Your top 3 non HOFers

[stlcardsfan]

Here are three guys that played for the Cardinals for quite a bit of their career. I am sure almost every team could come up with three players that they think should be in.

Jim Edmonds - nearly identical career batting numbers to Duke Snider, and a great fielder.

Ted Simmons - would be in if a guy named Johnny Bench wasn't playing at the same time.

Lee Smith - dominant closer of his time with a ton of saves. I know closers don't get much love in HOF though.

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by rats60

Well will just have to agree to disagree then because I strongly disagree with your whole post. The player has to drive in those runs. I would rather have a player like Hodges than some guy who walks a lot and has an inflated obp, but doesn't produce. I wouldn't penalize a guy who played on a bad team and didn't have opportunities to drive in runs. However, you have to give Hodges credit for taking advantage of his opportunities and driving in those runs that led to wins.

As far as pitching wins, after era it is the most important stat. After all the idea of the game is the score the most runs/allow the fewest runs and win games. Have a good fip, whip, bb/k ratio, etc. are all fine, but in the end may be meaningless to the result of this game. Some people act like this game is played in a vacuum. They ignore that valid strategies of the game harm those prized sabr stats but produce wins. Things like pitching around hitters in situations or pitching to the score of the game. Also, to complain that a pitcher's bullpen can't hold a lead when the pitcher is partially at fault because he wasn't able to finish the game is silly in my opinion.

IDK man, "agree to disagree" is not solving the issue. pitcher wins have been PROVEN to be a worthless stat. Maybe not as much in the old days where guys threw 400 innings a year, but it's still too contingent on the quality of the offense one plays with. and that has no bearing on the ability of the pitcher. (See King Felix winning the Cy Young with 12 wins, he was easily the best arm that year, but his team's offense was awful)

and that tired argument about "played in a vacuum" doesn't fly. the only difference between modern stats and older stats is accuracy. Nobody gets accused of 'seeing the game in a vacuum" because they use batting avg and wins, so there's no reason to make the same accusations against the modern stats.

Time moves on, the game changes, stats become better, more accurate. It is the nature of science and the world. No reason to be dismissive of it.

[Mark70Z]

I'm sure no one picked any of these three but I'll go total homer and I'd pick Belanger, McNally and Grich.

If not a homer then Oliva, Minoso and Allen.

[bravos4evr]

However, I still feel like a pitcher who went 22-10 had a better year than a guy who went 9-13, regardless of advanced metrics. I suspect the two pitchers in question would agree. I'm not saying the former is the better pitcher in vacuo...just that he had a better year.

hmm, in 2010 Felix Hernandez had an ERA of 2.27 over 249 innings and yet only had a record of 13-12 (yet he won the Cy Young that year)

The league leaders in wins were CC Sabathia 21-7 with a 3.18 ERA , Lester at 19-9 with a 3.25 ERA and David Price with a 19-6 record and 2.72 ERA.

Felix had an ERA nearly half a pt better than the nearest win leader yet he had a mediocre record. why? he played for a bad team.

pitcher wins really have very little merit anymore. a guy can throw 8 scoreless , have a 4-0 lead, and the pen can come in and blow it, then the team walk off in the btm of the inning and the guy who blew it gets the win!

[bravos4evr]

anyway back to the task at hand!

3 more guys

1- Bobby Grich

2-Lou Whittaker

3-Alan Trammel

[steve B]

lots of excellent choices. Hard to pick a top 3. I'll go with 3 I really liked, two already mentioned one not.

1)Munson
2)Parker
3) Dwight Evans. (Like the other 3 really should be in, but fell just short of what used to be sure thing stats, and got knocked off the ballot by one super strong group in I think his 4th year. )

Plus one not yet eligible who I think should be in, but won't be.
Jason Varitek.

More no-hitters as a catcher than anyone, and a load of the intangibles that everyone ignores. Not a great hitter, but not horrible. Fielding etc was hurt by catching Wakefield so often.
No, he won't get in.


Steve B

[nat]

Hodges was good defensively. The first stat line I posted was Carlos Delgado, the third was Hodges. Delgado was the better hitter (138 to 120 OPS+), but they have virtually identical WAR totals. The difference is defense (plus maybe some base running). So we can and do take his defense into account.

