According to linear weights, the Cardinals added 16 runs to their run total through basestealing in 1987. Actually, that was quite good - best in the majorleagues. Most teams gain or lose less than 10 runs per season through basestealing.

What can't be quantified easily in the historical game, however, is how well teams run the bases. One inkling we have is that the 1987 Cardinals exceeded their expected runs (projected through linear weighting) by 65 runs (most teams are within +/- 20 runs from their expected runs. We don't know all the reasons why teams exceed or fall short of run expectation, but they were certainly a very efficient run-scoring team and a good chunk of those 65 runs could have been created through baserunning.

As for the OPS+ thing, I think it's important to remember that there are two sides to the equation - the OPS and the PLUS. For all intents and purposes, the OBP side of OPS shouldn't be corrected - which is one of the (many) flaws I think of the PLUS side. Walks and singles - which compose about 85% of OBP aren't really park affected and walk rates and singles rates vary very little from season to season. It's the SLG side that needs to be corrected because that's where the variability lies.

So a good start point for a better OPS+ would be something like OPS+ = OBP plus SLG+. It would be fairly easy to do using my CRA metrics, since you could modify the doubles and HR rates according to park indexes and compute something resembling OPS, only weighted correctly.

Where do you get your data, VAL? It would seem intuitively that parks with miniscule foul territory, like Fenway, would increase walks and singles.

Assuming that you're correct, OBP is more valuable, point for point, than SLP, so the starting point would have to be something like (1.2*OBP) plus SLP+

This is not right. First of all, the "+" in OPS+ adjusts for park, season and league, and singles and walks are very obviously effected by all three.

Second of all, the intention of the "+" is normalize the metric for the run environment. If a player has an OPS of 800 in a high run scoring environment, than his OPS+ needs to be adjusted downward with respect to someone with an OPS of 800 in a lower environment, regardless of whether the individual components of the statistic are evenly effected. Whether triples or ground outs change from place to place is irrelevant to what it is we are trying to do. Its a simplistic transformation.

OPS does what it is supposed to do, and the normalization is fine and appropriate. The problem is that there are so many other parts of the game that it doesn't account for. There are people in this thread who have argued that since player A has an OPS+ of 127 and player B has an OPS+ of 116 that this proves something. There are 50 reasons why player B is a better offensive player, let alone adding defense in.

Fenway does have a slightly elevated park index for singles according to my numbers - 105 since 1982, and 102 from 1959 to 1981, but it's pretty variable (+/- .12) from year to year. Some of that is probably attributable to foul territory, and part is probably attributable to the outfield dimensions. Fenway is, however, the extreme, and that factor is very slight, especially compared to the doubles and HR indexes at Fenway. I don't think any other parks have a significant park index for singles, though - at least one with any reasonable expectation of accuracy.

I don't know about the 1.2*OBP thing. I really don't think OBP tells us much at all, really - I prefer to deal with the individual rates because they tell us more. I'm sure that Bill James, or Tango or Dave Smith or somebody worked out the exact correlation between OPS and LWTS, but I think that walks are undervalued, singles overvalued, and XBH's undervalued as well in comparison. Since singles comprise a little more than 50% of OBP, I can't see why OBP as a whole needs to be corrected across the board. Perhaps something like 1.2*BB+.9*1B = OBP would be something closer to accurate, but I don't have the exact formula.

Just a quick comment on pool of players available. In 1950 baseball was still primarily a white sport and it could be argued that the entry of African Americans into the available pool of players to the pool may have been negated by 300, 000 dead Americans, many of them young, and a large number of disabled from WWII, not to mention the Korean war in the 50's. Today we also draw on a huge pool of players from south of the border, and Asia to a lesser extent, and the fact that our population has doubled in the US since 1950, and you are looking at something like a 5 to 1 ratio (this estimate using from data in a HBT 2007 annual article) which more than offsets the doubling of the number of teams. The 5000/15 ratio must be adding China's population to the pool or something, but this is not reasonable since baseball is not really played in Greater China except for Taiwan where the sport was brought to the island when the Japanese occupied Taiwan. Taiwan only has a population of 23 million

Good lord.

