Eddie Murray
Alan Tramell
Jim Rice
Ryne Sandberg


Not giving Rose a vote. To me there is a large difference between him and Joe Jackson:
Shoeless was found NOT guilty in a court of law, and maintained his innocence to the day he died.
Rose admitted to his guilt.
Black and white in my mind. Letting Rose in and not Shoeless would be unjust IMO.

Actually, I'm pretty sure Brett Butler is a better player than Singleton. He had more speed, played better defense at a more valuable position, poked a few triples to keep his slugging percentage respectable, and had a longer career.

Singleton was a marvelously productive player, but he's lacking more than just flash. He was a slow, defensively-limited corner outfielder with modest power and a great batting eye. That doesn't shout Hall of Fame to me. He was productive as hell, but he was not either an all-around great ballplayer or necessarily dominant in the one aspect of the game that he contributed to.

If he had hit another 100 homers, or played some 2nd base, or had a legendary arm, or won a gold glove, or won 3 MVPS, or stolen 200 bases, he'd be a lock.

Guys like Evans, Lynn, Butler, Winfield, Dawson were dynamic players who excelled in multiple phases of the game. I might not vote for all of them, but I'd vote for all of them before Singleton or Rice.

Great to see Trammell getting so much support. Those of you not sold on him, but with a vacancy on your ballots, might want to check this out:

Here's where Trammell ranks among all the HOF shortstops in WARP3:

Honus Wagner: 184.2
Rogers Hornsby: 151.6
Robin Yount: 127.9
Ozzie Smith: 124.0
Arky Vaughan: 122.7
Alan Trammell: 117.8
Luke Appling: 117.0
Ernie Banks: 114.8
George Davis: 109.1
Bobby Wallace: 103.7
Joe Cronin: 102.6
Lou Boudreau: 99.7
Pee Wee Reese: 99.3
Joe Sewell: 86.9
Rabbit Maranville: 85.0
Luis Aparcio: 84.9
John Ward: 81.6
Joe Tinker: 76.7
Dave Bancroft: 76.4
Phil Rizzuto: 73.3
Hughie Jennings: 70.0
Travis Jackson: 57.2

Hornsby wasn't a shortstop. But Bill Dahlen (career 119.5 WARP3) was, and he was in our Hall (but inexplicably not in the real Hall) so Trammell is still 6th on the list. He'll bump down to #7 when Ripken (career 159.2 WARP3) gets in. We also put in Vern Stephens (career 77.3 WARP3).

Thanks for posting this, which is a measure of overall career value.

Here's an accompanying rate stat (WARP3 per 500 PAs) for the above players, except Hornsby. Trammell does even better here. He's a no-brainer.

Arky Vaughan: 7.95
Honus Wagner: 7.85
Lou Boudreau: 7.10
Alan Trammell: 6.28
Hughie Jennings: 6.21
Cal Ripken: 6.18
Joe Cronin: 5.80
Bill Dahlen: 5.75
Ozzie Smith: 5.75
Luke Appling: 5.71
Ernie Banks: 5.52
Phil Rizzuto: 5.46
Bobby Wallace: 5.39
George Davis: 5.37
Joe Tinker: 5.37
Vern Stephens: 5.34
Pee Wee Reese: 5.24
Robin Yount: 5.22
Joe Sewell: 5.22
Dave Bancroft: 4.63
Travis Jackson: 4.28
Rabbit Maranville: 3.78
Luis Aparcio: 3.78

This is just incorrect. This kind of argument is like saying Mark McGwire is a one-dimensional player, or that Barry Bonds just wasn't clutch enough.

You're creating a system where you have players in stratified "roles". Ken Singleton was a walk machine, while ignoring that there were a few years were he was the best hitter in the American League, while Brett Butler was a dynamic player that excelled in multiple phases of the game. Ignoring the fact that although Butler was a very good player, he wasn't nearly as valuable to his teams as Singleton was.

You're letting your perception cloud what the truth really is. You might as well be calling Rice a GIDP machine, or say how he was the most feared hitter in 4 eva!

I think you should read my argument more carefully, or maybe I should have written it better; I don't think anything I said pertained to dimensions or clutch; and by the way comparing Ken Singleton to Barry Bonds is a bit of a stretch.

Singleton put a lot of runs on the scoreboard, but to me, he wasn't an exceptional player, taking into account the level of the HoF that you guys have created here. He wasn't better than Jack Clark, he wasn't better or much better than Norm Cash and Boog Powell. I'm not saying he can't get in because he's one-dimensional, I'm saying he wasn't all that extraordinary at his dimension. He was a great hitter for a few years, he had old player's skills, he aged early. To me, he's borderline. It looks like he'll get in anyway, so there's that.


I don't understand what you're saying by "stratified roles." I do prefer players who exhibit a range of skills and can help a team in multiple ways, but I'm not ignoring value. Brett Butler (look it up) has more career WARP3 than Singleton, and has 7 fewer win shares. Singleton had a few more big seasons, but it's not cut and dried that he was a better player.