As noted above, RBIs are extremely team dependent. They're not a good way to evaluate a player. Take June 12, 1949 for example. Hodges had 8 RBIs. Pretty nice. But it doesn't hurt that he's got Pee Wee Reese (.411 on base percentage), Gene Hermanski (.452 at the time), Duke Snider (a relative slacker at .348), and Jackie Robinson (.411) batting in front of him. He's going to have a TON of opportunities to drive in runs, because those guys are going to be on base all the time.

The all star appearances show that he was thought of as a star at the time, but are only a very weak indication that he was actually a good player. See, for example, George Kell and his 10 all star appearances. Dave Concepcion made 9. Frank McCormick made 9. It happens.

The "advanced" stats are just records of what happened, just like wins and RBIs are. The difference with a lot of them, though, is that they try to isolate the player's contribution from the effects of the parks that he played in (this is what the various + stats do), or they try to strip out the effects of events that aren't under the player's control (that the guys batting in front of Hodges reached base frequently, is one example).

[bravos4evr]

Hodges was a hell of a player. I was surprised to discover he wasn't in a few years back, just had always assumed he was!

[KCRfan1]

I'll go with :

Gil Hodges
Ted Simmons
Dick Allen

Fun thread!

[RTK]

Bill Buckner
Lee Smith
Buck O'Neil

[Griffins]

Tony Mullane
Gil Hodges
Bill Dahlen
Lefty O'Doul

Couldn't keep it to 3, sorry Peter.

[David W]

Ted Simmons - not in because he wasn't Johnny Bench.

Trammel and Whitaker - not in because after the great run in 1984, the Tigers never won again.

[Shorttmail66]

Nobody has mentioned Bert Blyleven and his 287 wins....

I'm going Blyleven, Oliva, and Trammell.

[jason.1969]

There's a reason for that!

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by nat

Reasons are more interesting than just names. Let's hear the arguments for these guys.

I'm going to exclude Bagwell and Raines, because I think it's very very likely that they get in in the next year (Raines) or two (Bagwell). Schilling and a couple other guys currently on the ballot get omitted for similar reasons.

Don't hold me to these picks as the very best, but here are a few:

Lou Whittaker. Lou's trouble is that he did everything well and nothing outstanding. He had good power (20 HR range in the 1980s), was a good fielder (+15 dWAR, although some of that he gets just for playing second base, but he also won a few gold gloves), he walked more than he struck out. He was an above-average batter all but one year of his career, even playing a defense-first position. 75 wins above replacement (basically, if you replaced him with a AAA guy you'd expect to win 75 fewer games over the course of his career) and 42 wins above average, both well above what it usually takes to get into the hall of fame.

Kevin Brown. I know that this one will be unpopular, but Brown really was a great player, it's just that no one was paying attention. From 1992 to 2001 (the heart of his career) he had a 3.00 ERA over 2166 innings. From 1996 to 1998, his best seasons, he had a 2.33 ERA over 717 innings. Good for a 172 ERA+ (Basically just ERA once you control for the parks where he played, and compared to average; higher is better.) By comparison from 1964 to 1966 Koufax had a 176 ERA+ in 881 innings. So his peak was not quite as good as Koufax's, that's nothing to be ashamed of. 68 WAR/ 40 WAA for him.

Got to run, I'll come up with a third later.

Kevin Brown was listed in the Mitchel Report.

[the 'stache]

Really interesting topic, Peter, and one that I'll have a lot to say about later this evening. If I didn't need to get some sleep before my doctor's appointment this afternoon, I'd delve into my spreadsheets now.

While I'll give serious thought to the second and third player, one stands out to me, immediately. And his name is set in stone.

1. Dick Allen.

I don't care if he had an adversarial relationship with the press, or that he was a below-average fielder. He's one of the truly elite power hitters in the history of the game, and barring knowledge of some unknown tidbit that's excluded him from induction, I would have to say his exclusion from Cooperstown is one of the great oversights in Major League history.