Look, I've never been a fan of the way Rickey talks or behaves, and I'd still like to smack the crap out of him for needlessly showing up Lou Brock ("Tonight, I am the greatest of all time..."), but I'm still voting for the guy. His performance was so head and shoulders above the bar that I'm absolutely dumbfounded there could be someone on this board who believes otherwise.

R4H, I realize you're a big JimEd fan. Perhaps you read my article on him last year. Then again, maybe you didn't. Anyway, I went to great lengths to show that Rice wasn't the a-hole that the media made him out to be, and I also cited his quick thinking in carrying Jonathan Keane into the dugout after the kid was clobbered by a batted ball.

Then I went on to OBJECTIVELY evaluate his worth as a player, and determined that he simply did not separate himself enough from the pack. Had he been a better defender, that might have done the trick. But he wasn't, so it didn't. Voters can debate the metrics I used (some here have), or how I applied them (ditto), but the analysis was fair and unfettered by my personal desire to see Rice honored in Cooperstown

I've got three questions for you, R4H:

1) Other than the Keane incident, what evidence do you have that Rice's "integrity, sportsmanship, and character" were HOF-caliber??
2) Considering all the known and unknown dark sides of players who've been voted in, why should morality judgements even be a factor unless there is specific and overwhelming evidence that someone either greatly exceeds or greatly falls short of the bar?
3) At what point do a player's performance and accomplishments outweigh any "moralit baggage" he might be carrying?

I'll answer the first question for you, because it's the only one that matters in this case. You have none, zip, nada. That doesn't mean Rice DID NOT possess those qualities, it simply means you cannot prove it. Therefore, they cannot be considered valid criteria in evaluating Rice, and it wouldn't be fair to apply a different standard to Rickey.

My point is that you have shown in this forum that you are incapable of objectivity, and your most recent ballot is incontrovertible proof.

I have 2010 up.

We're starting to run out of years, so I need some ideas if we want to keep this thread going.

Bill Buckner, Tommy John, and Jim Rice are no longer eligible. Two submarining relievers are on their last legs this year. With Fred Lynn.

2010

Roberto Alomar
Will Clark
David Cone
Andre Dawson
Barry Larkin
Fred Lynn
Dan Quisenberry

Edgar Martinez should be an interesting discussion. I'm not real convinced yet, but he was a tremendous hitter at his peak if nothing else.

2010 BALLOT

Andre Dawson
Will Clark
Roberto Alomar
Barry Larkin

That's a good point; because we can go only through "2012" if we're voting on retired guys, this means that the people who retired after 1991 will not get a full 15-"year" period to be discussed and debated, and the recent retirees will get only one or two cycles to be voted on. Because there is a tendency to let the borderline guys (Dwight Evans, etc.) linger for a long time --- which I think is completely legitimate, because it gives them a larger peer group for comparisons, gives us time to think, etc. --- this is a problem for the newly eligible players.

My proposal is that, when we get to "2012," rather than have a regular voting cycle, we have an extended discussion about the guys still eligible --- maybe even discuss them one by one --- before casting "final" votes. That way, everyone has their day in court. (Perhaps we should have done this all along, but I'm pretty comfortable with how this has been proceeding so far.)

If you're asking for longer-term proposals, it would be interesting to re-visit what we've done, and maybe identify mistakes, or put the guys into "tiers," or discuss Negro Leaguers and non-players.

Maybe a Veteran's Committee type exercise, including some debate about Negro Leaguers? Or, a managers/ executives/ influential figures type discussion.

Personally, I love the "tiers" idea. Maybe we could go through each HoF member and give them a rating (1-5 stars, for example) and average out the consensus? We could then have a 5 or 10 tier Hall of Fame, which would be a neat tool for seperating the Tony Perezes from the Joe Morgans of the world.

