Okay, okay, I'm going to back off on the run stuff because I agree that walks have and always do have more/less the same value in run creation. We know that walks have value, and that a statement like, "Clemente wasn't as good as we thought he was," is essentially true on some level.

In assessing a player's value with regards to walks, however, we cannot assume that a walk is something that is always, or even often, within the control of the batter. In the end, a walk is a walk is a walk, but there is much more complexity to how the walk was obtained than a matter of batter choice. So saying a player wasn't as good as another because of walk totals is very misleading.




Park factors are generated by the success of all the hitters who hit in a particular park in any given year, or conversely, the success of every pitcher who pitched in a particular park in any particular year. They are not a measure of the hitting environment, they are a measure of the human beings who played there. I think this is valuable to some extent for assessing pitchers, because they face a variety of batters in the same environment, but for hitters they are incredibly flawed for a variety of reasons.

1. Sometimes the tail wags the dog. Lets look at the historical park factors for Enron/Minute Maid Field in Houston, since I pulled them the other day for another thread.


The hitting environment in Houston hasn't changed one iota. What happened here is that Houston's pitching got a little better in 2004 with the acquisition of Roger Clemens, and their hitting got a lot worse. Is the stadium in 2005 less easy to hit in than in 2000? No, but they have to face Clemens, Oswalt and Pettitte, and their offense, sans healthy Berkman and Bagwell sucks. The point is that in many cases, park factors are more affected by the players on team that plays all of their home games there than by the actual environment. To my knowledge, there is no methodology that corrects for this.

2. Park factors don't correct for assymetry. The effects of assymetrical ball parks are not equal to hitters. The park factor for Yankee stadium is the same for Tino Martinez as it is for Kevin Millar. The odds of Kevin Millar hitting a HR in Yankee stadium are infinitessimal, however, but we know that Tino's HR totals are greatly enhanced in the toilet.

3. Park factors don't correct for dimensions/textures. Sure the Astrodome was a tough place to hit a HR, but it was a great place for singles, doubles and triples because of the surface. For some players, playing in a park like this was a distinct advantage, not a hindrance.

4. Park factor assumes that all hitters are equal. Of course they aren't. Some players are more susceptible to hitting environments than others.


I'm just trying to calculate how good he was. I expected that he would have had a much better slugging percentage on the road than he did at home, since he was a right-handed hitter hitting in a park with a cavernous left field. In fact, he didn't, which can mean that he hit a lot of HR's to the opposite field, or that his power was strong enough to carry the fence there. I'm certainly not trying to guess how well he would have hit in Comiskey park, just trying to evaluate his numbers.

Doubles are also not batter choice. Pitchers choose to pitch to batters a certain way, and some batters are pitched to in such a way as to make certain events more or less likely. The fact that a pitcher doesn't want to throw strikes to a batter is part of a batter's value. There is nothing remotely misleading about that. If you have two players with similar skills sets, except that pitchers tend to walk one player more than the other (even if the batters have identical skills), that player is more valuable. It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter if the pitchers just made an error in judgment. Heck, maybe if pitchers had just thrown fastballs down the middle to Jimmy Wynn, giving him zero walks, they would have been better off. But they didn't.


This is very wrong. OK, it occurs to me that you might not know what park factors actually are. So let's back up. Park factors are calculated by comparing the runs totals scored in team's home games and in the same team's road games. It is absolutely positively a measure of the environment, and not a measure of the players, since the players are the same in both places. So, if your team consisted solely of people that hit like Babe Ruth and pitched like Chad Harville, and you put this team in the Astrodome in 1966, they might score 800 runs (and allow 800 runs) at home (the highest in major league history), but would score and allow 1000 on the road. So even though every one of your games in 9-8, you are still playing in a pitcher's park and your park factor would still reflect this.

You do not, as you imply, simply add up the runs scored in Coors Field and Dodger Stadium and say "voila!" To determine the park factor for Coors, you look at all Rockie home games and all Rockie road games. The Rockie players and their opponents are identical.


Of course this is corrected for--in fact it is central to the calculation. Again, I am guessing you don't understand park factors. The only way someone like Roger Clemens would effect the park factor at Minute Maid would be if for some reason he happened to pitch well at home and poorly on the road. This is certainly possible, and it might be possible for Beltran and Kent and others. But the point remains: park factors compare Astro games at home versus Astro games on the road.

OK, it is certainly possible that you could have a bunch of players who happen to hit well and pitch poorly at home but hit poorly and pitch well on the road (relative to what the park says they should). I am sure this has happened, but I doubt its a large factor.

There are a lot of reasons Minute Maid's park factor could change. First, there is always going to be year-to-year variation. If you played a season on the computer you would have this variation. Most analysts (James and BP, for sure) use a three year park factor average to correct year-to-year fluctuations. A park factor of 95 is an approximation. If its 98 the next year, that's basically the same thing.

Second, park factors change as the other parks in the league change. Since the Astro road games are playing in a bunch of other parks, if any of their characteristics change it will effect the factor for Minute Maid. When the Rockies came on board in 1993, the effect of Mile High was to reduce the park factor of the 12 existing NL teams. Everytime a new park is added, or changed, your park factor changes.


A hammer makes a poor screwdriver too. You are right about this. Park factors are not meant to answer the question "How would Kevin Millar hit in Yankee Stadium". Its like using a hammer as a screwdriver, its not the hammer's fault. Park factors tell us how important Kevin Millar's real life career was.

If you try to do more than this, have at it, but you are into fantasy land at this point. Wade Boggs hit much better in Fenway Park than he did at Yankee Stadium, but then when he moved to New York, he hit better in Yankee Stadium. Why? Because he was smart, and he adjusted his game for the new situation. If Kevin Millar had developed in Yankee Stadium, perhaps he would have adjusted his stroke to hit fly balls to right field. Or maybe he wouldn't. but who knows?