For his career, he had an OPS + of 156. To put that in historical context, first, looking at all Major League hitters from 1901 to present, with more that 4,000 or more career at bats, Allen's OPS + is the 17th highest. 17th out of 1,072 batters who qualified. His career OPS + is the same as Frank Thomas and Willie Mays; it's one point higher than the career mark of Hank Aaron, Joe DiMaggio and Mel Ott.

While historical context is always great fun to look at, I think a more accurate measurement would be the same metric compared against his peer group; those men who played within the same era Allen did. Dick Allen played between 1963 and 1977. Fifteen years. I looked at all Major League players with over 2,000 at bats between 1963 and 1977. Allen's 156 OPS + is the third-highest over that period of time; only Mickey Mantle (OPS + of 159) and Frank Robinson (OPS + of 157) had a higher mark. Ans, Mantle barely qualified, only having 2,206 at bats.

When you look at the names of those who fall on the list under Allen: Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey, Willie Mays, Reggie Jackson, Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Frank Howard, Harmon Killebrew, Mike Schmidt....and more Hall of Famers follow them...how can Allen not be inducted? From '63 to '71, he had a 160 OPS + in the National League. He moved to the American League in 1972, and played for the Chicago White Sox. Seeing a bunch of pitchers he'd never faced, Allen destroyed the ball, putting up a career best 199 OPS +, winning the A.L. MVP in the process. He led the league with a 1.029 OPS. How much did he dominate the A.L.? The second-best OPS was Carton Fisk's .909, 120 points lower.

Originally Posted by KingFisk

Would love to get Bill Gregory's thoughts on Larry Walker if he had a minute to spare. I always thought he was unfairly dinged for the Coors effect and his injury issues. I don't think there were too many more complete players than Walker. I am sure there are some good analyses online but always enjoy seeing our resident expert opine.

Hi Carl. I'll break his numbers down in depth tonight, but the short answer is I think Walker was a fantastic player, and while his numbers clearly did benefit from playing at Coors Field (and there was some real variance in his home-road splits from one year to another), he was still a real offensive threat on the road, too. People forget he was an MVP candidate before he ever left Montreal. He hit .322 with a .981 OPS his last year with the Expos.

Larry Walker was a great all around baseball player. The man won seven Gold Gloves, hit 383 home runs, stole 230 bases, and hit .313 for his career.

[bn2cardz]

Since this isn't about the best stats not in the HOF here are players that stand out in my memory and make me pause when I run across their cards:

David Eckstein - The only jersey in our house with a name on it. It was my wife's jersey, he was the MVP in 2006 WS. The 2006 Playoffs and WS was the start of our relationship. I had extra tickets to a playoff game and put out the offer to my Bible Study group and she was willing to go. Then she was willing to pay her half to go to the World Series with me. We just hung out as friends at that time, but then never stopped hanging out.


JD Drew - My older sister loved looking for his cards, and I would seek out what I could to help her out. This 'crush' helped my sister and I bond over baseball cards.


Mark Grace - Very much a different person than the other two listed. A Cub and had many vices. I always thought he was a great player as a child so when the Cubs came to St. Louis I went to the visiting side during batting practice and asked for his auto. He obliged and was very polite even though I was wearing Cardinals clothes. When I turned to leave (because I got the player I wanted) some Cubs fans stopped me and told me they couldn't believe Grace had done that because they follow the team around and can never get him to sign and have never seen him sign during batting practice. That stood out to me and made me a real fan of his even if he played on the Cubs and I was in St. Louis.

[Brianruns10]

Hodges, Adcock & Minoso for me.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Hodges, Mattingly and Dahlen but I also agree that numbers are not everything so Minoso, O'Neil and Maris would be great with me. Actually so many great names have been listed that I think many of us could be happy with.

Unlike others I do feel that character is a very important factor in the Hall selections. There is no way to correct the errors of the past but it separates the Baseball Hall of Fame from the Pro Football Hall of Fame which in my opinion is fine but the lack of character in many of their selections reflects the win at all costs attitude that has damaged the league and has had a profound negative effect on college football and the current problems facing the NCAA.

[nat]

Dahlen is a good pick. Most of the guys who the vet's committee has considered in the past few years are underwhelming, but Dahlen deserves election.