The thoughts I had were:
1. Do a short VC, where everyone picks one guy that we overlooked and then vote 1 last time on them. It lets us fix 'mistakes' like Bancroft, or Singleton.
2. Executives, Managers, Coaches...I think we have 3 guys in there for work they did as players and managers/coaches (Connie Mack, John McGraw, John Sain)
3. I've been thinking about ways to do the teir system
4. Negro leagues, though I think that would be better served in another thread, just because I know very little about the Negro Leagues, outside of the Josh Gibson's and the Oscar Charleston's. Turkey Sterns
5. Do exactly what Delta said for the newish guys on the ballot.

I'm amenable to anything.

If we are going to do the tier thing, I suggest that we establish the criteria first then do the rankings of existing players. I think we should do this before we do the VC thing because it will be easier to the addition / deletion once the criteria have been set and the peer group established.

In addition to the tiers (maybe three tiers - along the lines that Bill James describes in his Abstract), we had also mentioned wings for guys who were very good but maybe only for 5 years before getting injured - call it the "Wing that Might Have Been" and perhaps a seperate wing for defensive specialists (with Ozzie Smith as it's charter member).

With the VC thing, I think we should be able to nominate more than one player (maybe limit it to five or ten per person). Nominations should include a detailed write-up (more than one for players would be allowed) and specify for a particular tier or wing. After nomination packages have been written, a one-time vote for each would be in order (75% for selection?). Or something along those lines.

I don't feel really qualified to do much for the Negro Leaguers, and there isn't much in the way of statistical evidence we can use, but it would be an interesting learning exercise for us for sure.

Re #1 above, how about we do the opposite as well: everyone picks one guy who got in that we think didn't deserved it and we re-vote on them? We'd be trying to get rid of our Chick Hafeys and Rube Marquards, if you will. I'd nominate Catfish Hunter, Goose Goslin, or George Sisler, and no doubt VAL would nominate Lou Brock.

#4 is a good idea except I have no qualifications for the task.

Assuming how much time (calendar time) people were interesting in putting into this, I suggest we finish up, look at what we have done, celebrate, take a deep breath.

Then we begin a new exercise to determine the greatest 10 (or 25) players at each position, ranked. There are two ways to do this. One is to simply have a big argument about each position and then a vote, MVP-style. The second is to do it like Survivor, where you start out with 50 guys and starting tossing guys off. The latter idea is the most fun (I was sort of involved in something like this a few years ago) but it is only fun if people trust each other. If people vote off Rickey Henderson because they didn't like him, or to punish some other person for a bad vote, the whole process does not work.

A simpler version is just to come up with the best 100 players, positions be damned. This is more cumbersome.

I believe this would be a lot of fun. Start with catchers, come up with a list, and start fighting.

2010:
Andre Dawson
Barry Larkin
Roberto Alomar

Can't believe you guys voted in Dewey but not Jim Ed ...

Anyways ..

2010 Ballot
Albert Belle
Andre Dawson
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez
Fred McGriff

1.8*OBP + SLG correlates the best with LWTS (and actual runs scored).

Is this number more or less exact, Tango, or is it just for the sake of simplicity? I think the original argument was that OBP by itself was relatively meaningless because BBs were undervalued and 1Bs overvalued so it would seem that adding the multiplier to bring OPS in line with Batting Runs doesn't necessarily mean that OBP has any more value as a measure than it does without the multiplier.

Does that make sense?

This question of the relative weights given to OBP and SLG reminded me of some graphs I'd made a while ago, so I looked them up. See this post from a game thread last year:

OBP and SLG correlate roughly equally well with runs scored

and a followup a few minutes later

but the range of SLG is larger than the range of OBP

To a first approximation, it seemed to me then (and still does now), the basic ideas are that a team's OBP and SLG predict runs scored over a season _roughly_ equally well .... but the range in SLG is about twice as large as the range in OBP. That is, OBP values run from about 250 to 450, while SLG values run from about 250 to about 650. So, a team will increase its number of runs scored equally well by either adding 10 points of OBP, or 20 points of SLG.