Seriously, any attempts to go down this road can be fun and amusing in a bar, much like "what would have happened if the Lee had not ordered Pickett's charge at Gettysburg". But we don't know, and we'll never know, and the tools you are using are not adequate to the task.


And they are incredibly valuable for it. If the Astrodome makes hitters 10% worse, but it makes you 10% better, you are an incredible asset. You deserve credit for being 20% better than anyone else, and your team is going to win a lot of games. If Joe Morgan hit well in the Astrodome (he did) while everyone else hit worse, he is a great player. When Morgan moved to Riverfront, he got even better.


Park factors assume nothing. You assume that park factors are trying to tell us that all players are effected by every park the same way--but that's your misassumption, and not the fault of the measure.


That's all cool, but at the end of the day is value as a hitter is determined by how he performed where he actually played, compared with how everyone else performed. How he would have done somewhere else or at some other time is just a fun diversion.

I understand park factors and how they are applied, but my point is that they are transparent, rolled into homogenized panacea stats like OPS+, RC, WS, WARP, etc. From that I can't determine how he performed where he actually played, all I get is a numerical value. I'm just looking for a little more granularity.

I'm not simply advocating for Bobby Bonds here; I think he's a fascinating player. In conjunction with Delta's work-up:

14 seasons, 1849 games

.295 career EQA, .297 all-time adjusted EQA

.263 BA, .353 OBP, .471 SLG career

2 times over 100 RBI, 6 times over 100 Runs and 3 other times over 90 Runs

9 years with 30+ SB (a ten year span interupted by 26 SB in 1971)

8 years 20+ home runs, SABR breakdown of his homeruns , SABR look at who he hit them against

6 Black Ink/132 Gray Ink (27/144 roughly HoF worthy)

3 time All-Star, 1973 All-Star MVP.

3 Gold Gloves (1971, 1973, 1974)

Averaged 10 OF assist/season for his career

From 1969-1974, Bonds averaged 34HR and 41 SB.

Notable Top-10's
2 MVP (4th in 1971, 3rd in 1973)
3 times SLG%
3 times OPS
9 times Runs (lead league twice)
8 times Total Bases (lead league once)
7 times HR
5 times BB
10 times K (lead league 3 times, 11th all-time)
11 times SB (45th all-time)
11 times Power/Speed Number (lead league 9 times, 4th all-time)

Bobby is one of only 3 players to hit a grand slam in his MLB debut (William Duggleby of the 1898 Nationals and Jeremy Hermida this season). Bonds is also the last NL OF to record an unassisted double play. Composed a third of the alleged "the fastest outfield that’s ever been put on a baseball field" with Garry Matthews and Garry Maddox.

"He was a beautiful defensive player. You loved to watch him run. When I pitched against him, I loved to watch him swing at those high fastballs. He used to tease me and say, `Listen, when I go to the American League, you'll lose three strikeouts a game.'" - Hall of Famer Tom Seaver.

"(W)ouldn't hit the cutoff man if he were King Kong." - Rick Manning

"I'm going to retire. No way will I wear those damn hot pants." - Bonds upon being traded to the White Sox.

"Bobby never missed a fastball. Everybody threw him breaking balls all the time. You could throwing him 22 breaking balls -- but if you threw him one fastball, he was going to hit it and hit it hard somewhere." - Former Angels teammate Don Baylor.

Rich Lederer article on Bonds.

Edit: cleaning up

Is that THE Dave Roberts?

Cool!

1987 Ballot

Dave Bancroft
Bobby Bonds
Norm Cash
Walker Cooper
Jim "Catfish" Hunter
Mickey Lolich
Roger Maris
Sam McDowell
Tony Oliva
Vada Pinson

* Sheesh, yet another wafer-thin ballot. But Bobby Bonds should be a shoo-in IMO...

* I always loved watching little Freddie Patek play for the Royals. Well, he must have known I was at this game because he put on a helluva show when the Angels came to town, going 4-for-6 with 3 of his 43 career HRs, 4 runs & 7 RBI. Man, that was one phugly performance by the Sox...

* I also loved watching Salvatore Leonard Bando. Good pop at the plate, great batting eye, and pretty solid in the field at 3B.

* You're all probably sick of me saying this, but there's no site dealing with the physiology of baseball players that's anywhere near as fascinating or thorough as that of Dr. Mike Marshall. Just click on the "Free Book" link in the sidebar.

* RIP, Johnny...

Right on the money. Bando was a great player who played a key part in the rise from mediocrity to excellence of both the A's and the Brewers (although he really had only one outstanding year for the Brewers, 1978.)
- Career OPS+ of 119, but this was dragged down by his 1979-81 seasons (83, 64, 82.) He averaged 138 over his prime seasons, 1969-73.
- Bill James rates him the 11th best 3B of all time. His top 5 season WS total (143) exceeds that of Robinson (130), Molitor (133), Hack (140), Ken Boyer (131), Bob Elliott (124), and Pie Traynor (119), among others.
- WARP doesn't seem to like him quite as much, as he never cracked the 10.0 barrier in WARP1, WARP2, or WARP3.

1987 ballot :
Sal Bando
Bobby Bonds
Norm Cash
Walker Cooper
Thurman Munson
Tony Oliva
Vada Pinson

Late to the game but you are beginning to talk about players I saw and can "judge".

1987 Ballot

Nobody.

Sorry. Just cant see any of these guys as HoF worthy.

HoVG? I think all Six listed below (including a premature Dewey) make it.
IMHO
Bonds was pretty close but he seems like Dwight Evens to me with more steals. Dewey should not be in (AND I LOVED Dewey).
Oliva was kinda close.
Cash was so so
Hunter could have made it if he had had 3 more half descent years or 1 or 2 better years.
Bando got a look but I just didnt see it. Though admittedly I know nothing about his defense.