If I need a leadoff man and a centerfielder, or if I play in the Astrodome, I'm going to take Butler. If I need a #3-5 hitter and have a corner OF spot open, I'd take Singleton. It's not the same as comparing Butler to say, Frank Robinson or Ted Williams, who you'd take no matter what.


Are you calling Jim Rice not the most feared hitter 4 eva? He once broke his bat in half with a check swing, dood.

I didn't compare Singleton to Bonds...I compared the argument made that he was a walks and singles guy as being intellectually equivalent to someone saying that McGwire just hit home runs, or that Bonds was negatively clutch.

Pre-conceived notion overtakes available evidence as a method of evaluation. That's my point.



But he was better than Fred Lynn, Brett Butler, and Jim Rice. Comparing him to a bunch of first baseman is cute, but not very useful. Ozzie Smith wasn't the hitter that Boog Powell was either.



He has one year left, and sat 2 votes shy of inclusion. If I was to bet, I would say he doesn't get in.

He was one of the best players in the AL for a few years, and he had an excellent batting eye throughout. He had very good power, once you adjust for the ballpark he played in. Hit for a good average. His skills were subtle and focused. There is actually a lot of Ken Singleton in Dwight Evans, minus the rocket for the arm.

Considering he had his last excellent year at 36, I wouldn't say he aged early, as much as he retired before he was a burden on his teams offense...he didn't stick around for his rebound year after the disastrous 1984 season.



Butler was a good player that had 3 great (offensive) seasons and a few pretty good ones. Singleton had 9 hitters I would classify as great. I showed things like trending with WARP3 with the charts above to spark debate, not make a definitive argument. That's where WARP3 fails...when its used to make an X is better than Y, just because of the vaguarities of defensive evaluation. Win Shares has the same problem.



I agree.

That's not what we're talking about though. If I need a HOF outfielder, I'll take Singleton over Butler. I'd take Tim Raines and Stan Hack over Singleton as a lead off hitter too.

Thanks for catching that, Delta. He did play 356 games at short, but not nearly enough for career consideration.

Dewey fell a vote short of induction, Singleton is on his last ballot, and Fingers only has a couple left.

Basically the full complement of the first wave of modern closers are now eligible, with Eckersley being on the ballot for the first time.

It occurred to me that it part of the disagreement may be that I see CF as a different position from RF and LF. This chart is somewhat illustrative:



It's the cumulative OPS of all MLB players at each postion in the expansion era (1961-2005). I left out catchers because they're ugly, and I don't like them (they'd be between shortstops and 2nd basemen). 1st basemen are the tops, hitting-wise, at .788, with RF and LF close behind, .776 and .767, respectively. CF and 3B are even (.740 and .739), with the middle infield positions bringing up the rear (2B=.692;SS=.664)

Maybe that helps explain my irrational love for centerfielders, or at least why I give them a small edge in debates about theoretical Halls of Fame.

That said, I'm leaning towards voting for Singleton in his last year. If the 70s Red Sox are going to end up with about a half-dozen HoFers, the Orioles should probably have as many. Plus, I can tell from URISoxFan's alma mater that he's a handsome gentleman of considerable erudition and refined judgement.

As we're arguing OFers, I was reading John Walsh's article on Best Outfield Arms from the retrosheet era. Just some tidbits.

Walsh, looking at baserunners held and baserunners "killed" as compared to average per season:

Ken Singleton as the worst RF arm of all surveyed: -29.2 runs career, -4.2/162 games. He stands below such RF luminaries as Jeromy Bernitz, Claudell Washington, and Jeff Burroughs.

For the CF period of his career, Andre Dawson was excellent: +35.5 career,+5.1/162. That was the first half of his career; his RF numbers are pretty average.

Dewey comes up third in his era, behind Jesse Barfield and Ellis Valentine (two legendary arms): +30.8 career, +2.8/162.

Now, obviously this isn't a make or break consideration of a player. In terms of career value, the lowest of the low is Frank Howard at -33.4, the highest of the high, Yaz at +67.3 (a mere .2 ahead of Clemente). Roughly 100 runs over a career separate the best from worst. And damn if Frank didn't play a lot of RF because his bat more than made up for it.

2004 Ballot
Dennis Eckersley
Dwight Evans
Andre Dawson
Tommy John
Dennis Martinez
Paul Molitor
Ken Singleton

For anyone who's read Gassko's peice on "The 100 Most Valuable Pitchers of All-Time," the name Danny Darwin will stand out. Not enough for me, though...

But Dennis Martinez. He was one of my favorites after he cleaned up in Montreal, so bear with my bias. The season-to-season numbers are odd because of his alcoholism during what should have been his peak, 1983-1986. But from 1987-1996, he was pretty great. The year-to-year ERA+ 1987-1996: 128, 132, 111, 124, 151, 141, 108, 134, 150, 109. Across 3999.7 career innings, he ran up a 4.48 DERA. Really, he was on aggregate as effective as Catfish Hunter plus another 500IP.

Joe Carter = 1 great season, 1 great swing, career .306OBP

I like and admire Dennis, but he had a career ERA+ of 106, and Bill James does not include him in the top 100 pitchers. His successful recovery from the bottle is highly admirable, but nobody was forcing the booze on him intravenously, and those horrible years should count against him.