Allen had a short career for a hall of famer. 7300 plate appearances just isn't that many. He's at 58 WAR, which is right around the point that players start being serious hall of fame candidates (acknowledging that Frisch and friends from the old vet's committee put in lots of guys with lower totals). He's probably more valuable than those 58 WAR would indicate, however, since he squeezed them into a short time span. (Since winning the pennant requires above-average performance, concentrated great performance is more valuable to a team than is consistent good performance.) Given the hall's standards, he wouldn't a bad choice, although I'm sort of the fence about him.

Walker was better. Only 700 more plate appearances, but 14 additional WAR. Basically, if you took Dick Allen's career, and stuck on Babe Ruth's best season, you'd have Walker's career. (At least in terms of total value, of course Walker never had a single season in which he put up 14 WAR.) It's easy to penalize players too strongly for having played in Colorado, and I think that voters often do. Home-road splits are useful, but they have their limitations. One is that, on average, everybody performs better than expected at home. So you don't want to adjust for Colorado by just doubling a player's road numbers, that would be an unfair penalty to the Rockie. OPS+ is already adjusted for park, and Walker's career total is 141. The same as Alex Rodriguez, Andrew McCutchen, and David Ortiz. Imagine a guy who hit like David Ortiz and was a great fielder, that's Walker.

(And an aside, because I was looking at the OPS+ leader board. Mike Trout is currently 9th, all time. One point ahead of Ty Cobb. Sure it'll go down before he retires, but any time an active player is beating Ty Cobb at something you need to note it.)

[nat]

Since it keeps coming up (especially in my posts), maybe a brief explanation of Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is in order.

The idea is to quantify how much value a player produced, in a way that allows you to compare players across teams and across eras. If the player hadn't been playing, there would have been an open roster spot on his team, which would probably have been filled by some guy from AAA. The performance of that AAA guy is the "replacement" from the stat's name. So WAR tries to calculate how many wins a player would generate for a random team (the randomness is necessary to allow cross-team comparisons), beyond what would be produced by the kind of AAA player that every organization has hanging around.

They do this by finding the "run expectancy" of every event that the player takes part in. Because baseball keeps very good records we know, for example, how many runs, on average, are scored after a player hits a single (or a double, or steals a base, or gets caught stealing, or strikes out, or etc.) That number is the run expectancy for the event. The last time I saw a table setting these out (which was a few years ago, so the numbers in this post are a bit out of date) the run expectancy of a single was about 0.3. The run expectancy of a home run is 1.4. (It's greater than one because there are often players on base when a home run is hit.) We do this with defensive plays too (although it's a bit more complicated with defense). Adding all of those up gives us how many runs the player would have been expected to produce, had he been playing for a random team. We then subtract the number of runs our replacement player (the guy from AAA) would have been expected to produce. That leaves us with the player's net contribution to scoring and preventing runs. Then we divide those numbers by the number of runs scored (or prevented) that it takes, on average, to win a ball game. And the resulting number is the player's WAR.

Edit: Here's a rough guide for what's a good/bad WAR total. Major league average players produce about 2 WAR in a full season. Bench players might get 0.5 to 1. The league MVP usually has around 8 (although there's lots of variation on this). Mike Trout has been averaging about 9 per year. The best season from a position player was Ruth's 1923, which was worth 14. The highest season WAR total ever was Tim Keefe's 1883, which was worth 20 WAR, because he pitched more than 600 innings that year. The best post-1920 pitching season was Dwight Gooden's 1985, worth 13 WAR. It usually takes about 60 WAR to make you a serious hall of fame candidate, although plenty of guys have gotten in with less than that, and a few with higher totals have been left out. Babe Ruth has the all-time career record, with 183 WAR. Cy Young, Walter Johnson, and Barry Bonds are next, with figures in the 160 range.

[jason.1969]

Thanks for the WAR tutorial. I also see OPS Plus mentioned a lot. Is there an easy explanation of the Plus?

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[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by jason.1969

Thanks for the WAR tutorial. I also see OPS Plus mentioned a lot. Is there an easy explanation of the Plus?