I guess I am the pissy old prick of a voter on this one but I cant vote for any of these guys. Not even a sympathy vote for Bonds.....as 8 or 10 sympathy votes gets a guy in during the right year.
Plus I guess I dont think every year we need to enshrine somebody......anybody.

Will I be dissapointed if Bonds makes it? No....But I cant vote for him.

Here is the outfield blurb in its present form. Its mainly the raw data with comments, and some love for Hondo, Carl Reginald Smith, and The Rock. I still have some defensive numbers to add - mainly the lower-echelon guys, and will do more pointed analyses of players as addenda - including the promised Rice, Brock, Wynn analyses plus one on Bobby Bonds since he's on the ballot this time.

In assembling this blurb, I was moved to near tears twice. The first near-lachrymous experience was when I lost ten hours of work taking a power hit, but the second was in the detail of taking a close look at a group of players that included many of my boyhood heroes. Dealing with historical players in the abstract is one thing, but having these players come back to life inside me as I dug into the details of their playing careers was almost sacramental.

On top of the list of outfielders who played mainly between 1961 and 1979 were three of the greatest players who ever played the game: Willie Mays, Henry Aaron and Frank Robinson. These players were, along with Mantle who we analyzed in the previous era, the first real true five-tool players. A fourth player, Willie Stargell, was a near equal of these three from a purely offensive perspective, and his numbers are a very clear fourth. No one, however, would consider the plodding Stargell to be a great all-around outfielder - just a great hitter.

Below these four, however, there is a very large group of players who were excellent in their own right, but seem flawed in

comparision with the great ones. There are only six other outfielders from this group who are in the HOF: Billy Williams, Reggie Jackson, Carl Yastrzemski, Al Kaline, Roberto Clemente, and Lou Brock. Each of these players had 10000 plate
appearances and membership in either the 3000-hit club or the 500-HR club. Longevity aside, however, there are probably at least a dozen other outfielders who were as good or better than this group for whom a very strong argument for the HOF can be made.

In this blurb, I added a couple of new features. The offensive section is sorted by a number I call Total Hitting (ToH) which is an OPS equivalent number achieved by multiplying a player's career rates (BB/PA, 1B/PA, XB/PA and HR/PA) by Tangotiger's equivalent run values: 0.7(BB) + (1B) + 1.8(XB) + 3(HR). This number corrects for OPS distortion. I also included a factor of ToH that is essentially the slugging equivalent (minus BB values). I do not correct either number for park or era factors. For discussion of park correction, I include a simplistic value I call Away Slugging (ASL), which is simply a player's career away SLG divided by his total career SLG. This is expressed as a normalized value (100 neutral, below 100 indicates a hitter who hit better at home than on the road. Nearly every hitter did this, even hitters who played in predictably difficult parks. Detailed discussions on players will include more detailed qualitative assessments of home hitting.

Here is a list of offensive totals and rates for Expansion Era outfielders who had either 8000 PAs and an OPS+ of at least 105 or players with shorter careers and an OPS+ of 120 or higher:
ASL = Away Slugging. The player's away slugging percentage divided by his career slugging percentage.
ToH = Total Hitting. 0.7(BB/PA) + (1B/PA) + 1.8(XB/PA) + 3.0(HR/PA)

Since the ToH corrections add value to BB, 2B and HR over OPS equivalents, certain hitters come out better or worse by small amounts over OPS. Another reason for inequity with OPS+ numbers is the lack of park adjustment. You can see that in the top 10, with Rice overachieving OPS+ (with a 91 ASL value) and Jackson underachieving (102 ASL value). In discussing Rice, we will examine in much more detail his home park advantage and see how it mitigates. Jackson's high ASL (better road hitting) is actually surprising since two of his three primary home parks (Yankee Stadium, Oakland Colliseum, and Anaheim Stadium) were hitter's parks. In fact, his SLG was very high at Yankee Stadium, at career-level in Oakland, and below normal in Anaheim.

A general scan of the list shows three excellent players who came up slightly short of plate appearances to join either of the "clubs," but who were excellent hitters and deserve serious consideration: Frank Howard, Reggie Smith, and Rocky
Colavito. Howard was ROY for the Dodgers in 1960, but never really played full-time until he was traded to the Senators in 1965 at the age of 28. He quickly became one of the dominant HR hitters in the A.L. and hit HRs with the same frequency as Aaron, Mays, Stargell and Robinson. He had absolutely no speed, was a plodding fielder at best, but managed to reach base with pretty good regularity.

I'm very surprised that Reggie Smith hasn't ever gotten much support for the HOF. He ranks in the top-10 in his era in nearly every metric around, had six .300 seasons, 16 seasons in double figures in HRs, and five seasons with an OPS+ of over 150. He was a gold glove center fielder and a good baserunner (before his knees went bad). I think there are two reasons for his general lack of respect. First, he was never a self-promoter, and was a quiet man. Second, he was never the primary star on any of his teams. He played in the shadow of Yaz, Tony C. and Rico Petrocelli in Boston, was a member of the great 1970s Dodger teams with Cey, Garvey, Lopes and all, and shared the Cardinal limelight with Joe Torre, Ted Simmons and Lou Brock. He was never a big star, yet he quietly amassed some very impressive numbers.

Colavito put together 10 consecutive excellent seasons from 1956-1965, including eight seasons with 20+ HRs, six with 100+ RBI's and seven 130+ OPS+ seasons. He was an above-average fielder. He was a very streaky hitter, which caused him some riding from fans in Cleveland during his time there. He was essentially done by the age of 32. His rates were virtually identical to Reggie Jackson's. Both had good HR strokes, and walked a lot, but did relatively little in the single or line
drive department. They were all or nothing hitters. Jackson struck out nearly twice as often as Colavito, however.