As for the Hunter comp, I didn't vote for Hunter, and your charts (which were excellent) showed what an negative outlier he was relative to the best pitchers in or almost in our Hall. I suspect that, if you were to put Martinez on your chart, he'd be almost as bad. Just because we blew it with Catfish, we shouldn't make a mistake here.

Dennis Martinez ought to get some brownie points for outrunning a charging bull named George Scott after he plunked him back in '77. A terrified Martinez pretty much sprinted straight out to left field. Boomer, who had homered off him in the 4th, stayed hot on his heels until Doug DeCinces, Rick Dempsey and Lee May gang-tackled him on the edge of the infield grass at the shortstop hole. Damn, that was hilarious.

Nevertheless, I share Tudor's views on El Presidente. Induct him, and we'd have to induct about 50 other pitchers we've already passed on who had similar or better numbers. I'd rather just doff my cap to him for salvaging his career (and life).

2004 BALLOT
Hawk Dawson
Dennis Eckersley
Dwight Evans
Tom Henke
Tommy John
Fred Lynn
Paul Molitor
Graig Nettles
Dan Quisenbery
Ken Singleton

* The Class of '99 was stacked, and a lot of us shelved certain players -- mainly the relievers/closers. Now Eck's eligible, while Rollie Finger's sands are about to run out of the hourglass. Therefore, I'd like to resurrect the reliever debate -- including Henke, Quiz, Sutter, Big Lee, etc. I'd recommend that anyone new to this revived thread head back to this post on page 25, which began a long and thorough debate between MajorDad, URI, Tudor, VAL, LoBC and others on the merits of relief pitchers.

I'm really torn between the relatively low value that sparsely-used players bring to win measurement, and the need to recognize a role that has become far more prominent and an obvious factor in the outcome of games over the past 30 years.

* Mattingly and Randolph remain on the fringe for me.

* Jimmy Key and especially Dave Stieb are intriguing. Can anyone sell me either way?

* With a push from VAL, I'm also looking hard at Lance Parrish and Tony Pena. Catchers remain sinfully under-represented in our HOF. Bear in mind that we elected Bill Freehan on his second ballot.

2004:

Joe Carter
Andre Dawson
Dennis Eckersley
Dwight Evans
Rollie Fingers
Jim Rice
Ken Singleton
Bruce Sutter

2004 Ballot:
Dennis Eckersley
JiFUCKm EiCOCKsenreSHITich
Dwight Evans
Jimmy Key
Paul Molitor
Ken Singleton
Dave Stieb

Joe Carter will mesmerize a lot of folks with his multiple double-digit HR and century-plus RBI totals, but put them in context relative to his era and they're not at all impressive. This is a guy who only had 100 or more RC twice (Jim Rice had 7 such seasons) and a normalized RC27 of 6 or higher just once (Rice did that 8 times). Carter's lifetime OBP was a measly .306, which sucks in any era, and that OPS+ of 104 sums up the mediocrity of his career.

(Note - I'm using Rice as the de facto example of a borderline HOF candidate, because he fits the model - both here and in the real HOF. That Carter lags so far behind him speaks volumes)

Bill James ranks Carter #32 all-time among left fielders. Cyril Morong's rankings of Win Shares puts Carter at #129 among outfielders. Normalizing those figures per 648 PA, as Cyril does, puts Carter at #300 among OFs -- behind such stalwarts as Claudell Washington, Al Bumbry, Ron Gant, Lee Lacy, Von Hayes, Tommy Harper, and Kevin Bass. In fact, it ties him with Roberto Kelly.

Joe Carter had one truly stellar moment. It doesn't make him a Hall of Famer.


Awesome. Root-beer-through-the-nose hilarious, in fact.

Here are all the holdovers still eligible for induction in the 2004 round (i.e. anyone who received at least one vote over the past 14 years of eligibility).

Bold = Final 3 years of eligibility
Bold Italics = Final year of eligibility

Yeah, this was awesome. Kudos.

Stieb is an intriguing candidate, but his ERA+ of 122 and DERA of 3.93 don’t quite cut it for a guy with fewer than 2900 career IP. His career was essentially over after his age 32 season (1990); had he kept it going for another 1000 IP, he would deserve to be in, rather easily.

I hadn’t really focused enough on Hawk Dawson before, because he was such an overrated player for so many years for the Cubs and later for the Sox. However, he was excellent for the ‘Spos during their little-known 1978-83 heyday. Like Dewey Evans, he lost he best season (1981) to the strike. His career WARP3 was 109.5, well ahead of Rice, Lynn, and Singleton and not that far behind Evans.

By the way, all of the aforementioned were significantly ahead of Joe Carter (70.3 WARP3 in 9154 career PA.) Lose, how can you justify voting for him and not Paul Molitor? Maybe you just missed that Molitor is newly eligible.

