The Hall of Fame was screwed up a long time before anyone came up with the advanced stats. If you think HoF voting has ever made any sense, hoo boy, have I got some doozies for you.
Sure. Like nepotism. And stupidity.
I don’t know where George Kelly is on that list but he’s not one of the 500 best players in baseball history and he’s in the Hall of Fame, and the reason he’s in is his old friend ran the Veterans Committee and put all his teammates in. Not that George Kelly wasn’t a good player and all, but he wasn’t the player John Olerud was and nobody’s putting John Olerud in the Hall of Fame.
The Hall of Fame has made a LOT of stupid admissions and left a lot of deserving players out.
Speaking as a Sox fan, the idea that J.D. “Called Third Strike when it matters” Drew is anywhere near the top 200 bothers me. I love stats as a math guy, but Sabermetrics seem to fail me here. They keep telling me the guy is good, but when I watch the games he just makes me angry.
The thing I love about these lists is it DOES help me remember the players I forgot were great, like Frank Thomas. A career OBP of .419 is right up there with the all time greats (forget about stats you know). Even with the Jays he never lost that.
J.D. Drew is good (well, was good before the past season and a half). Very, very good. Over the course of his career, he has shown astonishing plate discipline, solid power, and stellar defense in right field. He’s been worth every penny of the contract the Red Sox gave him, even if you include his putrid performance in 2011.
Bear in mind that Reggie hit 500 homers during an era when very few other guys did (Mike Schmidt and who else?), while Jim Thome flew under the radar for ages because LOTS of guys were hitting loads of home runs.
WAR is adjusted to take positional differences into account - the problem is that for some reason the positional adjustment shows up as a component of offensive WAR instead of defensive WAR.
If you look in the Player Value tables on Baseball Reference, you will find the values of all the components that make up WAR listed. Defensive WAR is calculated from ‘Rfield’ (adjustment due to fielding ability) only, when it should really be calculated from ‘Rfield’ AND ‘Rpos’ (adjustment due to position). This has the effect of making defensive WAR useful only for comparing players who played the same position.
Eddie Murray hit 500, but his career started in 1977, when Jackson and Schmidt were already established stars. A few 500-homers guys saw their careers end early in Schmidt’s career, like Aaron and McCovey.
It says something about the difference in eras that Schmidt, who hit 548 home runs, won more home run titles than Jim Thome, Sammy Sosa, and Ken Griffey Jr. combined.
Jackson was an awesome player. I’m actually mildly surprised Thome is that close to him. It goes to show you we’ve been spoiled by the inflated offensive numbers of the 1990s-2000s.
Look at it this way; the most homers Reggie ever hit in a season was 47, in 1969. That year the average AL team hit 137 homers. So Reggie was like 34% of a whole team’s worth of homers.
Thome’s career high was 52, in 2002, but the average AL team hit 176 homers - so Thome was 29.5% of a whole team of homers.
Or for a more dramatic example, take Reggie’s 1968 season. He hit .250 with 29 homers and an OPS of .768. Thome in 2004 hit .274 with 44 homers and an OPS of .977 - but the two seasons are basically equal in offensive value.
And Reggie could play some outfield and was a good baserunner.
The system ranks Edmonds as an outstanding defensive player and Ramirez as one of the worst defensive players who ever lived.
That’s why Edmonds just barely edges out Ramirez. As hitters, Manny is way ahead; defense cancels them out.
I’ve stated that I don’t buy WAR’s defensive ratings, and I don’t, but I think we can agree Edmonds was an outstanding center fielder and Ramirez was… um, not. I know later in his career people started claiming Manny was great at playing the Monster, but he could put on performances of defensive ineptitude that truly boggled the mind. I saw him single-handedly lose a game with his defense in a game in which he was not charged with a single error, yet on FOUR separate, immensely costly plays, he either bungled or loafed a catchable batted ball into extra bases. It was amazing to behold.
So let me play devil’s advocate; it’s it possible that even with his magnificent hitting, Ramirez was effectively equal in value (they’re awfully close on that list) to a guy who wasn’t as good a hitter but was pretty damned good AND who had Gold Glove talent in center field?
Thome’s OBP is 50 points higher than Jackson’s. That and the fact that Jackson struck out A LOT (so does Thome) are why I’m mildly surprised to see him ranked in the top 50.
Oh I know, the stats are good there isn’t any question about that, but the stats don’t translate to video for him (at least for me). Thats what I was trying to say. Honestly it’s probably just a blind spot for me.