Originally Posted by the 'stache
WAR for current games, where their defensive performance is being documented accurately per current standards, is a useful metric. For older players, defensive WAR is highly inaccurate. Beltre has won four Gold Gloves. Dawson won eight. He was an elite defender, and only nine outfielders in the history of the game have won more Gold Gloves (granted, the award didn't start until the late 50s). But the assertion that Adrian Beltre was worth 23.2 wins with the glove, while Andre Dawson was only worth 0.9 wins with the glove, is utter excrement.
As far as Beltre's MVP runner up goes, ok, give him the MVP in 2004. The whether or not Beltre should have won the MVP Award is another discussion, but for the sake of argument, go for it. What exactly does it change for this discussion? Nothing. It's not at all germane to the discussion at hand. Not in the slightest. It still doesn't explain that he didn't have a single MVP vote in any of the other 10 years I referred to. It still doesn't explain why a guy blows up for a single season, and then is decidedly average for the other decade surrounding that monster season. And you're seriously discounting the MVP vote by steroids? Was every other player in the National League when Beltre was playing on steroids, and Adrian was the only clean player. I'm sorry, but talk about arguments that don't hold up. We should have all the baseball writers go back, and recast their votes for those ten years, because those big bad home run hitters getting all the MVP votes were on steroids, and Adrian Beltre clearly was not.
Maybe Adrian Beltre used steroids for a year? Can you categorically state that he did not? How else would you account for the incredible jump in his statistics for one season....in eleven? He didn't get hurt, and then suffer statistically as the result of some terrible injury. He had at least 500 plate appearances the five seasons before, and the four seasons after his MVP season. Yet his MVP season's OPS of 1.017 is ridiculously higher than any of the other ten seasons I've discussed. The second highest OPS statistic during that span was .835 in 2000, and he only broke .800 one other time, .802, in 2007. He only came within .200 points of his MVP OPS in one season in ten.
And as for all those seasons of 5 + WAR Beltre has had, nobody is disuputing that he's been a terrific player since going to Boston, and I've said as much. So, I don't know what you're trying to accomplish with your statement. The point I am making is that the first decade of his career, save for one oddly uncharacteristic 2004 season, was wholly underwhelming (and therefore his Hall of Fame candidacy should not be the slam dunk that everybody is making him out to be), and you've done nothing to challenge that fact. And by the way, those four seasons that you referenced of Dawson's with a 5 + WAR...did you happen to notice that his MVP season...he had a 4.0 WAR?
Let's just soak that in for a second.
Playing on a last place team, leading the Major Leagues in RBI with 137, leading the NL with 355 total bases (14 off George Bell's Major League leading 369), and putting up the highest home run total in the Major League within a decade, Andre Dawson had a 4.0 WAR.
If there is any other individual WAR calculation that shows just how entirely inaccurate WAR is for players who were in the Major Leagues before WAR was being calculated, it's this one. They would have us believe that a 1982 season where Dawson hit .301 with 23 HR and 87 RBI, 39 stolen bases and an .841 OPS was better than an MVP season in which he hit .287 with 49 HR and 137 RBI, with an .896 OPS. Now, he only stole 11 bases, as he was older, but most of his other stats are quite similar. He scored 17 more runs, had 13 more doubles, pretty much the same walk and strikeout figures. But in 1982, when the Baseball Writers voted him 21st in the MVP ballot, he was better offensively (with a 5.7 WAR) than he was in 1987 (with a 4.0 WAR), and won the MVP. WAR is wins above replacement. A guy that hit nearly 50 out of the park, and drove in nearly 140, is only worth four wins? Really? So, more than double your home run total (23 vs 49), drive in 53 more runs, and offensively, you're worth 1.7 fewer wins.
Makes perfect sense to me. /boggle
Don't forget, Andre Dawson was no slouch in the field, either. He won the Gold Glove, yet we are told by my fellow stat geeks that some replacement level player was worth nearly a full win more (-0.7) in the field than a Gold Glove winner in Dawson.