It occurred to me yesterday, and this was rather obvious, that there are a ton of similarities between the Dennises: (1) both came up in the mid-‘70s and basically achieved instant phenom status; (2) by the early 1980’s they were viewed as disappointing underachievers, in part, as it turned out, because of (3) extreme substance abuse issues; (4) they were discarded by their teams and basically up for grabs to any team for close to nothing; (5) they won the bottle battle; (6) they became awesome pitchers in their early 30s; and (7) they were good enough to last until well into their 40s. However, Eck’s peaks were higher, and his troughs less deep, then El Presidente’s.

I’m voting for Willie Randolph, in spite of his career .351 slugging percentage, because he played in a run-scarce environment, had a very good career OBP (.374), was a good defensive second baseman (+105 career FRAA, rated B+ in the Bill James Win Shares book), and had an abnormally long stretch as a good player, with 10 seasons of WARP3 of 7 or higher. The December 1975 trade where the MFY got Randolph and a couple of other players (Ken Brett and Dock Ellis, there are tons of good stories about both of those guys) for Doc Medich was basically grand larceny.

Kevin Mitchell’s 1989 season is the ultimate exhibit in support of the Age 27 theory: 291/388/635 in Candlestick, 38 win shares. What a scumbag, though. By the way, Will Clark led the team that year with 44 WS. We need to give Clark a serious look when he comes up.

Regarding catchers, it seems that the basic problems are (1) their position limits the amount they can play in a career, so they have less game time in which they can add value and (2) it’s very hard to measure their defensive impact, both with the glove and in terms of how they interact with pitchers. Lance Parrish and Darrell Porter both seem very good, Tony Pena pretty good, but how do you ascertain which ones are the most excellent? I’m open to persuasion.

2004 ballot
Andre Dawson
Dennis Eckersley
Dwight Evans
Don Mattingly
Paul Molitor
Graig Nettles
Willie Randolph
Ken Singleton

I'm doing some work on catchers, but it won't be ready for a while, but I'd like to talk a little bit about it. We tend to go on the assumption that there have been specific eras since 1920, and have largely divided our analysis up to meet those eras : Interwar Era (1920-1941), WW2 Era (1942-1945, usually included in either the Interwar Era, or the Post-War Era), Post-War Era (1946-1960), Expansion Era (1961-1972), Designated Hitter Era (1974-), etc.

In researching Contact Value, though, I have found that contact remained almost exclusively unchanged from 1921-1992. There were other factors that influenced the game in that 72-year period to the extent of run-scoring on the league level, but from an individual contact perspective I think it didn't change at all.

There were some outlier seasons - 1920 was a transitional season from Deadball to Modern Ball, where contact rates sort of hovered in between. 1930 was an experimental season with a lively ball. The War Years (1942-1945) saw an interesting period where contact was severely repressed. Under expansion, we would often see a one or two year period for each expansion where contact increased by about 10%, then returned to pre-expansion levels in the second or third season. The Designated Hitter rule added about 10% extra contact in the A.L. only, but the N.L. remained pretty much the same. There was also a small increase in contact levels in the early 1950's - presumably a result of black players being added to the hitting pool, then a return to norms later in the decade, probably reflecting the more widespread use of black pitchers. Indeed, I believe that the pitching dominance of the mid-1960s was almost exclusively the result of a higher number of black pitchers to the pitching pool.

The point is that, except for the inclusion of the DH, baseball seemed to always find a way to correct itself to it's contact norm and that in most cases, the cause of change has been the players themselves, not some external forces.

So I think the point is that it's perfectly fine to compare players' careers between 1920-1992 without correcting for era. Park corrections are still important, but they need to be looked at individually, not en masse.

How this pertains to catchers is that I had a couple of dozen guys, including Pena, Scioscia, Steinbach, Parrish and Tettleton, who I excluded from my earlier expansion-era catching analysis (to put into a later era), who I am going to include in a modified analysis. We selected six guys from that earlier group, but adding the new guys might give us a better perspective both on their value and perhaps on the value of someone (Munson perhaps?) who we have ignored thus far.

Anyway, here are my picks:

Rollie Fingers
Tommy John
Jimmy Key
Paul Molitor
Jim Rice
Ken Singleton
Bruce Sutter

I am open to including relievers now, but I would like to establish a good baseline to measure them by, so only included Sutter and Fingers this time around. I also want to do the same thing for first base as I am doing with catchers to make sure we're not excluding Mattingly and Buckner wrongly.

2004 ballot
Dennis Eckersley
Don Mattingly
Paul Molitor
Ken Singleton
Dave Stieb

I was close to not voting for Stieb, and was close to voting for Key, but I favored Stieb's run of dominance though the early '80s. Close call, though. I could be swayed either way on both guys.

Brett Butler
Andre Dawson
Dennis Eckersley
Dwight Evans
Fred Lynn
Paul Molitor
Amos Otis
Dave Parker
Ken Singleton


I voted for Singleton because I don't want to be the vote that keeps him out, but I added several OFs to my ballot who were equal or better players, in my opinion. Singleton was an excellent hitter, but his tremendous OBP didn't help his teams as much as it should have, because he was so immobile - a slow runner who spent a lot of time at first base.

He's got to have one of the poorest ratios of runs scored to times on base of the modern era. For example, Singleton reached base 30 percent more often than the average player in his leagues, but scored only 11 percent more often. Having such a big spread between those ratios is very rare -- it puts him in the slothly company of Rick Ferrell, Ernie Lombardi and John Olerud.