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anytime you see "+" added to a stat it signals that the stat has been park and league adjusted. Because of the DH and wild variability in park dimensions, ball travel...etc the + tries to compare all players as evenly as possible. OPS+ basically tells us that player's offensive production including park effects and puts it on a 100 based scale (100 being avg) as opposed to OPS which uses the more familiar batting avg type scale based around .300

it's a baseball reference stat, I prefer using wOBA or wRC+ from fangraphs but YMMV

[ajquigs]

Keith Hernandez, Minnie Minoso, and Gil Hodges for me.

I know that managerial careers as brief as Gil's aren't considered by voters, and I admit it would be a small factor, but to me it is a relevant part of his resume.

[bravos4evr]

oh, forgot this one:

Braves Broadcast legend Skip Caray should be in the hall. Guy was THE voice of the team . He made the doldrums of the 70's and 80's bearable and the 90's teams a delight.

[FourStrikes]

Bert Blyleven, Jim Kaat & Tommy John

longevity, yes, but each also played for a few crappy teams.

overall stat numbers (W/L/K's) = longevity, perhaps - but 280+ wins
is still 280+ MLB wins...

.

[jason.1969]

Blyleven is already in!

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[FourStrikes]

not the first time (and probably not the last) but...I stand corrected.

(guessing I was stretching to find three otherwise deserving pitchers,
sans doing any actual research...)

a brain fart - thanks Jason!

[jason.1969]

There was a pitcher named Blyleven.
He made the Hall in '11.
But believing him slighted
Got posters excited
Till they learned he was in, oh Good Heaven!

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[RTK]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

As an aside Rocky Colavito had 350+ HR at age 32, then vanished.

....kind of like Koufax

[Samsdaddy]

Dick Allen. Tony Oliva. Don Mattingly.

[Rookiemonster]

fred mcgrif
Larry Doyle
Jim Katt

[RayBShotz]

Dick Allen, Roger Maris, Don Mattingly

[David W]

Originally Posted by Rookiemonster

fred mcgrif
Larry Doyle
Jim Katt

Fred McGriff and Harold Baines would be Hall of Famers by hitting magic milestones of 500 HR for McGriff and 3000 hits and 400 HR for Baines were it not for the players strikes.

1981, 1994-95 for Baines

1994-95 for McGriff

Baines had his debut in 1980, then the strike in 81 cost him half the season.
He missed good time due to the strike of 94 and another 20 games in 95 after it was settled. He ended up 134 its away from 3000 and 12 HR from 400.

McGriff ended with 493 HR, and was on a tear in 94, hitting 34 in 113 games, he surely would have had another 7.

[jhowie]

Dwight Evans
Fred McGriff
Tim Raines

[Dewey]

First two came to mind quickly: Hodges and Garvey. Then I read first post and saw both names there. Great minds .

I'll add Alan Trammell for my #3. Now to read the thread!

Edit - Like the Larry Walker add. What a player when healthy.

[Batter67up]

Gil Hodges

He should be in but Ted Williams kept him out, as head of the Veterans Committee in 90's Williams kept him out. Ted hosted the vote at his house and Hodges needed one more vote. Campanella who was at the hospital because of his health called Williams and said that he voted for Hodges. Williams told Campanella that unless he was there in person he wasn't counting his vote and hung up. Hodges didn't make it in thanks to Williams who had something personal against Hodges. Ted definitely lives up to his reputation of being an A Hole.

PS: Campy died shortly after that because of his 40 years of being paralized. I guess that wasn't an excuse for not being there in person.

[Tripredacus]

I always think of Trammell and Whitaker. What do you think about Julio Franco?

[jason.1969]

Check out Julio Franco courtesy of a new Baseball Digest graphic.

[knoxcat1983]

Al Oliver, Kaat, Raines

[MCoxon]

Originally Posted by Harliduck

I'm a huge Tony Oliva fan...still can't believe he isn't in.

Tony Oliva
Gil Hodges
Tommy John


Honorable Mention - Thurman Munson, Dale Murphy


All mentioned earlier, so sorry for the boring post...lol

I'm a HUGE Oliva guy. My friends won't open emails from me any more with Oliva in the subject line because they know I'm on the same broken record. Up until 71 when he hurt his knee, he was at the top of the AL in hitting and really all of MLB.