I found some statistical analysis to back up this simple idea in a couple of articles, as described in this post:

References to articles on runs scored, OBP, SLG

If I'm completely missing the point here, please let me know!

That's great stuff. At first I wondered why you posted them in a Game Thread, but then remembered that you were probably a lurker when you posted them, so I remind myself to read game threads more often now, lol.

My point, of course, is that linear weights are more accurate in predicting run-scoring than OPS in any form, but the main problem is that they are a bit harder (or more cumbersome) to use than OPS is, and less readily available. That's why I create stats that nobody understands to try to portray the linear weights in a more useable format. One of these days I'll figure out how to explain them better, lol.

That seems to make a lot of sense.. it really makes the concept seem easy enough. It is probably worth noting that dividing the magnitude range of slugging (.400) by the range of obp (.200) basically gives you the multiplier stated by Tango (2.0 is close to 1.8, for level of detail used). Seems like a quick and dirty method to "correct" this range problem.

Edit: Clarity

2010 BALLOT
Roberto Alomar
Albert Belle
Will Clark
David Cone
Hawk Dawson
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez
Fred McGriff
Willie Randolph
Lee Smith


* I've dropped Mattingly in favor of McGriff. I really don't want to see Mattingly get shortchanged, especially considering what a fantastic fielder he was, but in reviewing his career he had Jim Rice-Itis. A tremendous peak early in his career, with only marginal production relative to league average over his last few years. For Mattingly, his tailspin was far more dramatic than Rice's, and it lasted six seasons (though some were injury-plagued). Still, I can't see leaving Crime Dog off over him. In fact, I'd probably have added Galarraga over him (with extra points for his cancer comeback).

* Even though Edgar was *only* a DH, the guy created nearly 8 runs per 27 outs over 18 seasons.

A .418 career OBP in 8,762 PAs, compared to a park-adjusted league-average of .336??? Are you kidding me???

Based on the % difference between players' OBP's and the league average, here's where Edgar stands all time:



Maybe I'm missing something, but that's pretty damned good company.

And spare me the "he didn't play in the field" crap. In terms of overall player value, his dominance more than offsets that shortcoming.

I simply can't understand how anyone could leave him off their ballot.

Things to consider with LWTS, OPS+, RC, etc when it comes to comparing potential HOF players with different roles on their team, and in different parks and eras

1. Leadoff hitter vs cleanup. The Book has an interesting chapter on lineup positions. Comparing a leadoff off hitter to a # 4 hitter for example.

PA/GM 4.83 vs 4.49
PA/GM w/ROB, 1.72 vs 2.31

Run Value (RV)
1B 0.468 vs 0.504
2B 0.733 vs 0.802
HR 1.291 vs 1.436
NIBB 0.350 vs 0.337
K -0.299 vs -0.323

Now these are averages, they are averages for todays run environment (1999-2002). If you went through the same process for each team you would find differences since teams are constructed differently and have different run environments. The numbers would be different for each era as well. But basically, a HR today is more valuable when hit by a # 4 hitter than a lead off hitter and a walk by a lead off hitter is more valuable than a walk by a # 4 hitter.

2. Run Environments, playing on a team or era where runs are produced at a high or low rate. So when we say 1.8 OBP/SLG ratio is a best fit for LWTS, we are pretty much talking average, but the value of OBP and SLG will obviously differ by lineup position, team construction and run production, era, etc. So if you use it to compare players from 1968 you may find you are overestimating the value of OBP since it was more difficult to score runs, while in a run environment of 10 runs per game, OBP would probably be much greater value than SLG than today.

In fact Mark Pankin has an interesting article at retrosheet (SABR 36) which indicates the marginal OBP/SLG ratio has range between 1.5 (1968)-2.1(2000) and over the last 10 years the average is 1.95. The range by team was 1.4-2.6. For players in very high scoring lineups it can be over 3.

3. Park adjustments. Was Tony Gwynn as a LD and GB hitter really hurt by playing in a park that suppressed XBH enough to justify his OPS+ boost? Was Yaz as a LHB really helped by Fenway as much as Jim Rice as a RHB? Both have their OPS+ decreased by the same relative amounts as we only use 1 PF for both LHB and RHB.