Comparing players in similar run environments: Lou Brock reached base just six percent more often than average, but scored 31 percent more often. Dave Winfield reached base 10 percent more often, scored 20 percent more often than average. Brett Butler is 20 percent and 30 percent.

I say this not to convince anyone to change their vote, but because I looked it up and thought it was interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if many of Singleton's intentional and semi-intentional walks were "earned" because opposing pitchers and managers knew he would clog up the basepaths.

Andre Dawson - Viva Les Expos
Dennis Eckersley - I would not vote for him solely for his relief career. He needs the starting career value added on in order to get my vote.
Dwight Evans
Fred Lynn - sentimental choice? Hell, yes.
Paul Molitor - Hopefully this is JD Drew's future. Molitor went from fragile to an Iron Horse once he hit 30 years old.
Jim Rice

Eck
Dawson
Rice
Fingers
Quiz

Eck
Quiz
Molitor
Evans

As it stands 11 ballots are in. Singleton and Evans each have 8 votes, putting them at 72.7 %

This is Singleton's final year, so unless someone else votes or adds Singleton to an existing ballot, he's done.

Just a few notes:
The next totaling will be done on January 1st. Enjoy your holiday...

The following have been voted off the ballot:
Ken Singleton
Amos Otis
Mike Caldwell

If they don't get elected the next time...
Rollie Fingers
Sixto Lezcano

I also included the full table, rather than just the ones counting votes.

2005 BALLOT
Wade Boggs
Hawk Dawson
Dwight Evans
Tom Henke
Tommy John
Fred Lynn
Don Mattingly
Graig Nettles
Dan Quisenbery
Willie Randolph

2005 Ballot

Wade Boggs
Andre Dawson
Dewey Evans
Rollie Fingers
Jim Ed Rice
Bruce Sutter
Dale Sveum (first chance to make one vote for one of the 25+)

2005 Ballot

Wade Boggs
Andre Dawson
Dwight Evans
Rollie Fingers
Fred Lynn
Dan Quisenberry

changed my mind on Lynn.

2005 Ballot
Wade Boggs
Andre Dawson
Dwight Evans
Tommy John

Always did like Ol' Ugly,Willie McGee. Tremendous 1985 season, at age 26: .353/.384/.503. That .503 was 70 points higher than his next highest season and waaay above his career average. Interestingly, Strawberry also peaked at age 26. If asked back in 1985 which comtemporary players would be HoFers, McGee would get serious consdieration as his performance had been steadily improving every season, and Strawberry would be an all-time great candidate. But then the second half of the 80's started...

2005 ballot
Wade Boggs
Andre Dawson
Dwight Evans
Don Mattingly
Graig Nettles
Willie Randolph

Jack McDowell had some very good seasons, but his career was essentially over by age 30, probably thanks to having his arm shredded first by Stanford and then by the White Sox, with Buck Showalter administering the coup de grace.

Would anyone mind being reincarnated as Tony Fossas? He debuted when he was almost 31 and had a > 10 year career in the show in which he threw a grand total of 420 innings, including the postseason. He lived the life, had to face a very occasional lefty hitter, made over $4 million, and is fully vested in the pension plan. If you’re going to be a one trick pony, this is the trick you want.

How has Hawk Dawson crept up from 30% to 63% to nearing election with nobody haven really written much in support of him? I had him pretty much middle of the pack in my OF analysis way back when, and well below guys who aren't getting elected, including Singleton, Rice and even Dave Parker. Please, everybody who is voting for him, can you at least say why and discuss?

2005 Ballot:

Wade Boggs
Rollie Fingers
Tom Henke
Tommy John
Dan Quisenberry
Jim Rice
Lee Smith
Bruce Sutter

No last minute push for Fingers? It's a big loose end now that we have elected Gossage and Eckersley, and I say we might as well just add the reliever compliment now, starting with Fingers on his last ballot.

Here's my rationale, in a nutshell, for starting to vote for Dawson. He was a really good player, both offensively and defensively, for the Expos, especially from 1980 through 1983. During this stretch, he was one of the very best in the game. His career WARP3 (109.5) greatly exceeds those of Rice (89.2), Parker(86.3), and Singleton (91.0).

We discussed this at length a while back, but Fingers simply wasn't that elite. His career ERA+ trails those of Henke, Quisenberry, Franco, Sutter, Jeff Montgomery, Chuck Hiller, Lee Smith, Tekulve, Doug Jones, Timlin, Lyle, Mike Jackson, Perranoski, Jeff Reardon, Clay Carroll, and Don McMahon, among others. A lot of those guys were/are nowhere near HoF caliber. Granted, ERA is less meaningful for a reliever than for a starter, but over a 17 year career it means a fair amount. FWIW, Bill James does not include Fingers among his top 100 pitchers.

VAL, Dawson didn't creep up on anyone. The thread was dormant for half a year, but here's what I posted when I voted for him back in April



When the thread was revived, I summarized this in my Dec. 4 vote:



As for those who've jumped aboard the Dawson bandwagon, I think the lackluster list of 2005 candidates has spurred them to take a closer look at the holdovers.