He won batting titles in his first two full seasons, won a 3rd, barely missed a 4th, all in his first 8 seasons. And he was a gold glove winner.

I always think he was hurt by having Carew in the early 70s, and in 65 Versalles winning the MVP, taking some of the attention away from him

[bravos4evr]

Originally Posted by MCoxon

I'm a HUGE Oliva guy. My friends won't open emails from me any more with Oliva in the subject line because they know I'm on the same broken record. Up until 71 when he hurt his knee, he was at the top of the AL in hitting and really all of MLB.

He won batting titles in his first two full seasons, won a 3rd, barely missed a 4th, all in his first 8 seasons. And he was a gold glove winner.

I always think he was hurt by having Carew in the early 70s, and in 65 Versalles winning the MVP, taking some of the attention away from him

IDK man, 41 WAR over 15 seasons, an .829 career OPS and a negative defensive rating aren't really HOF material. It sucks that his career really crashed and burned after he turned 31, but we have to judge players by what they did and not what they might have done if healthy. I think he's a hall of very good, but short of the HOF. ymmv

[KingFisk]

Dwight Evans, anyone?

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[jason.1969]

Originally Posted by KingFisk

Dwight Evans, anyone?

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I like him as a very good player. I wouldn't put him in my Top 3 though, and I probably wouldn't consider him an HOFer. (I might not even put him in my Top 3 among Red Sox outfielders of the 1970s!) That said, I would take him over many current HOFers.

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[KingFisk]

Originally Posted by jason.1969

I like him as a very good player. I wouldn't put him in my Top 3 though, and I probably wouldn't consider him an HOFer. (I might not even put him in my Top 3 among Red Sox outfielders of the 1970s!) That said, I would take him over many current HOFers.

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He's a guy that got better as he got older. Developed into a great hitter with plus defense. I haven't looked in awhile but I think his numbers hold up and make him a borderline candidate. Too bad he never got serious consideration, probably due to falling short in the counting stats, and never being considered one of the best players in the game at any given time.

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[DBesse27]

Dewey's offensive numbers compare very favorably to Rice's, plus he was an A+ defender.

[midwaylandscaping]

Hall wouldn't be hurt by adding these 3:

Dale Murphy, Gil Hodges, Dwight Evans

[MCoxon]

Originally Posted by bravos4evr

IDK man, 41 WAR over 15 seasons, an .829 career OPS and a negative defensive rating aren't really HOF material. It sucks that his career really crashed and burned after he turned 31, but we have to judge players by what they did and not what they might have done if healthy. I think he's a hall of very good, but short of the HOF. ymmv

So tell me why we give the pass to Koufax who had arthritis in his left arm and retired at 30?

He ranks #82 in War for Pitchers

http://www.baseball-reference.com/le...h_career.shtml

He has 165 wins (#204 all time)

What happened if Koufax limped along and tried to play 6 more seasons with his arthritic elbow (he couldn't comb his hair on the days after he pitched in his last season), and his stats were poor in those 6 years. Would we have dinged him and had someone on these boards saying "he had a good run, but not HOF worthy in spite of his 5 great seasons because he had an otherwise mediocre 15 year career" (4 mediocre seasons early, 6 mediocre seasons late)?

[Peter_Spaeth]

I think probably the best case for Koufax is that his peak years, and admittedly there weren't many of them, were SO off the charts that he gets a pass for his early career and early departure. Oliva, while great for a decade, wasn't far and away the best hitter like Koufax was (ok, with a nod to the Dodger Stadium detractors) far and away the best pitcher.

Can someone explain Dizzy Dean to me, by the way. Koufax-like but even fewer peak years, maybe 3 or 4.

[MCoxon]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I think probably the best case for Koufax is that his peak years, and admittedly there weren't many of them, were SO off the charts that he gets a pass for his early career and early departure. Oliva, while great for a decade, wasn't far and away the best hitter like Koufax was (ok, with a nod to the Dodger Stadium detractors) far and away the best pitcher.

Can someone explain Dizzy Dean to me, by the way. Koufax-like but even fewer peak years, maybe 3 or 4.

Fair point. Oliva's peak was very very good, but not equal to Koufax's peak, which was otherworldly

I just love Oliva (including his personality) and get a bit biased....