Why is it that regardless of park, the average player has a higher OPS at home than on the road? Is this taken into account ? Tango has an article on his site showing home teams score 0.30 runs per game more than on the road, this accounts for for the 535 winning pct for home teams. It makes sense as teams are constructed for the ball park they play in 1/2 of the games, and players adjust to the park, and it may be less stressful playing at home than on the road. It does not mean you should attribute the entire effect of winning and scoring at home relative to on the road to the park and applying this inflated park effect to all players equally. But that is what they seem to be doing.

So when someone says player A has a better OPS+ than Player B, say 135 vs 128, it is not conclusive without knowing what is the uncertainty in the adjustments being made. In the real world, when models or adjustments are developed for practical application, some effort is made to determine the uncertainty of the number being estimated, but this seems to be lacking with adjusted baseball stats. Maybe it exists somewhere, and I have seen estimates of uncertainty or error made at the team level, but I can not find anything for players.

One thing I do know, a BA of 300 is a BA of 300, 49 HR is 49 HR, 140 RBI is 140 RBI. Not saying we should not consider the park, league, era, etc, just saying to beware of adjusted and estimated numbers and do not take a "In (BP, BR, BJ, etc .) We Trust" approach to their adjustments.

His OBP and SLG took a big jump at the age of 32 in 1995. Just sayin. But from 1995-2001 he was one of the best hitters in the AL. I would call him a marginal HOF, no longevity, did not play the field, broke the top 5 in MVP voting once. None of these in and of themselves mean he is not a HOF, just means he is not a slam dunk. I would wait a few years and see how his peak in the post 1992 era compares with his peers post 1992, and some of them are not finished playing.

Some excellent posts above.

2010 Ballot
Roberto Alomar
Albert Belle
Will Clark
Andre Dawson
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez
Don Mattingly
Fred McGriff
Willie Randolph
Robin Ventura

By the way, URI, you need to stop living in the past and change the 2009 in the thread title to 2010.

I like Lahoud's idea of survivor voting. For one thing, it would address the worst flaw of this great thread, which is that we've spent 95% of our energy discussing the fringe candidates and not the slam dunks.

Edgar played over 2,000 games from 1987 to 2004.

What, exactly, is your definition of "Longevity"?? Jim Kaat? Minnie Minoso?

Martinez wasn't exactly Addie Joss or Dizzy Dean.

Not sure I want to have a precise definition for longevity. Some positions are more difficult on career lengths than others, like catchers, followed by OF, then middle IF. Edgar was a DH primarily

Looking at a HOF list I have handy for position players who played all or a significant amount of time post 1920, there are 105 players and the average is 2215 games. Sixty six played 2000 or more games. Of those 39 who did not play 2000 games, they were either catchers, missed time due to wars, affected by segregation and played part of their careers in the negro league, or were dubious VC picks. The only modern era player voted in who played less than 2000 games was Kirby Puckett.

So Martinez is marginal on playing time for a HOFer, which affects his counting stats, like Rice. I know peak and prime years are also important and he played 12 years where he played 130 or more games, and he was in the top 5 in OPS+ 7 times, so and he had some real good years and was a real good hitter in his prime.

So being marginal on longevity alone doesn't mean he is not a HOFer, but taking into account the other issues I pointed out, he is IMO a marginal one.

Great slate of "new" candidates.

2010 ballot
Roberto Alomar
Albert Belle
Will Clark
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez
Don Mattingly
Robin Ventura

2010
David Cone
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez
Don Mattingley
Willie Randolph

It wasn't a longevity question with Edgar, it was an opportunity question which affected his cumulative stats. He didn't break into the starting lineup until he was 27, missed a good chunk of two seasons (one to injury, one to the 1994 strike), but otherwise managed to put together 11 excellent seasons which meets HoF criteria.
He wasn't a great third baseman, but he wasn't terrible either he just fit better into the Mariners lineup as a DH. No doubt being a DH helped him play a little longer, but Edgar was an extraordinary line drive hitter with extraordinary plate discipline and was generally unappreciated through most of his career in comparison with excellent teammmates (A-Rod, Griffey) and weight-trained megaliths. He most certainly deserves selection.