For the record, Dawson/Cromartie/Valentine was the greatest defensive outfield I've ever seen, and no other trio in my lifetime comes remotely close.

Dawson was among the very best players in the game for several years before he hurt his knee. He was severely underrated for the first half of his career, and then overrated once he got to Wrigley. He was a marvelous centerfielder, baserunner, and hitter in a time and place that greatly supressed offense. There is pack of outfielders from this era that we have or are considering. I think Dawson is the best of them.

A couple of interesting articles at MLB.com on Tommy John and Jack Morris. Of particular note is the piece on Morris:


Sheehan published his study more than 3.5 years ago, and it's available here. A fascinating study which reaches the same conclusion on Morris that many of us did.

What's most remarkable about the article, IMO, is that an MLB.com writer accorded significant attention and credibility to a sabermetric source -- and that the editors let it stand. Let's hope we see more of this.

The article on Tommy John is by no means analytical. In fact, it serves partly as a soapbox for his whining. I wouldn't have a problem with his bitterness if he had been half the pitcher Blyleven was, but he wasn't so it doesn't reflect too well on his character IMO. (I'm operating under the dangerous assumption that the author and editors have not manipulated or done any disservice to quotes or remarks attributed to TJ.)

The author, Tom Singer, is clearly predisposed to support TJ's induction:


Singer also shows some serious ignorance by trying to compare TJ's career complete game and shutout marks to those of fellow southpaw Randy Johnson. I guess it never occurred to Singer that The Unit has toiled in an era where pitcher usage has shifted markedly and most managers frown on allowing their starters to go past a certain pitch count regardless of performance. It also hasn't dawned on Singer that the offensive environment has changed radically, making shutouts all the more rare across the board.

Trying to imply that Tommy John was twice the pitcher as Randy Johnson -- based on that data -- is fodder for ridicule. Nevertheless I'm keeping him on my ballot (by a slim margin) based on VAL's study of post-expansion pitchers.

BTW, there's also an article on Blyleven, which really doesn't offer much new content.

Nick Cafardo once again does the expected. He points out the obvious career totals for Jim Rice, Orlando Cepeda and Tony Perez in the most obnoxiously simple and misleading traditional categories -- Avg, HR, and RBI.

Thanks for really stepping up and raising the bar in the HOF debate, Nick...

Obviously Cafardo supports Rice's induction:

It never ceases to amaze me that so many professional baseball writers never take a fresh look at their subject and continue to rely on vastly inferior evaluative tools. In almost any other endeavour, they'd be Darwined out of existence, but here there are no consequences.

2005 Ballot

Boggs
Evans
Dawson
Morris
Molitor

period.

I would say 'not period' since Morris wasn't that good, and Molitor was elected last year.

I'm with URI on that one, Mugsy. Care to justify why Morris belongs? Did you happen to notice the MLB.com article linked on the previous page, or some of the data presented by other posters that clearly show Morris falls below the bar?

Or is this one of those purely emotional "I liked him" votes?

Question: Where has the myth of Jack Morris arisen from? There is this sort of volksgeschichte that Jack Morris was this feared pitcher, more fearsome than his record suggests. This is often used in conjunction with Jim Rice.

Now I wasn't even around for half the 80s and a little kid for the other half, but I've accumulated a decent sized library of 80s baseball literature as well as probably a dozen video tapes packed with games from ESPN Classic. If I was applying this theory to Jim Rice, you would find evidence for it. Rice, of course, won an MVP and was competitive in balloting several times (he likely would have won a 2nd MVP in 1986 had Clemens not been eligible). He's frequently mentioned as "feared slugger Jim Rice" by Gammons as well as Roger Angell and Tom Boswell. When Rice comes to the plate, all the broadcaster can do is talk about Rice's strength. Rice had the moniker "future Hall of Famer" applied to him by 1980. So while Rice's numbers don't match up to the perception, there was a perception.

With Morris, there seems to be little of this. You hear some mention of how many wins he got, but he never was even close to winning a Cy Young award. He was certainly not regarded as the best pitcher in his league at any point in the 1980s. Can anyone direct me to this?

It seems to me that this mythologizing started after Game 7 in 1991. While Morris was truly stunning in that game, Don Larsen ain't in the Hall of Fame either.

Actually it started about 7 years before that. To be fair, Morris was dominant in the '84 postseason with a win over KC in the ALCS and two CG wins over the Padres in the WS.

I don't want to sell the guy short -- there were times he was an outstanding pitcher. But he was far too inconsistent to merit induction. If Morris gets in, then so does Vida Blue. And cases can then easily be made for a slew of other pitchers we've already let go by the wayside (McNally, Cuellar, McDowell, Maloney, Kaat, Lolich, Wilbur Wood, etc.)

You know, I spent some time doing the research on Morris after it was kicked back to me. And, I'm not too big to admit, you're right.

It was an emotional choice -- I was in Minnesota during that World Series, and the performance there just struck me as superhuman. [Completely obliterating the facts that he wasn't very good in his World Series outings for Detroit or Toronto.]