Home Run Hitters (with .040 or higher HR/PA):


Line Drive Hitters: (with .050 or higher XB/PA (HR's excluded))



Singles Hitters (With .180 or higher 1B/PA):


Pedestrians (With .120 or higher BB/PA):

Baserunning: The Expansion Era saw an revival of the all but lost art of base stealing. Conventional metrics, such as OPS+, don't factor basestealing into the equation, but I wanted to try to get a rough idea of the contribution to run production of the stolen bases, since there were so many prolific base stealers in this era.

To calculate the value of stolen bases, I used speed-adjusted OPS (SAOPS) and normalized it against a hitter's career OPS.

The basic formula for calculating SAOPS is as follows:

I generally applied this formula to the lifetime numbers of players with 125 or more SB's during this era. Players with fewer than 125 SB's generally had little noticeable differential, so they are not included here.

As we might have guessed, Brock had the highest differential, with Cedeno second. There is not, however, as direct a correlation to the number of SB's, nor to the SB% as might have been expected, rather the SAOPS varied in a complex fashion with the player's various rates. As a general rule, however, all players with positive differentials were above or at the theoretical 62.5% SB Pct "break even point."

I cannot apply this directly to the ToH value, but since there is a generally linear value between OPS and ToH (.052 +/- 1.0) I can approximate the base stealing offset by multiplying the offset by .052. For this I come up with adjusted hitting values for basestealers as follow:


So as a general rule, stolen bases do not appear to have a great overall effect on offense. Even Lou Brock's 938 career stolen bases only adjusted him .016 points, well short of most of his contemporaries. For those on the verge of the HOF,
however, including Bonds, Pinson, Cedeno and Wynn, the extra points for stolen bases might be critical.

Pure Hitting: I calculated the ToH minus walks, calling it PuH. PuH is generally equivalent to slugging percentage, and generally speaks to how hard a hitter hit the ball when he was swinging away.



Fielding for outfielders is probably simpler to observe through statistics than for any other position. In my view, there are three elemental characteristics: 1.) Range, 2.) Ball Handling, 3.) Arm. Range is far and away the most important of

these characteristics and combines several skills including ball reading, acceleration and decision-making. Range factor is an adequate, if not perfect, measure of this, with PO/G a secondary measure. Its important to compare both statistics to players of the same position, however, since center fielders see, on the average, about 20% fielding chances than corner outfielders. Look at Reggie Smith, for instance, who split his time pretty much between CF and RF during his career. His range numbers are mediocre for CF, but exceptional for RF. This is because the split between positions had him seeing more chances than the average RF, but fewer than the average CF.

Putouts per game is a pointer stat. On the whole, PO/G are relatively consistent with RF, and RG. What it shows very well - better than RF or RG, is extremely low PO/G numbers. Looking at the bottom of the Left Field list, and see the plodders -
Hondo, Willie Horton, Willie Stargell and Greg Luzinski, all with PO/G in the vicinity of 1.50. Lots of hits were falling in that other leftfielders would have gotten to.

Ball Handling is traditionally measured by Fielding Percentage, or the number of errors per total chances. For infield positions, errors are poor indicators of fielding skills, but for outfielders, I think they are better, because outfielding is generally a singular task. Outfield errors are also much more damaging on the whole than infield errors, and probably result in runs a higher percentage of the time. For this reason, errors are more significant than assists for outfielders, since they are more likely to result in runs scored than an assist is to prevent runs scored. It can be argued that increased range increases the likelihood of errors, and that is probably true. The argument that they are more likely to be made by a good fielder may work for shortstops, however, but not for outfielders. Here are the numbers for outfielders:

VAL - Thanks very much for your time and tears. Lots to chew on and digest.

why did anyone ever run on Clemente?

VAL, this was easily your best "blurb" yet -- which is saying something in light of all your previous works. Some great insights here.

Thanks for putting it together.

Call a publisher. Now.

Bobby Bonds
Catfish Hunter

1987 Ballot

R. Maris
S. McDowell
T. Oliva

Bonds is a borderliner for me. Actually, slightly better than borderline, but not 1st ballot caliber. I may very well vote for him down the line, but not 1st ballot. No way.

Another thin cast of characters. Wanted to cast a 1 vote for 1 steal thing for Dave Roberts, but thought better of it...looking at the HOF candidates, looks like it starts to get a lot thicker in a couplke years, with the Benches, Yazzes, and Jenkinses coming up soon...

I'd like to see the list of a "at least a dozen other outfielders" who were "as good or better" than Yastrzemski, Kaline, and Jackson. Or just give me one guy, VAL.

I strongly disagree with this argument. The basic problem is your insistence on using rate stats and ignoring career length in your calculations. You are also ignoring the context in which they played, I guess suggesting that whether they hit better at home is more important than what the run environment was there.

The idea that Reggie Smith had a career more Hall-worthy than Carl Yastrzemski does not hold up. Yaz vs. Reggie is just one case, but you can switch the names and make the case for several other players, like Colavito and Kaline, for example.

Reggie Smith had about 8000 career plate appearances, a number Yaz reached in 1975. At the end of the 1975 season, Yaz's career rate stats were .292/.390/.478, having played through the most difficult era for offense in the previous 50 years. Had Yaz quit at that moment, his career rate stats would have been better than all of the pretenders on your list, like Reggie Smith (.287/.366/.489). So, in order to make the argument that Reggie was as qualified as Yaz, you have to argue that Yaz provided no value to the Red Sox in the final 8 years of his career. You can't argue that, of course, because that would be absurd.

In the last 6000 plate appearances of Yaz's career he was (1) an above average major league player, and (2) his career rate stats were declining since he wasn't as good as he was in the first 8000 plate appearances. Do you think his Hall of Fame case was getting stronger, or weaker? It was obviously getting stronger. Rate stats don't work.