I've got a bigger problem with Alomar. He was a great second baseman, but his numbers were surreal - especially his power numbers (SLG and CV). Seriously, he had four seasons in which his numbers were in the Aaron/Mays/Mantle range and he wasn't that good, so he is one guy whose numbers I just don't trust in an era where numbers were very overinflated. I want a better grip on the numbers in the post 1993 era before selecting him.

I think Larkin is a marginal candidate too, although he shouldn't be. His career took a sharp downturn after the 2000 season, and maybe he played too long in reduced capacity like Vada Pinson and Jim Rice. I look at his numbers and think they should have been better. 33 HRs in 1996 was a fluke, and in a strange way he was the anti-Alomar - I thought his numbers were higher than they actually were. He was always around .300, and had decent but not great plate discipline, so that he was never tremendously efficient as either a table-setter or a run producer. 1996 aside, he had little power and his doubles rate was fairly low. At least no one will ever think of him as a juicer. He was a tremendously efficient basestealer (83% success rate) and an outstanding defensive player. I don't think he ever reached his full potential as a player - mainly due to injuries, but like Edgar, I think he was overshadowed in his time by caricature ballplayers, so I think I will vote for him.

I'm not sure about crime dog either. He had solid, but not spectacular numbers, played for a lot of bad teams in crappy HR environments and was often surrounded by better players, so he was probably better than he seems, both in comparison with his peers and due to his extremely low profile. He wasn't really a top-10 guy in any seasons (probably not his fault), so it's difficult to pick him right now.

Ventura is intriguing, but I don't think he was a top-tier player for long enough. Like Nettles, he probably should get more credit for his defense and he should get credit for being Mr. Grand Slam, but it's hard to piece together a career truncated by injuries and with relatively mediocre numbers during an era of inflated numbers to find him HoF quality.

Wouldn't Barry Larkin also fall into this category? Career .444 SLG%, but with power spiking in 1991, and at age 32 (1996) has one year where he puts up Ernie Banks numbers?
Personally, I voted for both of them, but if Alomar's numbers draw suspicion, I don't see how Larkin's fluke power years do not.

Well ... one fluke season is one fluke season.

Alomar had had a similar fluke season in the expansion season 1993 but had generally been an excellent fielding 2B with good speed and a very consistent .300 hitter who put up 25-30 doubles and 8 or 9 HRs per season. In 1996 he suddenly developed 40-double, 20 HR power and stayed that way to the end of his career.

1996 happens to be the year he was traded from the Blue Jays to the Orioles. The 1996 Orioles were probably the dirtiest team ever assembled, with at least half of their position players almost certainly juicing to the extent of a league-leading, syringe-enhanced 257 HRs. Aside from Ripken and old Eddie Murray, I don't trust a single set of numbers as clean from that team. I haven't seen any evidence nor more than a whisper of a rumor that Alomar was using PEDs, but in my view those numbers are, as I said earlier - surreal.

So I just don't know about Robbie. He was either one of the 5 greatest 2B's of all-time or a pretender. His OPS+ despite his gaudy numbers was only 116, which is in the same range as a lot of borderline guys some of whom we have already elected, some that we haven't. So OPS+ did not love those .500+ slugging seasons and career .300 BA all that much.

2010 Ballot:
David Cone
Roberto Alomar
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez

2010:
Roberto Alomar
Hawk Dawson
Barry Larkin
David Cone
Edgar Martinez

2010 Ballot
Roberto Alomar
Tom Henke
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez
Fred McGriff

I couldn't put my finger on why your arguments in this thread are getting so much static, and this paragraph right here shows why.

We have our own Hall, and our own standards. You can't compare this to the real Hall, because the only thing we share is the name. Edgar Martinez's games played shouldn't be compared to Cooperstown, he should be compared to SoSH.

