I don’t want to hijack RickJay’s thread on Center Fielders, so let’s discuss the merits here.
Jim Edmonds? I see a lot more support than I expected. I think he’s a very good player, but he doesn’t pass the “eye test” for me. I don’t watch him and say, “That’s one of the all time greats.” I put him in the same category as Bernie Williams. Or Torii Hunter. Love to watch them, but not HOF.
I also see more support for Kenny Lofton than I expected. Very good ball player, but HOF?? Come on…
Y’know, I’m not sure that I’d put Jim Edmonds in the MLB Hall of Fame, either; I think he’s borderline. At the same time, though, I think that he’s pretty clearly one of the top fifteen or twenty (depending on how you rank the 19th century guys) major league center fielders of all-time. And by that criterion, maybe he belongs a priori. I’d need to think about it a bunch more to figure out where I’d prefer to draw the line. I stand by his superiority to Kirby Puckett and, say, Hack Wilson (the latter unless you value peak much more than career). He’s definitely underrated.
…But Kenny Lofton, yeah, I don’t know what the hell that’s about.
Edmonds has been one of my favorite players for years because he’s such a human highlight film. I’m particularly a fan of that one spinning Spider-Man homer stealing catch - you probably know the one I mean. But I don’t know if he’s a Hall of Fame player. And Lofton definitely isn’t. He was a good leadoff hitter for a while and he’s been a quality role player for years, but nowhere near a Hall of Famer.
I put Edmonds in the “very good, but not great” category. His 132 lifetime OPS+ is impressive, but it’s SLG-heavy (rather than OBP-heavy, which would be more valuable), and in his entire career he’s played in over 120 games in only 9 seasons. (And over 140 games in only 6 seasons.) He (currently) fails the gray-ink test, as well as both the HOF Standards and HOF Monitor evaluations. And as far as I can tell, he’s never led his league in any major statistical category.
Exciting? Extremely valuable? Sure. Hall of Fame? He’d have to continue his 2008 rampage with the Cubs, and have another great season (at age 38/39) next year for me to seriously consider him worthy.
(Edited to add: Kenny Lofton? Not even close. One great season and a handful of good ones do not a Hall of Famer make…)
I was shocked to put Edmonds on my own Hall of Fame ballot (or I had him there at one point, I can’t quite remember right now.)
But if you look at the numbers I think he’s a legitimate Hall of Famer. You name twelve other center fielders in major league history and I can provide a solid case Edmonds was better than at least three of them; I know, because I did it when I made my ballot.
Edmonds has been a very good offensive player, and his OPS+ isn’t particularly SLG-heavy even by the standards of Hall of Famers; .377 is very good. He is a VASTLY better hitter than the likes of Torii Hunter - Torii’s a good player but he can’t carry Edmonds’s jockstrap as a hitter. His career is getting to a reasonable HoF length, 1901 games now. He’s an excellent defensive center fielder, or was.
I may as well pull out some stathead stuff, but here’s Edmonds as compared to other center fielders, his contemporaries, HoF candidate, and HoF arguables, just randomly picked - in WARP:
I was all ready to reply to this by showing that .377 is very good, but “only” 35 points better than the league’s .342 during his career. By comparison, his .528 SLG is almost 100 points better than the league’s .434. But looking deeper, I see that this is a pretty typical “split” between the two numbers, so I’m willing to back off the claim that his OPS+ is unusally SLG-heavy.
But, he still loses my vote because of his inability to stay in the lineup. Yes, he’s played in lots of games, but in most individual seasons he missed a good chunk of time. If one drops his rookie season, and doesn’t count 2008, he has 7244 plate appearances spread over 14 seasons. That’s 517 PA per season, where a nearly-full season would be about 680 PA. In other words, a typical Edmonds season was actually 75% Edmonds and 25% Joe Replacement, which really drags down the advantage he gives his team.
I respect the man’s play. He had a great peak between 2000 and 2005, and his fielding should certainly count for something. If only had been able to stay in the lineup more consistently, I’d have voted for him. As it is, though, I think he’s just on the wrong side of the borderline.
Edited to add: Yes, of course he’s better than Torii Hunter. He’s also better than Gary Maddox, but that’s hardly a compelling HoF argument.
I can’t deny he’s borderline, and I’m not saying someone who wouldn’t put him in the Hall is necessarily wrong. I’m just saying it’s not an absurd case; there is an argument to be made. He has a good. not airtight, case - not certain like Willie Mays, but he’s right up there by some measures, certainly better than some Hall of Famers, and comparable to most other candidates.
I’ve watched him for years in St.Louis. He was a great player and is still doing well for the cubs this year. I think he will probably come up short for the hall of fame though. Thanks for the memories Jimmy.
I’ve been a Cardinals season ticket holder since '99, so I have seen a lot of “Jimmy Ballgame”. Personally I would rank him as boderline, but leaning towards not HOF worthy. Now if he continues too play like his current performance another year, I could be convinced.
I get in a lot of arguments with friends over this very thing with Edmonds. I think half his spectacular catches are great, and the other half would of been easier if he had just hustled to the ball. Of course now that he plays for the Cubbies I win this argument a lot more.
To me the most important measurement is comparison with contemporaries. Did he stand out with the players of his time.
Snider
Slugging % 5-6-1-2-2-1-4-
total bases 8-1-5-5-1-1-5-2-7
runs 6-4-8-1-1-1-2-9-
homers 8-5-8-8-2-5-4-1-3-
rbi 6-7-7-3-2-1-4-8-10
Edmond has no such standing with his contemporaries. He was not a leader.
If memory (and logic) serve, it should be “Wins Above Replacement Value.”
“Replacement Value” is set pretty low–way above your or my skill set, of course, but somethere around .250 or .300–the level of play you might reasonably expect from a triple-A ballplayer who’s not quite up to the job but is full-time available to any team.
It’s “replacement player,” and here’s an explanation of it. It’s supposed to literally indicate how many additional wins a team gained in a particular season as a result of having Player A instead of someone from the pool of freely available talent.
That’s fair, at least it is a reason I can understand. I think for every position, I vote for one sentimental pick. Sometime they are truly Hall of Fame caliber and sometimes they are not.
Missed this thread because my subscription was up for a while (I hadn’t thought about it for a month and then suddenly I noticed it was up) but here’s my two cents:
I’ve gone back and forth on Edmonds as a Hall candidate (often in conversations involving his former teammate, Scott Rolen) and based on this season, I’ve finally come down on the side of “he’s probably good enough.”
The offensive stats are borderline, especially when you look at the era he’s played in. Sure, the guys who were juicing made everyone else look less successful, but they’re still close.
I think what really pushed Edmonds over the top, much like Bill Mazeroski’s election (yes, I know, Veterans’ Committee, but no one said we were talking Hall voters only,) is the defense. Sure, Edmonds does have a reputation for hot-dogging easy catches into highlight-reel grabs, but that misses the point: he still MAKES those catches. For my money, Edmonds has at least three catches that are equal to Mays, and possibly one that surpasses The Catch (the knees-first over-the-head basket catch on Tal’s Hill in Houston.)
So let him in. He’s certainly not going to be the worst player in the Hall.
