Rodriguez: 1 World Series ring
Ortiz: 3 World Series rings
Granted, WS rings are won by teams, but Ortiz was a fundamental part of each of those teams. And ARod admitted to steroid use (when he got caught) and the evidence against Ortiz wasn’t airtight.
Did Ortiz (and lots of other players of that era) do steroids? There’s a good probability he did. But he wasn’t an asshole, and he was extremely popular, and he won. That’s a powerful combination.
I don’t disagree that A-Rod wasn’t a significantly better player than Ortiz - he was head and shoulders better, particularly because he played two extremely important defensive positions, and did so quite well, as reflected in his WAR. But one of the missing components of WAR is how much a DH contributes to his team by NOT fielding, and letting someone else do it.
That was a joke I hope?
In what way? If Ortiz fields, he’s going to accumulate negative WAR. By not fielding, his team improves. We know this because Ortiz did not, in fact, play defense.
Even if we look at offensive WAR only:
Rodriguez: 115.3 (average 6.7 per year)
Ortiz: 56.7 (average 3.8 per year)
You want to reward him for being too bad of a fielder to field?
???
I’m saying WAR is a great tool - but it has its flaws. One of them is in rating DHs. If you’re incapable of recognizing that a prototypical DH is better suited for the AL than the NL and provides more overall value for his team, I wouldn’t go around broadcasting that fact.
This is what you wrote. It makes no sense. A DH does not actually contribute by not fielding.
That was a joke I hope?
A DH contributes by hitting well and not making the pitcher bat. As this devolves into the eternal argument about the DH, I’m out.
Yep, your right. The hell with this crap. It isn’t worth it.
Repeating for the benefit of bitter Yankees fans and those who say “everyone did it”:
And no, not everyone built up Popeye muscles with steroids.
As for others supposedly denied their rightful place in the Hall of Fame, continuing to lie about non-involvement in steroid use in the face of undeniable evidence has rightfully made players like Bonds and Clemens pariahs. They and others like them will probably get into the HoF by the back door within a few years, and if it takes longer it’s not exactly a crying injustice. For that matter, Pete Rose will get in too eventually, and rightfully so. At least he didn’t acquire a good chunk of his skills through better chemistry.
Meanwhile, congratulations to David Ortiz, who fully deserves this recognition for a great career and terrific perfomances when it counted most.
So Bonds, Clemens, Schilling and Sosa fall off the ballot. The first three will get in eventually, maybe Sosa too. Scott Rolen is getting close will probably get in before his 10 years are up. By the numbers, he looks deserving. By the eye test, well…he never seemed elite enough, but it won’t be a travesty if he’s enshrined. Vizquel (23.9%) takes a huge plunge after topping out around 53 % in the two previous elections.
Ortiz isn’t the first obvious PED user in: Piazza, Bagwell and I-Rod almost certainly juiced. I think Pujols probably did too, but people don’t want to see what is right before their eyes
I would be, as both aged normally and neither displayed any obvious change in their builds throughout their playing days. Maybe HGH, if anything.
Guess who else never tested positive at any point under the MLB program? Bonds, Clemens and A-Rod. Guess who else have long denied any use of PED’s? Bonds and Clemens. Clemens was even acquitted by Congress. And while A-Rod did admit to use, the impetus to this admission was the same test that Ortiz failed.
When looking at the career paths of these 4 players, the 3 all-time greats were on a Hall of Fame path since they entered the league. Ortiz, on the other hand, was an average player until he showed up in Boston, after which his career arc mysteriously changed upwards. When using objective criteria, and not some subjective and biased assessment of body type, there more evidence that PED’s were the reason for Ortiz’s improvement over the others.
So, yes, congrats to David Ortiz. Hopefully, since you know he’s such a classy guy, he begins his induction speech with “I shouldn’t be here.”
Before the push for analytics there were basically three automatic tickets into the Hall of Fame. 500 home runs. 3,000 hits. 300 wins. PEDs are keeping a few from the 500 home run club out but its still looked at as an important criteria. Ortiz deserves to be in as much as many others that are in.
If he were a classy guy he should say “Alex, Barry and Roger should be here too.” Ortiz should be there and I’m sure he believes it too.
This does not appear to be completely accurate as regards Rodriguez, according to the NY Times (possibly paywalled):
As a Yankee in 2009, Rodriguez admitted to past steroid use and asked people to “judge me from this day forward” at a news conference. But he soon returned to banned drugs, admitting to investigators that he used performance-enhancing drugs from 2010 to 2012, leading to a suspension for the 2014 season.
I say judge A-Rod as he said to judge him.
First of all, I think Bonds, Clemens, ARod and Ortiz all should have been elected to the HOF. That said, the PED case against Ortiz was way, way flimsier than that against all those other guys. We don’t know what Ortiz tested positive for to land on that list, it may have been a substance that was never banned. Or it may have been a false positive, which was quite common back then. And as far as I know, there has never been anyone else inside or outside of baseball to corroborate a story indicating Ortiz used. His best years all came after MLB started testing and he never tested positive. So, it’s a little disingenuous to say “well now the HOF is a sham because Ortiz is in.” It was already a sham because Bud Selig and Tony La Russa are in. We know their careers benefited from PED use.
When HASN’T it been about popularity? It’s something that is voted on by sportswriters, after all.
So if you’re a dick (Clemens, Bonds), or someone who was part of a record-breaking event (Sosa), sportswriters aren’t going to be inclined to vote for you.
OTOH, if you’re agreeable, very good, and don’t actually set any records (Ortiz), you’ll be a less controversial person to vote for.
It has never been THIS MUCH about popularity. There isn’t any precedent for leaving out some of the greatest players in baseball history because the writers don’t like them. Pete Rose is out because there is a literal rule prohibiting his election; they are not allowed to vote for him, and his exclusion is in keeping with a century of precedent.
Of course the HOF always had stupidities; having Chick Hafey in instead of Tony Oliva, or Jesse Haines rather than David Cone doesn’t make much sense. But it’s way past that now and into the preposterous.
Well, I don’t play a defensive position in MLB either, but that’s not to my credit. A bench player who can’t hit for shit surely doesn’t get credit for the times other guys hit. A failed starter who is relegated to middle relief does not get credit for the innings pitched by his replacement in the rotation.
If you accredit Ortiz for things other players did, you must, logically, take some credit AWAY from Red Sox fielders for the things they actually did do, or else you will, inevitably, be crediting the Red Sox for more wins than they actually had. That doesn’t make any sense. If a team wins 95 games, they had 95 wins’ worth of value, and however many wins above replacement level that is (it would be about 50.) If you hand Ortiz extra credit out of the 95 wins the Red Sox had in 2005, who are you taking that away from? Just the first baseman? Or all fielders collectively?
Yeah. I suppose one way to look at it is that WAR does give Ortiz credit for not fielding when he was DHing, by awarding him zero fielding runs instead of a negative hundred and sixty. As compared to a hypothetical Ortiz who didn’t provide the added value of not fielding, the real Ortiz does have his higher value reflected by a higher WAR.
(It’s a weird kind of thrill in 2022 to see all the old chestnuts coming out again about the Hall of Fame and rings and how advanced metrics are all hooey. Simpler times.)