Following up on URI's point, I quickly looked at our list of inductees. Of the non-catcher position players who played significant time after 1920, we have inducted (I think) 101 players.

Of those 101, 64 played more games than Edgar Martinez (and 6 of them played less than 100 games more than Edgar).

6 played fewer games but likely would have played more had it not been for the color barrier or a war.

1 played the same number of games as Edgar.

30 played fewer games (and not because of the war or color barrier).

So, 2055 games is on the vaguely lower end, but not dramatically.

Exactly. I have long thought (I may have stolen this idea from Bill James, I forget now) that the Hall of Fame (either Cooperstown's or ours) does not "honor" the best players. Willie Mays, no matter what he might have said, was not "honored" when he got the call from Jack Lang. Willie Mays honors the Hall of Fame, not the other way around. In this thread we have honored Vern Stephens and Bob Elliott and Luis Tiant. Our job has not been to figure out who the truly great players are--it is to stand up for our favorite second tier guys are. Stan Hack or Al Rosen?

A survivor game would allow us to argue about Aaron and Mays. I suspect those arguments will be more fun yet more intense. When I lost the Phil Rizzuto argument, I just moved on. If people try to argue that Bonds is better than Mays, someone gets a whuppin'.

My point was simply that his low number of games relative to other inductees (point well taken it should have been SOSH and not MLB) does not help him when taking into account his best years were in the post 1992 era, that he was a DH, and he was considered seriously for MVP only once (possibly due to a bias against DH's).

The other point is that Edgar Martinez was a cleanup hitter behind Ken Griffey Jr and Alex Rodriguez, so he was basically the 3rd best hitter on his team. His job was to be a slugger and drive in runs. He did a great job getting on base, in fact he is number 4 of all MLB hitters who played between 1993-2006 and have 2000 or more AB. However, he is ranked 31st in slugging pct among those same players, 26th in RBI and 45th in Runs. Many of the players on the list are still playing, so I prefer to wait on Edgar. He got on base a lot but his actual run production is not very impressive by todays standards, especially when you have Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr hitting ahead of you, so you can not say he did not have opportunities.

He did have 1 walk off HR in his career.

Martinez was a better hitter than ARod and Griffey during most of their years together.

Hee hee ... well I'm going to stay away from this one other than to say those were some pretty good teams with four future HoFers (Counting RJ) and of course, having been "third best" in that company would certainly not be a detractor for A-Rod since he was the younger of the three .

Seriously, not only were A-Rod, Griffey and Edgar HoF caliber hitters, but as of the time of this writing, all three could be considered to have been among the top-three players ever at their respective positions (if you count DH as a position, of course).

We can save the "why didn't those teams win more titles" discussion for the non-player discussions about how badly Lou Piniella sucked as a manager.

Finally, I would like to thank PFT for providing the minority opinion in this discussion, allowing me to take a break and side with the majority for a change and to express my man-love for Edgar.

True poetry, my friend. This is why you are a writer, and the rest of us - something else.

Before we get into this discussion in earnest, it might be useful to the criteria that Bill James came up with for his vision of what the HoF tiers might look like in his 1986 version of "The Abstract (pp 180-182 in my copy of the book):"



Now it strikes me that in our effort, we have tried very much to eliminate players that BJ would consider to be Type-D players, or at least have been inconsistent in selecting them (there are a few who would surely, in summary, fit here). So I guess the question I would have is that if we accept James' criteria (or adopt our own similar criteria) for tier-selection, should we also decide whether this fourth tier should be inclusive or exclusive. If it's the former, I think we would then cull out the players we have already selected who we deem to fit the fourth tier. If it's the latter, I think that we will have to add some of the marginal players we did not select, but who probably belong in the fourth group along with the ones we already selected.

I do think we need clear criteria and will ultimately have to decide whether to include more, or exclude some already selected for the sake of consistency.

If we are going to be inclusive, I think the general flow of the tier-selection process - in a survivor-style format, would be:

1. Round 1: We vote off the players from our current list who we feel are tier - four selections. We stop when everyone is satisfied that all of the fourth tier players have been siphoned off from the HoF pool.