So, you've got a guy who was had a much higher peak (arguably the best player in the league five different seasons), played 75% longer, and was one of the better defensive players of his generation. Here's the thing. Reggie Smith has a reasonable Hall of Fame case. Yaz is an inner circle Hall of Famer by any reasonable measure, a top 50 guy.

Well ... sorry that was poor wording. I didn't mean to imply that there were a half dozen better than those guys, but that there were others who were very good, but fell short in career length. What I meant to do was to attack the apparent "club" threshold for the HOF. I think that Colavito was every bit as good as Jackson, for instance, but he was done at age 31. The difference was longevity. And there were 30 or 40 guys who were better than Brock. Hell, I believe that Brock may have given up more runs through his horrendous defense than he gained by stealing 958 bases.



I'm not ignoring career length at all. When I do detailed analyses of the players, I plan on looking at their peaks. The problem with playing 22 years is that most players steadily decline over the past 5 or so years, so that brings their numbers down. Rate analysis is, however, very good at helping us decipher how a player played the game, and how successful he was at doing it. It hopefully is adding some structured analysis to players' career that is sorely lacking when we reduce his career to a digital WS, WARP3 or OPS+ number.

I plan on doing the same with the environment. There is much more complexity to how a player hit in various places than a homogenized PF. The more detail you delve into, the more surprising things you find. My first impression pulling the ASL numbers, for instance, is that almost every successful outfielder during this period hit better at home, regardless of the environment. Hitters adapted to their home parks. Jimmy Wynn, for instance, was originally a classic swing for the fences kind of hitter. This is reflected in his rates early in his career, but he adapted and learned to hit line drives in the Astrodome. But damned, when the Toy Cannon went on the road, he seemed to revert back to his original mentality and either struck out or hit the ball out of the park. I think that level of analysis is useful.



True, true. Again, poor wording in the blurb. Yaz was a great player. I did a short blurb on Johnny Callison earlier in the old thread (not sure if I have that one somewhere, I will look) where I made parallels to Yaz and Callison as young players. They were very similar, both observationally and statistically. Yaz managed to keep improving, however, adapting to his game. Callison lost it, and turned the other way. That stuff happened. Neither of these guys, nor Reggie Smith, nor most of the guys on this list came up to the show with a "can't miss the HOF" placard like some. They evolved.

Yeah, I triple-checked those numbers to be sure I had it right. I'd really like to be able to look more in-depth into outfield assists at some point. I'd like to know how many of those were thrown out at home, how many at third, etc. Phenomenal.

I wasn't as surprised at Clemente's numbers (since we have heard of his exploits) so much as I was with Jim Rice and Rusty Staub. Rice's assist numbers and THR were fairly close to Yaz's, actually. I don't recall him playing that position that well. Manny may actually be close to that too. The Monster Factor, yielding a lot of single-and-seven-eighths ...

Another thing about Clemente was that he had a high RF and fairly low FP, which suggests he sometimes went for balls that he probably shouldn't have. This is so consistent with his hitting mentality and says a lot about the guy. Is there anyone in today's game that plays with that much passion and flair?

1987 Ballot:

Dave Bancroft
Bobby Bonds
Walker Cooper
Catfish Hunter
Bill Mazeroski
Tony Oliva
Vada Pinson

Edit: Added Bobby Bonds

1987 Ballot
Dave Bancroft
Thurman Munson

Bobby Bonds
John Ellis
Jim Hunter - easy selection
Tony Oliva

Hunter and Reggie were the two indispensible players on the 1970s A's teams, one of histories forgotten great teams.

Great players on great teams. Its pretty simple.

I think you're underrating Bando and overrating Catfish. Here are their win shares, 1969-74:

Reggie: 41, 17, 32, 26, 32, 30 (total 178)
Bando: 36, 24, 29, 23, 31, 21 (total 164)
Hunter: 13, 12, 22, 24, 15, 27 (total 113)

Bando didn't have the cool nickname or easy demeanor, never played for the Yankees, and never was the subject of a Dylan song, but he was the better player of the two, by a fairly significant margin.

Catfish was great and contributed much to his teams, but he also pitched in front of some excellent teams in his prime. He had near optimal luck with his teams (the only way he could have been luckier was to pitch for the Big Red Machine...or play for the 1960's Celtics since almost all of those guys are enshrined).

Catfish had one season with an ERA+ over 100 and 14 or more losses. Mickey Lolich has 4 such seasons. Mickey spent many years pitching for sub-.500 Tiger teams and has the career W-L record to show it (217-191).

Win Shares per 225IP from Cy Morong:
Luis Tiant - 16.15
Mickey Lolich - 13.89
Catfish Hunter - 13.09


Considering Tiant's rebound seasons from injury and his very poor twilight, it's amazing to see him still 3+ WS per 225IP ahead of Catfish.

NRA/DERA adjusted all-time from Baseball Prospectus:
Luis Tiant - 4.03/3.99
Mickey Lolich - 4.40/4.29
Catfish Hunter - 4.42/4.47

First, it looks like Tiant was marginally hurt by his defenses, while Lolich was was hurt a bit by the defenses he pitched in front of. Catfish, though, was marginally helped by his defenses. But, of course, Catfish wasn't a big strike-out guy and his high HR-allowed totals probably skew this measure of his performance. Catfish's 1.134 WHIP is 43rd all-time among pitchers with 1000IP.

Catfish got tremendous exposure from his easy-going nature, big signing in NY, and his teams' successes. He did pitch wonderfully in big games, but by this measure, Lolich is a giant. He out-pitched Catfish twice in the 1972 ALCS only to have the Tigers' bullpen lose games, and Lolich was MVP of the 1968 World Series with 3 wins, beating Bob Gibson in Game 7 on 2 days rest! Lolich in 2 career post-season series: 5 GS, 3-1, 1.57 ERA, 3 CG, 46.0 IP (averaged over 9IP per start!)

