What is the most egregious error in the 2009 Hall of Fame class?
| Rickey wasn't unanimous |  54 (21.01%) |
| Rice got in | 51 (19.84%) |
| Blyleven not in yet | 49 (19.07%) |
| Dawson not in yet | 14 (5.45%) |
| Raines not in yet | 49 (19.07%) |
| McGwire not in yet | 21 (8.17%) |
| Trammell not in yet | 6 (2.33%) |
| Murphy not in yet | 3 (1.17%) |
| Grace dropped off ballot | 2 (0.78%) |
| John dropped off ballot | 8 (3.11%) |
I suspect the Canadiana of this site will make Raines the runaway winner. I can see that. I desperately wanted to vote for Trammell there, but couldn't do it ... Blyleven not in the Hall is simply an injustice. Ridiculous beyond the pale.
Unrelated -- will Greg Maddux be a unanimous choice in five years. Only candidted upcoming I can think of that is both obvious and has NO writer grudges I am aware of ...
I voted for Blylevin myself. Him being left out is ridiculous to me.
I think that I'm in the minority that thinks Jim Rice deserved the call. He was a line drive hitter that used to bang the ball off the wall. I'm sure the green monster took some home runs away from him, but it also may have helped his batting avg. as well. I know his OBP was low, but he was a middle of the order hitter so I don't think OBP should be weighed as heavily as others. He was absolutely feared and was quite dominant for his era.
I grew up a Tiger fan and grew up with the Trammell and Whittaker middle infield. I'm not sure either will ever be in the HOF however and that may be a travistey as well.
We, baseball diehards of North America who know better, should run a coordinated stunt to display huge "Blyleven/Raines 2010" signs in every park on the last day of the year this season.
I voted for Mark Grace... and I imagine I will be the only one. I could have easily voted (against) Jim Rice instead.
The reason I consider these two things more egregious than the others is that the others could still be rectified.
For the record, if I could vote for multiple options, I would vote for them all except for John dropping off. I'm relatively fine with that.
I suspect the Canadiana of this site will make Raines the runaway winner.
Well, so far I'm way wrong about that, anyway! Raines is leading, no shock, but nowhere near a runaway -- three different items, as I write this, are at 20%-plus, nine of the ten have at least one vote, and eight have multiple votes. Interesting.
No love for Dale Murphy? Guy won back-to-back MVPs, was arguably the best player in the game for five years, and NO votes? I don't necessarily think he's a better candidate than, say, Trammell, but he is a guy that, during his prime, I thought "I am watching a Hall of Famer" ... the prime and the career were perhaps just too short.
I'm sure the green monster took some home runs away from him, but it also may have helped his batting avg. as well.
RIce (home): 320 / 374 / 546, 207 2B, 208 HR
Rice (away): 277 / 330 / 459, 166 2B, 174 HR
Did Fenway help? Umm, yes.
Are you sure you aren't a HOF voter? I hope you are either...
a) 15 years old
b) doing some kind of version of KLaw baiting
I know Albert Belle was a better hitter then Murphy, but when did baseball turn into a game of offence only? Murphy was an elite center fielder for a number of years. For a few years in a row, as Mick said, he was probably the best all around player in baseball. These are compliments/accomplishments Albert Belle could only dream of. He was a devasting hitter for a few years, but never a top 3 all around ball player.
And for a one dimensional player (I can hit, he says!), he simply didn't play long enough to warrant being in the HoF. I think a truly gifted all aroundplayer who only plays essentially 8 full season seasons and large parts of 2 others should be considered for the Hall. Not just a suburb hitter.
This is why I'd consider a guy like Edgar Martinez for the Hall before I'd consider Belle. All Edgar could do was hit (and boy could he), but he did it for nearly 20 years.
Driving in runs is a naive over-simplification of his job description. His job was also to not make outs and to get on base for the guys batting behind him.
Murphy was an elite center fielder for a number of years.
A few things you can count on from HoF voters.
* they will not adequately factor in defensive ability (unless you are Brooks Robinson or Bill Mazeroski)
* they will not properly compare apples (corner players) and oranges (up-the-middle players), failing to make positional adjustments and treating oranges and apples alike (comparing Rice and Trammell as offensive players, for example)
* they will not adequately measure the importance of walks and, hence, OBP
* they will overvalue counting stats like hits, homeruns and RBI
* they will make dubious subjective arguments to defend their decisions ("I watched him play every day", "I saw how pitchers feared him", "his numbers were good but he was a selfish player and cared only about his stats", "he was a clutch player", "he made everyone around him better")
Alex, this is not unlike the following scene from High Fidelity - like Rob in the scene, Blyleven advocates are clinging to "yet".
Rob: What did Laura mean last night when she said, "I haven't slept with him yet" ? Yet! What does "yet" mean anyway? It means you're gonna do it, doesn't it? Or does it?
(At the record store now)
Rob: Just come on. What would it mean to you, that sentence: "I haven't seen Evil Dead II yet" ?
Barry: Well, to me it would mean that you're a liar. You've seen it twice. Once with Laura -- oops -- and once with me and Dick remember? We had that conversation about that guy making Beretta shotgun ammo off-screen in the 14th century.
Rob: Right. But let's just say that I hadn't seen it. And I said, "I haven't seen Evil Dead II yet." What would you think?
Barry: I'd think that you're a cinematic idiot and I'd feel sorry for you.
Rob: All right. But from that one sentence, would you think that I was going to see it?
Barry: I'm sorry, Rob. I'm struggling here. You're asking me what would I think if you told me you hadn't seen a film that you have already seen. What am I supposed to say?
