Quote:
Originally Posted by travrosty
I had a long winded response that i edited to just include the following link.
and the question - What about Frank White, who topped out at 3.8% of the vote, with eerily similar numbers on offense, and the same amount of gold gloves on defense but never seriously considered for HOF? It's very hard to say that the one well timed home run didn't put Mazeroski in the HOF in my opinion.
http://www.royalsreview.com/2011/7/1...k-white-is-not |
I looked at Frank White's performance at second base, both offensively and defensively. White's dWAR is very, very close to Mazeroski's, yes. From the top of my head, about 95% of White's starts in the field were at second, while I think he was penciled in to start at other positions (shortstop most often, iirc) for 100 games or so. Without doing an exhaustive examination of all his games, I would have no way of knowing precisely how many times White might have moved off of second base mid-game to substitute for another player. But it's fair to say the overwhelming majority of his dWAR was attained at second base, and any change to dWAR because of his play at other positions would be statistically insignificant.
I looked at other factors, including his post season performance. He was a .213 career hitter in the postseason (160 PA's) with a .527 OPS. Again, Maz did well in the few series he did play, but neither alone would explain why Maz got in, and White dropped off the Hall ballot after one appearance.
That being said, metric comparison, and the discussions I read make the points as to why White is not in. Mazeroski is considered to be the greatest to ever play the position, and perhaps the second greatest middle infielder ever behind Ozzie Smith. While Frank White was a real good defensive second baseman, if you look at the metrics, they're really not even close. I looked first at range factor per game, and compared them head to head, and then to their league averages. For his career, Mazeroski's RF/G is 5.57. White's is 5.11. And how do those compare to the league averages when they played? The lgRFG for Mazeroski's career was 5.28, and during White's it was 5.29. Almost identical. While Mazeroski RF/G was +.29, White was -.18. Look, too, at double plays. Though White played 57 more games at second, Mazeroski turned 324 more double plays.
A discussion on Baseball Think Factory looked at TZR, total zone rating, for the two. White's TZR was 126. Mazeroski's was 148. Mazeroski's TZR is about 18% better than White's. That's a significant difference. Then, TZR breaks down into home and road split. White's home TZR was +103 at home, and +17 on the road, with an additional +6 from rdp (a Sabermetric; total zone infield double play runs above average, defined as the number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on double plays turned, and opportunities given). Mazeroski's TZR split was +56 at home, +55 on the road, and his rdp is +37. Why was White's split so pronounced? Royals Stadium has turf. It affects his offensive splits, too. White hit 7 points higher at home for his career (.259 vs .252), his OBP was 13 points higher at home (.299 vs .286), and his SLG was 22 points higher at home (.394 vs .372).
Ultimately, sometimes Gold Gloves are deserved. Sometimes, they are not. Look at a player like Derek Jeter. He won five Gold Gloves in his career. But if you look at his metrics, and ultimately his dWAR, they were not deserved. The most glaring example of Jeter's getting an award he did not deserve came in 2005. He finished 10th in the American League MVP vote, and was awarded the Gold Glove, even though his dWAR was -1.9. That means an average shortstop, in his place, would have been worth 2 more wins defensively than Jeter. Jeter cost his team two games with his glove.
I don't dispute the importance of Mazeroski's home run in the 1960 World Series. It's one of the most memorable plays in baseball history. But other players who had very nice careers, and hit big time memorable home runs, are not in Cooperstown. The most famous play in history, Bobby Thomson's pennant-winning homer in 1951 off of Ralph Branca, didn't get Thomson into the Hall of Fame, and Thomson was no slouch at the plate. He had a .947 OPS for the Giants that year, hitting .293 with 32 HR and 101 RBI. He was 8th in the NL MVP vote. For his career, he .270 with 264 home runs and 1,026 RBI. If your hypothesis is that Mazeroski's home run alone got him an invite to Cooperstown, why isn't Thomson in for hitting the most famous bomb of all-time?
What about Joe Carter? Ok, so maybe Thomson's career totals don't warrant serious consideration. Or, maybe the fact that it didn't win the World Series is another explanation. Ok, what about Joe Carter? Joe Carter's game six, three-run home run in the bottom of the ninth won the 1993 World Series for the Toronto Blue Jays. And, unlike Thomson, Carter's career numbers merit Hall of Fame consideration. He was a five-time All Star, received MVP votes in eight different seasons (5th in 1991, 3rd in the vote in 1992). He won two Silver Sluggers. And his career numbers? 1,170 runs scored, 2,184 hits, 432 doubles, 396 home runs, 1,445 RBI, and 231 stolen bases. He joined the 30-30 HR-SB club in 1987, had six 30 home run seasons, and drove in over 100 runs 10 times. He was one of the most feared sluggers in baseball, and, like Maz, hit a walk off, World Series winning home run. But he's not in the Hall of Fame.
Mazeroski's home run certainly doesn't hurt him, but it's just absurd to state that the only reason he's in the Hall of Fame is because of his home run. The guy played seventeen seasons, and played his position at the highest level it's ever been played at.