For me, all three of these contemporaries sit on the borderline. I can't see pushing one ahead of the others.

edit: grammar, additions

1987 ballot
Dave Bancroft
Bobby Bonds
Norm Cash

Sal Bando is probably deserving -- although I'll admit that, until I first read the Historical Baseball Abstract, the thought that he had a HOF career never crossed my mind.

By the way, this will be the last "year" for nearly a decade that doesn't have a Hall of Fame lock on it.

1987:
Bobby Bonds
Jim "Catfish" Hunter
Tony Oliva

Since 1987 is kind of a light year for candidates, I was curious who was on the actual HoF ballot that year. The voting resuslts are here.

Inducted:
Catfish Hunter
Billy Williams
Ray Dandridge (Veterans Com.)

Notable:
Jim Bunning - 69.98%
Orlando Cepeda - 43.34%
Ron Santo - 18.89%
Dick Allen - 13.32%
Bobby Bonds - 5.81%
Sal Bando - 0.73%

Yes, Sal Bando got 3 whole votes. And it really saddens me that Santo hasn't been inducted yet. Not only is he entirely worthy, but he's devoted his life's work to baseball. Preaching to the choir, I know...

1987:
Bobby Bonds
Catfish Hunter
Tony Oliva

Very weak class.... I noticed the 1986 ballot was up and I had fully intended to vote, but the deadline passed and I didn't make it. Sorry.

I really wanted to vote for Willie Mac, too. Maybe that's why I am voting for Bonds now.

Since Bobby Bonds is up this time, I took the time to do a detailed analysis of his career. At this point, I honestly can't say if I am going to vote for him or not. I think so, but its a very difficult analysis. I'll let everyone make up their own minds.



In the process of researching Bobby Bonds, the very first line from the very first article on him in The Sporting News (7/3/65) read, "He's the rage of the Western Carolinas League, this human streak of lightning from Riverside, Calif. Already Bobby Bonds, a 19-year old whiz, is drawing comparisons with Willie Mays." This article was written about him in his third month of professional baseball.

This is, of course, the real story of Bonds career, chasing not only the unreal expectations of others, but also of himself. He was a consumate stats watcher, and from at least 1971 he began setting public goals for himself at the beginning of the season, almost never reaching them. This added, to some degree, to a sense of disappointment in his accomplishments, and ultimately to an early end to his career.

He had been a all-sport prodigy from a sporting family growing up in Riverside, CA, and was the Southern California High School Athlete-of-the-Year in 1965. He was an all-league tailback in football, once scored 38 points in basketball, ran the
100-yard dash in 9.5 seconds and long-jumped over 25 feet. He was a legitimate five-tool baseball player, and his 3.8 second timing to first base drew comparisons to Mantle. His brother was a wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs of the AFL, and his sister was an Olympic hurdler and U.S. Record-holding hurdler.

The Giants didn't rush him through the minor leagues. He spent two years in Class A (the second being something of a wash with blurred vision after being hit by a pitch), one in AA and half a season at AAA Phoenix, before being called up to the majors while destroying the PCL with a .373 batting average. He hit a grand-slam HR in his first major league game in 1968.

During a Giants game that season, a reporter asked Giants VP Chub Feeney whether he thought rookies Rick Monday or Reggie Jackson had the brighter future. He responded, "There's a guy at the plate (nodding at Bonds) who might have more of a future than eigher of those fellows."

In his first full season in 1969, he played some CF and RF and was alternated in the batting order between the 1 and 5 slots. From the beginning, he had trouble with major league breaking stuff, though, and this caused him to set a major
league record with 181 K's. Still, he hit 32 HRs, stole 45 bases and scored 120 runs. The strikeouts were his only criticism, and he worked extremely hard for his entire career to improve on his strikeouts.

Bonds' golden years were clearly the five years with the Giants from 1969-1973. He batted leadoff most of the time, and played Gold Glove defense in right field. He averaged 122 runs scored over that period, averaged 31 HRs, 41 steals, 89
RBIs, and an OPS+ of 135. He reduced his strikeout rate by 20%, and had excellent rates. Aside from playing with sore ankles for most of the 1971 season (which held him back to only 26 steals), he remained healthy in his prime, averaging more than 700 plate appearances.

He was restless, however. With the departure of Willie McCovey, the 1974 Giants were in the midst of a youth movement, and at 28, Bonds was the second oldest and most experienced member of the team. With no protection in the lineup, he was pitched around, and his walk rate ballooned from an average of .100 in his first six years to .142 in 1974. He played with bad knees all season, and had a miserable season for him. By the end of the season he was no longer even a regular, and a trade with the Phillies was widely rumored. In some ways, this was inevitable. For years he had been grousing about leading off. He clearly stated his desire to become a 40-40 man and may in fact have become obsessed with the idea, coming tantalizingly close in 1973 (39-44). Rumors arose about drug use and drinking (he had indeed been charged with DWI during the 1973 season, but vehemently denied drug use).

He was traded to the Yankees after the 1974 season, straight up for Bobby Murcer - an ironic deal involving the "Next Willie Mays" and the "Next Mickey Mantle." Thus began Bonds' nomadic years, in which he played for seven different teams over the last seven years of his career.

His decline can be seen in his rates. His 1B and 2B rates dropped off significantly over the next few years, and although he stole at least 30 bases over the next five seasons, his success rate dropped off significantly to less than 70%.

Although he put together some fine seasons overall in the A.L., he seemed to have narrowed his focus to two things - home runs and stolen bases. He developed a bad reputation among owners, but that really wasn't deserved. He remained hugely popular with the fans and writers and once received a standing ovation in Cleveland after striking out with the bases loaded. He was a truly nice guy, who worked hard, and was a wonderful player to watch. In reality, he was stuck in the middle of two revolutions in baseball that were the driving force behind all of the trades.