He did win game after game, always giving up 4 when his team scored 5. But the numbers, and if I know anything about SOSH it should be about the numbers, don't bear it out. He was a very competitive pitcher, but not an elite one.

But yeah, while I was at it I should just wait my chance to vote for Dave Henderson.

Get used to it. I'm always right.

Kidding, of course. What makes this thread so great is that every single poster has had his/her mind changed at least once by somebody else here. I've shifted gears dozens of times -- on players I thought were 100% locks, and on others I'd never have viewed as HOF-worthy.

I've seen plenty of HOF threads on other boards, but none of them have been as thorough and diverse as this one.

Just a little more on the Rice debate:

Just to take a look at some of the arguments surrounding Rice, I compiled a list of the 40 greatest batting seasons during the years 1961-1992 which I consider to be the expansion era. The stat I used was Batting Runs Created, which discounts
speed, so it's just batting:

[table=Table]year playerID team R H HR RBI GIDP AVG OPS BRC/PA BRC CV 1961 N. Cash DET 119 193 41 132 16 0.361 1.148 0.263 146 0.230 1961 M. Mantle NYA 132 163 54 128 2 0.317 1.135 0.272 140 0.238 1970 C. Yastrzemski BOS 125 186 40 102 12 0.329 1.044 0.249 136 0.189 1962 F. Robinson CIN 134 208 39 136 13 0.342 1.045 0.247 134 0.201 1959 H. Aaron ML1 116 223 39 123 19 0.355 1.037 0.252 134 0.207 1967 C. Yastrzemski BOS 112 189 44 121 5 0.326 1.040 0.251 131 0.199 1969 H. Killebrew MIN 106 153 49 140 16 0.276 1.011 0.238 131 0.175 1978 J. Rice BOS 121 213 46 139 15 0.315 0.970 0.239 130 0.195 1987 W. Boggs BOS 108 200 24 89 13 0.363 1.049 0.246 130 0.192 1977 R. Carew MIN 128 239 14 100 6 0.388 1.019 0.241 130 0.192 1966 F. Robinson BAL 122 182 49 122 24 0.316 1.047 0.251 130 0.207 1991 F. Thomas CHA 104 178 32 109 20 0.318 1.006 0.239 130 0.179 1969 W. McCovey SFN 101 157 45 126 11 0.320 1.108 0.249 130 0.213 1986 D. Mattingly NYA 117 238 31 113 17 0.352 0.967 0.237 130 0.181 1962 W. Mays SFN 130 189 49 141 19 0.304 0.999 0.244 129 0.193 1977 G. Foster CIN 124 197 52 149 17 0.320 1.013 0.249 128 0.209 1963 H. Aaron ML1 121 201 44 130 11 0.319 0.977 0.237 127 0.187 1970 B. Williams CHN 137 205 42 129 13 0.322 0.977 0.239 127 0.183 1961 R. Colavito DET 129 169 45 140 14 0.290 0.982 0.241 126 0.175 1973 Da. Evans ATL 114 167 41 104 9 0.281 0.959 0.232 125 0.167 1988 W. Boggs BOS 128 214 5 58 23 0.366 0.965 0.225 125 0.155 1970 W. McCovey SFN 98 143 39 126 13 0.289 1.056 0.240 125 0.188 1965 W. Mays SFN 118 177 52 112 11 0.317 1.043 0.253 125 0.208 1985 G. Brett KCA 108 184 30 112 12 0.335 1.022 0.238 125 0.184 1961 R. Maris NYA 132 159 61 142 16 0.269 0.993 0.246 125 0.184 1987 D. Murphy ATL 115 167 44 105 11 0.295 0.997 0.232 124 0.188 1971 J. Torre SLN 97 230 24 137 18 0.363 0.976 0.231 124 0.183 1962 H. Aaron ML1 127 191 45 128 14 0.323 1.008 0.246 124 0.198 1969 R. Jackson OAK 123 151 47 118 8 0.275 1.018 0.238 124 0.195 1985 W. Boggs BOS 107 240 8 78 20 0.368 0.928 0.219 123 0.154 1969 F. Howard WS2 111 175 48 111 29 0.296 0.976 0.233 123 0.179 1979 F. Lynn BOS 116 177 39 122 9 0.333 1.059 0.258 123 0.210 1977 J. Rice BOS 104 206 39 114 21 0.320 0.969 0.236 123 0.193 1970 F. Howard WS2 90 160 44 126 23 0.283 0.962 0.226 122 0.169 1970 T. Perez CIN 107 186 40 129 15 0.317 0.990 0.239 122 0.197 1961 H. Killebrew MIN 94 156 46 122 11 0.288 1.012 0.246 122 0.192 1979 J. Rice BOS 117 201 39 130 16 0.325 0.977 0.242 121 0.193 1959 E. Mathews ML1 118 182 46 114 6 0.306 0.983 0.241 121 0.184 1982 Dw. Evans BOS 122 178 32 98 17 0.292 0.936 0.229 121 0.162 1985 D. Mattingly NYA 107 211 35 145 15 0.324 0.939 0.230 121 0.173 [/table]

As you can see, only two players appear on this list three times - Aaron and Rice; while Yaz, Boggs, Killebrew, Mays, McCovey, Colavito, Robinson, Mattingley and Howard are all on there twice. Lynn and Dwight Evans each made the list once. That's pretty impressive peak value for Rice.