Rob: Just listen to me. If I said to you --
Barry: "I haven't seen Evil Dead II yet", yes!
Rob: Would you get the impression that I really wanted to see it?
Barry: Oh, uh...well, you couldn't have been desperate to see it, otherwise you'd have already gone.
Rob: Right. I'm not going to see that movie.
(Discussion closed? But Barry looks up again in a moment; he's had a thought.)
Barry: But the word "yet."......Yeah, you know what? I get the impression that you wanted to see it...otherwise you'd have said you didn't want to go.
Rob: But in your opinion, would I definitely go?
Barry: How the [expletive deleted] am I supposed to know? Probably.
Rob: Why?
Barry: Because it's a brilliant film! It's so funny and violent and the soundtrack kicks [expletive deleted] ass. I never thought I'd say this, but can I go to work now?
I might add that the widespread availability of OPS+ in BBRef is a mixed blessing. It's very helpful to have context adjustments, but the raw number tends to overvalue the contributions of one-dimensional sluggers like Rice.
Agreed. Position-adjusted OPS+ would be sweet (OPS++?).
Along those lines, I am wondering if we are entering a new era of skill evaluation. While I concede that two factors -- a slumping economy, a glut on the market -- are largely responsible for conspiring against the likes of the still unsigned Ramirez, Dunn and Abreu, there has been a lot of talk in public circles about these players' defensive deficiencies. This is very interesting. Is this talk genuine, or simply a bargaining ploy, to further drive down these players' prices?
Moneyball was all about exploiting market inefficiencies. Because on-base ability was a skill that the Oakland A's were able to acquire relatively cheaply, the term Moneyball has unfortunately been conflated with the ability to draw walks. Everyone (but HoF voters) is OBP savvy now, so the cat's out of the bag on the OBP front.
In some circles, defensive ability has seem to become the new Moneyball market inefficiency. Just look at how TB was able to improve itself so dramatically at minimal cost last season. But is this line of thinking now becoming de rigeur, as evidenced by the number of lead-gloved hitters still sitting by their phones? Are GMs making a league-wide shift in their thinking? If so, the ramifications could be very interesting.
And this would trigger the question, what then would become the next market inefficiency to exploit?
I agree with you Chuck and I like the debate, but driving in runs is not an over simplification of a middle of the order hitters job. If he hits a sac fly to get him in, if he hits a home run to get him in, if he hits the ball on the ground to the right side to get him in, it doesn't matter. I want my middle of the order hitter to hit with power (which Rice was a line drive hitter and with playing in Fenway, it took some of those numbers away). With that, I have to live with the fact that the guy is going to strike out a good bit. This is why a guy like Adam Dunn is in such high demand. He is going to strike out 120 to 150 times a season, but he is also going to drive in 100+ runs.
Hitting in the middle of the order isn't like hitting lead off or at the top of the order. You want guys at the top of the order to have a good OBP so that guys in the heart of it can drive them in. How they do it is inconsequential. That is just my opinion and I'm not saying whether it is right or wrong.
Chuck, I also understand Dunn isn't signed yet, but I don't think that he will be until Manny lands somewhere. I don't think the markets know what t hese guys are worth yet with the slumping economy.
Lugnut Fan, Chuck posted this earlier but I'm not sure if you saw it or not.
RIce (home): 320 / 374 / 546, 207 2B, 208 HR
Rice (away): 277 / 330 / 459, 166 2B, 174 HR
The top line is his average/obp/slugging at Fenway park. He did not lose anything by playing there. He gained lots and lots of hits that would have otherwise been outs at regular ball parks.
Dwight Evans, someone who often gets mentioned as actually being better than Rice, has similar splits in the same park, although "only" a 87 OPS point difference instead of 131 - in the same era, same park, both right handed, Rice benefitted a significant amount more than Evans. Albert Belle, playing in more neutral parks (Cleveland, Baltimore) had a 43 point difference. McGwire had a 22 point difference over his career.
Hitting in the middle of the order isn't like hitting lead off or at the top of the order. You want guys at the top of the order to have a good OBP so that guys in the heart of it can drive them in. How they do it is inconsequential. That is just my opinion and I'm not saying whether it is right or wrong.
Markov Chain analyses of lineups speak highly of offenses that "keep the line moving". Further, they are not burdened -- as are managers, broadcasters, writers and we fans -- by stereotyped notions of who should bat in what position and what deficiencies can be excused based on batting position order. An "ideal" batting lineup (for the purposes of maximizing runs) almost never looks like the typical construct.
All this is to say that mathematics often will not defend a low-OBP slugger batting in the middle of the order. And yes, I know the game is actually played on the field and not in a laboratory.
Clearly you've never heard of Dayton Moore.
"The slave to the save philosophy costs."
Couldn't agree more. I actually think the 2009 Jays would be the perfect candidate for a right-handed power bat off the bench, but without having to sacrifice Jose Bautista at the same time (back-up for Rolen is strongly needed). Hopefully Cito will tell JP he only needs 6 relievers, get me another bat. And the Mets now have Putz to deploy whenever they want in innings 6-8, and are potentially getting Wagner back too by mid August - it will be VERY interesting to see the bullpen deployment there.
How about an "other" option?
Jay Bell getting two votes.
Are you kidding? He cited Bloomquist's on-base skills when signing him (presumably unaware that his .377 from last year is not consistent with his career mark of .322).
We're at the 250-vote mark for this poll -- that's an unusually high number of responses for a poll -- and Raines is running third and in danger of dropping to fourth?
Wow. I didn't vote for him -- as noted above, I went with Blyleven -- but am genuinely shocked he isn't carrying 50+% pf the vote. Four candidates all between 18-22% will do that, I guess!