The first was the need for speed. The principle reason that the Yankees traded him after the 1975 season was the construction of the New Yankee Stadium. Yankee management reasoned that they needed speed, not power, for the new ballpark, so traded him to the Angels for Mickey Rivers.

The second, and overriding reason for his bouncing around, was the new economics of the game caused by free agency. The Angels traded him after his best season (1977) because he was entering his option year. Reggie Jackson had just signed the biggest free agent contract in history (2.9M a year for 5 years) and Angels management feared that Bonds (who was making just $180,000) would get an even higher amount in the market - because Bonds was felt to be a better player than Jackson.

When Bonds announced his decision to play out his option, the White Sox traded him again mid-season to the Rangers, who signed him to a relatively modest four-year contract, but decided they had overreached their payroll and in turn traded him to the Indians. He bounced back to the N.L. after a season in Cleveland, but by then his skills had diminished and he was essentially done at age 33.

Its difficult to analyze Bobby Bonds' career based solely on his numbers. I had hoped that in a detailed analysis I would conclude that Bonds had a great career that was obscured by the inflated expectations of the baseball world. To some extent this is true. The 1968-1973 Bonds was a truly great player. No less a figure than Sparky Anderson declared in 1973 when Bonds wasn't voted as an All-Star by the fans that he was the best player in the game, a sentiment that was echoed by knowledgeable baseball people for most of his career. In 1975, Yankee VP Taj Smith declared, "There are five superstars in the game, aside from pitchers. There's Cesar Cedeno, Reggie Jackson, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and Bobby Bonds." In 1978, Jerome Holtzman wrote a lengthy article declaring Bonds to be a superior player to Reggie Jackson." He was well-loved and well-respected his whole career.

I think, in the end that it was Bonds own expectations that did him in. His natural game was probably as a leadoff hitter, hitting line drives, getting on base, getting his steals and hitting 25-30 HRs a game. One can see this in his HR rates. During the three seasons that his HR rate was over .050, his 1B and 2B rates dropped. It seems that although he could hit 35+ HRs a year, but it came at the expense of the rest of his hitting. He said this himself in 1973. I think he knew this, but ultimately he took himself beyond his natural game in order to hit more home runs and to steal bases beyond the point where his ability had declined.

He was very aware of his shortcomings, and worked on them very hard. He knew, for instance, that his power was to center and the power alleys. He couldn't, however, keep himself from trying to pull the ball at times, especially when playing in smaller ballparks like Wrigley. He worked extremely hard on hitting breaking stuff, but after his initial reduction in K-rate during his fourth season, he never cut it further. He was a guess hitter, and couldn't stop himself from trying to anticipate what the next pitch was. He was a tremendous fastball hitter, but struck out on a lot of two-strike fastballs because he was guessing curve. All of these criticisms are from his own commentary.

He was an excellent player, possibly the best all-around outfielder of the 1970s, but alas, he could have been so much more. In 1982, after being released by the Columbus Clippers (where he was a teammate of Bobby Murcer for a while), he expressed no regrets, "I'm "walking away with my head held high. I'm not ashamed."

No one was elected in 1987...on to 1988.

Absolutely fantastic analysis, Vermonter. Fantastic. Well done.

No votes yet for 1988...

I concur; great work, VAL.

1988 ballot:
Sal Bando
Bobby Bonds
Norm Cash
Walker Cooper
Thurman Munson
Tony Oliva
Vada Pinson
Reggie Smith
Wilver Stargell
Luis Tiant

1988 BALLOT

Bobby Bonds
Norm Cash
Walker Cooper
Jim "Catfish" Hunter
Sam McDowell
Tony Oliva
Vada Pinson
Reggie Smith
Willie Stargell
Luis Tiant

* There are a ton of "very good" ballplayers on this ballot -- a greater percentage than I think I've seen since we started this thing. Rudi? Mayberry? Wise? Spaceman & Sparky? Like I said -- a lotta "very good" players.

* I've dumped Lolich, Maris and Bancroft. I had no choice, really. With Luis, Reggie & Willie as newbs, the other 3 are the odd men out. Based on the vote totals, none of them stood a chance anyway, but I would've liked to sustain my support to the end of their eligibility.

* So, how many of you remember watching Mark Belanger range to his right, thinking "Man, he's the greatest defensive shortstop I've ever seen"? I felt that way until Ozzie came along. Sure, there are detractors who'll say his fielding stats and reputation were greatly inflated by the presence of Brooks Robinson, but in the mid-70s he'd often get to the balls that Brooks was too old to catch up with. And he had a tremendous gun right up until he retired. R.I.P., pride of Pittsfield...

* Lee May was the Gary Sheffield of his day -- always an intimidating presence in the batter's box, swatting that bat back and forth like it was made of balsa wood. He wasn't nearly the complete hitter Sheffield is, but cripes he could kill the ball when he got his pitch -- usually a thigh-high outside fastball.

* I remember watching an NBC Game of the Week about 1974 or 75. Cards vs Dodgers, with Garagiola and Kubek in the booth. Ninth inning rolls around and with the Dodgers threatening, Red Schoendienst is out on the mound handing the ball to Al Hrabosky, who begins his warmup tosses. Right about then, my dad enters the room with a can of Black Label and grabs a chair. The pitcher is now standing with his back to the plate, head down, rubbing up the ball like crazy. Then he turns back toward the plate, punches his glove, and charges up the mound with a Yosemite Sam scowl on his face.

So my old man says, "Who the hell's this guy? Is he the one they call The Wild Polack?"

Bonds
Hunter
Tiant

If Bonds is in the HoF, so is Dwight Evans.