These are all impressive seasons by any measure. All of them had OPS of over .900, and half of them were over 1.000. All of them had CV of over .150, with eight of them over .200. All but four of them scored over 100 runs, and all but a different four of them drove in over 100 runs. Most importantly, every one on this list, except perhaps for George Foster, has at least a claim to be in the HoF.

Of the general arguments against Jim Rice, very few hold water.

We'll start with the GIDP argument. All but seven of the group grounded into at least 10 double plays, and seven of them did so more than 20 times in that season (Rice did this once). Saying that Jim Rice doesn't belong in the HoF because he was a "GIDP machine" is just plain idiotic. GIDP's are related to hitting the ball hard. End of story.

The Fenway Park factor argument has merit, surely, but that argument isn't attributable to Rice alone. In fact, Rice probably benefitted less from hitting in Fenway than Yaz, Boggs, Lynn and Evans did. Park factors also boosted Cash, Mantle, Mattingley, Frank Robinson (in Crosley Field), Brett, Murphy, Williams, Maris and Mathews at least as much.

The argument that the seasons in which Rice had his peak seasons had an easier run environment hold some water, but the same argument can be made for the seasons 1961 (AL), 1962 (NL), 1969, 1970, 1973 and 1985 as well.

Say what you want about the bulk of Jim Rice's career, his peak seasons were as great as any player who played during the expansion era. The argument that his career was too short, or that his cumulative numbers are a little low for consideration have some merit, but to say that Lynn, or Rice, or Dawson or anybody was as good as Rice during his peak is absolutely wrong.

VAL, I'm certain that, if Rice had kept going after 1979 at anywhere near his 1977-79 level, nobody would disagree with you. However, you can't just cherrypick Rice's best seasons and discount his decade of mediocrity in the 1980's.

The GIDPs are not what's preventing me from supporting Rice, but there's no doubt that he had a higher GIDP rate than the other players you list, and perhaps the highest rate in history.

Much more importantly, I think you're way off track when you insist that Rice did not greatly benefit from Fenway. Here are the career home and road OPSs, and the difference between the two, of Rice and the others you list as benefitting more from their home parks:

Boggs: 934/782, +152
Rice: 920/789, +131
Lynn: 911/780, +131
Yaz: 905/779, +126
Murphy: 867/764, +103
Robinson: 976/879, +97
Evans: 884/798, +86
Billy Williams: 899/808, +81
Cash: 898/829, +69
Brett: 889/825, +64
Mantle: 1012/951, +61
Mattingly: 859/803 +56
Maris: 819/823, -4
Mathews: 842/873, - 31

Okay Tudor, that's fair enough. I was discussing peak value, but since you mention it, let's take a look at the notion that besides his three peak seasons, Rice was fairly mediocre. Here are his rate numbers with the years 1977-1979 removed, compared to the career numbers of some of his contemporaries (sorted by BRC/PA):



Here we see that even without those three special seasons, Rice's hitting rates still compared very favorably to his contemporaries. Rice had five 100-RBI seasons and six .800+ OPS seasons in the rest of his career, and his rate numbers were still better than more than half of that list, including several players we have already elected.

It is true that he had significant H/R splits over his career, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, most of that delta was concentrated in those three big seasons, especially his Home Run numbers. Here are his Home/Road splits with those three career years removed:



We can see that he closed the gap significantly in his H/R OPS delta from the +.135 to a +.094. Nearly all of this change was in his HR rate. Except for those three monster seasons, Rice hit HRs at pretty much exactly the same rate on the road as he did at home. The advantage that Rice got playing in Fenway was, therefore, all reflected in his singles and doubles rates. This is both significant and unusual. Let's compare Rice's H/R hit rate splits (minus 77-79) vs Evans' splits:



Evans' splits are typical of what we would expect to have seen in a right-handed power hitter in Fenway in the 1970's and 80's. Both his HR and 2B rates are boosted significantly, while his singles rate is surpressed. Rice is almost the complete opposite therefore of what we should have seen and actually look like he was a left-handed power hitter (with opposite field tendencies). I don't recall Rice hitting much to the opposite field, so I really can't explain these split rates except that Rice was an atypical right-handed hitter in Fenway, had strong line drive tendencies, and probably had a different swing at home than on the road. He was certainly a better road hitter than Evans, and the main differences between the two were Evans' higher walk and doubles rates. I wish I had Rice's GB/FB ratios for his career - it might tell us a lot more.

So anyway, we are left with two more myths about Jim Rice dispelled here, I think. The first was that he was still a very good hitter before and after his monster 77-79 seasons. Had he sustained his 77-79 rates, of course, we wouldn't be having this discussion, but nobody in his time could have sustained those rates either. The second myth was that Fenway aided him in a typical way. He still gained about the same home advantage as Evans did in terms of OPS, but it was manifested very oddly, and not in his HR rates.