel only managed 2.5 per 162.
Nah. “The best pinch hitter ever” isn’t someone I’d vote for. But you’re absolutely right that defense is woefully under appreciated, especially by the average fan. The advanced defensive metrics are really good - but no one puts them on the back of baseball cards.
Thanks for the numbers, @Ulf_the_Unwashed. May make me re-think Helton a bit.
I do admit I discount Helton’s WAR a bit because of Coors Field (yes, I know it should take it into account already). And Wright’s numbers came at third base rather than first base.
I do understand Wright has almost no chance to make it into the HOF and may be lucky just to get to the 5% threshold this year.
Not discounting defense. My thinking is more, how much of a difference does one player make, even one like Ozzie who is considered the best, versus another. Ozzie didn’t get at every ball hit in his zone, some he simply stopped from going to the outfield and potentially become doubles. How many shortstops are so bad (slow) they can’t get to the ball and throw to first? How many such plays in a typical game, one, maybe two? How many lead to the team losing because the play wasn’t made? The thing is, it’s not measurable in a scientific way, at least not now. In a hundred years, fans will see this Ozzie Smith and wonder based on his stats why he’s a HOFer. They may Google or whatever will exist then and see a few of his great plays. You could do the same for other players too and see great plays. I just want a metric that shows numbers telling me he was the best SS. Evidently, teams thought, despite mediocre hitting, he had value at his position to offset. Maybe that should be good enough.
Well, it is the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Stats or the Hall of Quantifiable Contributions.
This is a terrific way of bottom-lining his value in peak years, and I had never thought of it this way. Thanks!
My brother and I had already did some back of the envelope math to prove that Ozzie did not save a run a game as his manager claimed. But I do think we undervalued him.
If you had asked me if I’d rather have Ozzie in one of his peak defensive years or an average-fielding, single-hitting SS who batted .360, it would have been a no-brainer—gimme the .360 hitter. And I could well have been making the wrong choice.