1988 ballot
Dave Bancroft
Bobby Bonds
Norm Cash
Willie Stargell

1988 Ballot

R. Maris
S. McDowell
T. Oliva
W. Stargell
L. Tiant

I had Bonds here, but upon doing some more research, and seeing some arguments made here, have decided against. he is truly a borderline HOFer, and I MAY give him a vote down the line (assuming he doesnt make it anyway), but I may not.

Don't think Stargell was good enough?

Not for first ballot.

1988 Ballot
Dave Bancroft
Sal Bando
Bobby Bonds
Willie Stargel
Luis Tiant

But Bobby Bonds was? You voted for him on his first ballot. I'm intrigued now...

I rank Bonds's accomplishments higher than I do Stargell's.

You aren't giving me much to go on here. I'm curious as to why you think Bobby Bonds is a better baseball player than Willie Stargel.

Remember, I don't have the advantage of having seen them play (I was 2 when Pops retired), so all I have is anecdotal stories of them and statsheets to go on.

Why is the sum total of Bobby Bonds, someone not in the Hall of Fame, above that of Willie Stargel, who was a first ballot pick?

Sal Bando
Bobby Bonds
Jim Hunter
Tony Oliva
Reggie Smith
Willie Stargell
Luis Tiant

I saw them both play, and in my mind, Bonds could do more things with his speed and defense and bat than Pops could with his tools.

I can (and have been) convinced to add/delete votes in the past. I can't provide much more support for my choices than what I've given. If I need to pass a vetting process, please let me know.

No need to get snippy, Patty, I was just curious because you're the first person I've talked to that would put Bonds ahead of Stargell. The only people I'm vetting are Stargell and Bonds...I'm going to vote for both I wanted some background behind why your opinion is against the norm.

Maybe you'll get around to providing some though...something beyond a vauge notion of speed and defense over tools (you can get snippy at that.)

With all the love being given Bobby Bonds, I'll do some Dwight Evans comparisons, even though Dewey isn't being voted on here.

Avg: Evans .272, Bonds .268
Hits: Evans 2446, Bonds 1886
HRs: Evans 385, Bonds 332
Runs: Evans 1470, Bonds 1258
RBIS: Evans 1384, Bonds 1024
OPS: Evans .840, Bonds .824
OPS vs League AVG: Bonds +109, Evans +103
RC: Evans 1570, Bonds 1171
GGs: Evans 8, Bonds 3
All-Star berths: Evans 3, Bonds 3

Do these numbers show that everyone voting for Bonds also votes for Evans? Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. Either way, Bonds is no HoFer IMO.

You are also comparing apples to oranges.

Evans played for 20 years. Bonds for 14. They both had 3 bookend years of their career where they were essentially part/half time players (Evans first 2, and last vs. Bonds first/last 2). Evans played in Fenway Park during it's Coors Field years. Bonds played in Candlestick where it was 42 degrees every July. Evans also played in an era with more run scoring, though it's not a large enough difference to really fret about it.

Evans had 600 more hits, but only batted 4 points higher. Evans had 50 more home runs, but actually slugged a point less than Bonds did.

If you compare counting stats, it's not really telling, unless you want to start making arguments that Pete Rose was the best hitter of all time, or Hank Aaron had more power than Babe Ruth. There is value in both consistancy and longevity (longevity favoring Dewey, both were consistant), but you can't just list counting stats and say "Evans was better than Bonds!" or "Bonds was better than Evans!" or "Look, they are similar!"

Also, although I generally hate OPS+ as anything meaningful, Bonds was 130, and Evans was 127, not 109 and 103.

Jumping into the Stargell debate, he was indeed a one-dimensional player. His only defensive plus was his arm, but considering how poor his range is, a lot of his outfield assists were probably on "singles" that most left fielders would have turned into relatively easy putouts in the first place. He also made more errors than similar leftfielders, Hondo and the Bull. He was, in my view, a DH with a glove. I used the poor defense argument in not voting for Brock, but Brock had other issues as well. I intend to vote for Stargell, he was such a good hitter, but can understand not putting him on the first ballot.

What I couldn't quite capture Bonds in the bio I did on him is that you really had to see him to appreciate him. I think the best comparison for you younger folks is that he was very much like Griffey Jr - not in direct comparison, of course, but in the sense of viewing effortless natural ability. Most of the superlatives used to describe Bonds in his day were based on this observation, not so much his numbers.

Here's my ballot:

Dave Bancroft
Bobby Bonds
Walker Cooper
Catfish Hunter
Bill Mazeroski
Tony Oliva
Vada Pinson
Reggie Smith
Willie Stargell
Luis Tiant

I think Tiant measures up well with Catfish, and I think both are deserving. I will do bios on Tiant, Pinson and Smith for later, I don't think any of them are close this time.

1988:
Bobby Bonds
Sam McDowell
Andy Messersmith
Tony Oliva
Reggie Smith
Willie Stargell
Luis Tiant

Bonds
Hunter
Maris
Stargell
Tiant

Why all the love for Catfish Hunter? He was a good picher, but was equalled or surpassed by many of his contemporaries. He cracked the 120 ERA+ barrier in exactly three seasons. Blyleven did it 11 times, Palmer 11, Jenkins 8, Tiant 7, Bunning 7, Kaat 6, Pascual 6, and Sutton 6, to name a few.

Even Vida Blue had a better career ERA+ (108) then Hunter's 104.

The best A's starter, 1968-74:
1968: Nash
1969: Odom
1970: A tie between Dobson and Hunter, although neither was very good that year. Segui was much more effective in more limited action.
1971: Blue by a landslide
1972: Hunter
1973: Holtzman, then Blue
1974: Hunter

He was not even clearly the ace of his own staff, and none of the other A's starters from his era can be seriously considered as HoF candidates.