2. Round 1A: If we decide to be inclusive, we will need a round to add other Tier 4 players from the unselected list. I think we could also do this survivor-style if we want - just have everyone first nominate a list of players who they think might meet Tier 4 criteria, then whittle that list downward until we have a complete set of Tier 4 players.

3. Round 2: We select the Tier 3 players in the same format as Round 1.

4. Round 3: We select the Tier 2 players in the same format as Rounds 1 and 2.

5. Round 4: We select and rank the top players at each position in Tier 1, culminating in our top-10 or top-5 or whatever lists (depending on how few players actually end up in Tier 1.

6. Round 5: If we want to select defensive specialists, Negro Leaguers, or non-players we can do those lists.

7. Round 7: We all buy ourselves plane tickets and fly to Oregon for a three-day celebratory party at Lahoud's.

I forgot Round 6.

Round 6 is where we write all this shit up. After we come up with a final list, we can actually formalize this process for the Wiki, or perhaps even for publication if we think it's good enough. We can assign voting members certain players and do write-ups which would include extracts from the thread itself. A lot of work, but the ultimate fruit for this exercise, if we think this is something we want to do.

Maybe this would actually be better done after Round 7, since creative inspiration (and big promises to be broken later) often originate from a group under the dire influence of alcohol.

For the next round, I am trying to pull together some comparitive numbers for the different eras to take a look at players in comparison with each other from a strictly offensive point of view to help us with the tier characterization. If time allows (URI says that we will take a break after the current selections are finished), I may also do CRA player cards for selected players. In that light, at some point we can hopefully begin nominations for reconsideration before the break so I can work on the player cards.

My lists will include mainly the basic cumulative numbers and rate-based stats including OPS/OPS+ and my CRA metrics. If someone volunteers to add things like Win Shares, WARP and/or other metrics which exist, please let me know and I can forward the spreadsheets for inclusion (or we can do separate spreadsheets if that's better).

I will also not be able to do much with pitching at this point, since the formulae require manual entry of doubles and triples. This is a pity, because I probably have some better pitching metrics than currently exist, or at least they look at things a bit differently than the ERA-based stuff we normally use. Again, if there is time, perhaps we can do some selected pitching charts for certain pitchers. At any rate, a volunteer to pull together the existing pitching metrics would be most welcome too.

2010 Ballot
Robbie Alomar
Albert Belle
Will Clark
David Cone
Hawk Dawson
Barry Larkin
Edgar Martinez

Filling up the top of the alphabet here.

I'm happy to do that, VAL.

Roberto Alomar
Albert Belle
Will Clark
Andre Dawson
Barry Larkin
Fred Lynn
Edgar Martinez
Fred McGriff

I don't think it is wise to adopt too many criteria or tiers for our HOF. James's categories are interesting frames, but I don't think they hold up as "rules". Someone like Whitey Ford was never one of the best two players on his team, and I think you could argue that he fits Definition D, but this really isn't fair. This isn't being critical. James is so good at stepping back and framing discussions in a way that moves them along, but they are just frames. I have this fear that we would come up with these criteria, and then we would end up with worse players in a higher category because of some fluke of their team or era.

The other warning I will give is that once we get to this level, once we get to the point of arguing about Seaver vs. Johnson or Mays vs. Mantle, there are going to be so many unmeasurable criteria. Opinions will be rule the day, it is inevitable.


You get here, I'll provide all the food and drink you can consume.

13 ballots in right now. If form holds, Larkin, Alomar and Edgar are in.

What's really surprising is that thus far Larkin is a unanimous selection. This just doesn't seem right.

Ruth, Cobb, and Walter Johnson weren't even unanimous selections. Yes, I realize that was year one, and everybody had a platter of players from over 60 years of baseball to choose from, but still -- Barry Larkin? Unanimous?

I voted for him, but of the 10 players on my ballot Larkin wouldn't rank in the top 5.