See what I mean about WAR being an imperfect metric? I think today, official scorers and statisticians have a better understanding of defensive play than they did back in the 60s and 70s, and certainly earlier. Back then, fielding percentage was all the rage. Yet can we really expect somebody to go back into a 30 + year old box score, and determine just how far a center fielder, or a shortstop, had to range in order to make a play? Because zone ratings, range factors, etc, these all factor into dWAR, I do believe. Since all we have is the documentation of people who had never heard of UZR when they were watching the games, how can we place faith in their documentation? Offensive numbers are cut and dry. Double, triple, walk, home run, strikeout. Fly out to right, fly out to left, ground into a double play. But just how far Lou Boudreau had to slide to his right to make the catch at short, how can we possibly know what? If the game film even exists, do we have teams of guys going back, and watching every old Major League game to update these defensive metrics? Nope.
Finally, throwing out the career WAR of Dawson and Beltre, and pointing "Beltre's better" is absurd. Of course he's better. Did you see how I did the statistical comparison? I didn't take the entire career sample of Misters Dawson and Perez. I only compared their careers to age 35.
Why?
Because while players develop at different rates once reaching the Majors (some players are superstars right out of the box, like Ted Williams, and some, like Robin Yount, need to mature before becoming a superstar), most players do start slowing down--substantially--as they draw closer to 40. Now, players today might be able to delay the inevitable because of advances in nutrition sciences, and conditioning, etc. So, maybe Adrian Beltre will see a few more years at peak levels before he starts to experience that inevitable decline. We don't know yet. But it happens to everybody, and it happened to both Perez, and Dawson both.
Andre Dawson played another 609 games post his age 35 season. In those last six seasons, he had a combined oWAR of under 4.0, and a dWAR slightly better than -4.0. His numbers dropped because he slowed down. He went from .283 9 HR 100 RBI averages per 162 games between 1977-1990 to .268 25 HR 96 RBI per 162 games after age 35. Still a pretty good clip, especially in that era. But his WAR figures dropped because a.) he wasn't playing as many games each year (101 games on average), and b.) his defense lapsed. Tony Perez realized even a more precipitous drop in performance. To compare their entire careers to Beltre's performance to date, when he is still really in his prime, is not going to paint an accurate picture. Beltre will push for the Hall of Fame, trying to get 3,000 hits. Like most Major League players, he will probably play too long, and his overall performance will drop. Once he's done, then we'll be able to compare him to other players on a career basis. But not now.
Remember, I think that Beltre will be a Hall of Fame player. I think he will get voted in. But is he a Hall of Fame player right now, if he retired today? No. His career numbers are pretty good, so I'd say he's borderline, but they don't compare to the other Hall of Fame third basemen. And that is, and should be the measuring stick. Nor do they compare favorably to Chipper Jones, who played the game at the same time, at the same position. And with inter league play, the American League vs National League thing is a little less important, as the two leagues meet head to head.
Remember, at this same age, Chipper Jones was actually better than Beltre, at least offensively. At age 35, Jones hit .337 with 29 HR and 102 RBI, and an NL best 1.029 OPS. Beltre hasn't come anywhere near that since 2004. In 2012, he managed .921, and a .919. Outside of 2004, he's never gone above .900 again. Now, maybe he does again this year. That would help his cause. But Jones has had 6 top ten MVP votes to Beltre's four. He also finished 11th two other times. In all, he received MVP votes in 13 seasons to Beltre's 6. At age 36, Jones hit .364 in 128 games, winning the batting title, and leading the league with a .470 OBP. But the next season, he began his decline.
I don't want anybody to think I don't like Adrian Beltre. I do, quite a lot, actually. But as a lover of the game, I tire of people wanting to throw every good player in the Hall of Fame. And that's what Beltre has been to date. A very good player overall, who has had multiple outstanding seasons in the last 4-5 years. But the lack of production for so much of his early career bothers me. It does, I can't lie. A power hitting third baseman driving in an average of 76 runs for a decade just doesn't scream Hall of Fame to me. The Hall of Fame is meant to reward a player's body of work, not just a 4-5 year period.
I guess we'll see what happens.
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