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LethalStriker

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12 hours ago, Craig H said:

Tabe continues to be literally the only person I know of that has anything bad to say about Ryno. For Christ's sake, Ryno leaves his address out and open so you can send him whatever stuff you want him to sign and $20. Sandberg will then sign your stuff, send it back to you, and donate the $20 to charity. He recently signed a vintage ASG hat from when the game was at Wrigley for me along with a regular old baseball.

When he was a minor league manager, he stayed well after the game to sign jerseys, baseballs, and whatever else for anyone who stuck around. He didn't bitch or moan and was pleasant to everyone. I know because I was there.

Dude has always been a class act.

To defend myself on this - again, I don't know why.  Never been able to get an answer from people.  Who knows?  Maybe it's just that he never comes back here like John Stockton, Mark Rypien, Jason Hanson, and Jeremy Affeldt do.

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On 1/2/2018 at 2:53 PM, Craig H said:

Tabe continues to be literally the only person I know of that has anything bad to say about Ryno. For Christ's sake, Ryno leaves his address out and open so you can send him whatever stuff you want him to sign and $20. Sandberg will then sign your stuff, send it back to you, and donate the $20 to charity. He recently signed a vintage ASG hat from when the game was at Wrigley for me along with a regular old baseball.

When he was a minor league manager, he stayed well after the game to sign jerseys, baseballs, and whatever else for anyone who stuck around. He didn't bitch or moan and was pleasant to everyone. I know because I was there.

Dude has always been a class act.

Just to backpack; my cousin lives up in Lehigh, and used to take her kids constantly to Pigs games, and said he was super cool to her kids and was always very approachable. 

As a Phils fan, it was cool to see him get the gig as manager, albeit under kind of sour circumstances after Manuel, I felt like he could’ve done better if he wasn’t saddled with a dumpster fire of a team. 

Whats he up to now anyways?

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On 1/3/2018 at 1:37 AM, Tabe said:

To defend myself on this - again, I don't know why.  Never been able to get an answer from people.  Who knows?  Maybe it's just that he never comes back here like John Stockton, Mark Rypien, Jason Hanson, and Jeremy Affeldt do.

Okay, since I've been accused of starting it, here's the scoop. Who you really are is how you behave when you don't think anyone is paying attention. Just as we in Seattle knew that the happy-go-lucky Kid, the lovable, goofy drummer with the wicked fastball, and always saying just exactly the right thing at the right time Mr. Rodriguez were far, far different personalities away from the spotlight, the same (and then some) can be said of Mr. Sandberg. Spokane is a pretty laid-back, forgiving town and to be universally hated there as a local boy really takes some doing. Sandberg is pretty much despised there (or anywhere else where people have had a chance to see the real Sandberg). This comes from a guy who used to rank him among my favorite players until the stories of assholism became too numerous to ignore. I've met Barry Bonds, who was aloof and distant, but certainly professional in his demeanor. Randy Johnson is a straight-up asshole and A-Rod (this should hardly come as a surprise) is as phony as a three-dollar bill. Ken Griffey jr. would just as soon be anywhere else as having to talk to the likes of you and doesn't mind that you know it. Conversely, his dad is as pleasant a gentleman as you would ever care to meet, leaving the only two members of the Big Red Machine that are complete asshats, Joe Morgan and Pete Rose.

Of course, if I had as many people laugh at the way I dressed as Rose probably does, I'd be pretty surly too, (at the card show we met him at he was wearing a lime-green polyester sport coat, orange shirt, purple tie and checkered pants.) Looked like a collision between a really low-rent pimp and the club pro at a really skeezy country club.

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Yes, there’s still plenty of time to get your picks in, I’m just posting mine early to set a good example and let y’all know I’m serious about doing this and actually tracking results. So, there’s around 300 players enshrined in Cooperstown and by my count there’s close to five dozen who shouldn’t be anywhere near the place without buying a ticket. But who are the worst of the worst? The guys that just make me want to punch someone (most likely Frankie Frisch) for their odious presence in the storied institution. You can pick ten players and five non-players (I’ll admit to slacking on the latter, but I did come up with a couple that were so vile they stood out from a crowd of lowlifes and conmen (otherwise know as “owners”). Anyway in no particular order:
C – Rick Ferrell: By all accounts a very nice man, he wasn’t the best player in baseball, wasn’t the best in his league, wasn’t the best at his position, wasn’t the best on his team. Oh hells bells, he wasn’t even the best in his immediate family, his brother was way better. The Veterans Committee made it a point of throwing good ol’ Rick a bone with a vote or two every year so he wouldn’t feel bad. Then one year nine guys did it at the same time and he got in.
CF – Lloyd Waner: His brother Paul is a bonafide HOFr, Lloyd amassed an impressive 2400+ hits during his career. Unfortunately only 598 of those drove in runs and only 27 cleared the fences. Yes, that’s right, under 600 career RBIs and less  than 30 HRs. Those look like totals for someone who played in the 1870s, not the 1930s. Get the hell outta here.
P – Jesse Haines: He ranks as the 300th best pitcher of all time. In other words, if you were to empty the HOF and then fill it with pitchers, there would barely be room for Jesse Haines, barely.
OF – Tommy McCarthy: Yeah, here’s another power-hitting OF that well, didn’t really hit for power. I’m not sure exactly what he did do, but he can list a paltry career 44 HRs and 732 RBIs among his accomplishments. How anyone in their right mind thought that this was HOF-worthy is truly a head-scratcher.
C – Ray Schalk: When the best that can be said about you is that you didn’t cheat, that isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement to be enshrined in Cooperstown. There doesn’t seem to be any other possible reason for putting Schalk in the HOF except that he was one of the honest players on the infamous Black Sox. Otherwise, there’s nothing statistically to suggest that he was a great player or even a fairly good one. He was solidly in the middle of the pack during the time he played. Benito Santiago or Joe Giradi have much better cases for enshrinement and I’m not for a second suggesting that they get in.
C – Roger Bresnahan: Where to begin… A charming Irishman who was always happy to talk to the press, and talk, and talk, and talk… Apparently often about his favorite subject, which was himself. If you keep telling people how great you are and what an innovative player you are, eventually some people are going to believe it or just agree with you to shut you the hell up. It’s pretty clear that he didn’t create all the innovations that he credited himself with, so what you have left are statistics, which in his case are pretty damn dismal. “Duke of Tralee” my Irish ass.
OF – Jim Bottomley: Not a bad player by any means. Neither was Mike Greenwell, but I don’t see people clamoring for “Gator” to be inducted. “Sunny Jim” is in for one reason and one reason only, he was buddies with Frankie Frisch, who during his time on the Veterans Committee, bullied, whined, cajoled, begged, pleaded, argued, whatever it took to enshrine as many of his Cardinal teammates as possible. In this case a good man and terrific player gets maligned because he’s a pretty weak HOF selection. When they get around to opening a wing for the Hall of the Very Good, Sunny Jim deserves a spot at the first table, he just doesn’t measure up to HOF standards.
OF – Chick Hafey: And neither does this guy, a fantastic player with an abbreviated career. Sure, it’s fun to speculate what Hafey might have done with a twenty year career instead of one that lasted only twelve seasons, just as it’s fun to speculate on what Tony Conigliaro might have accomplished without the beaning that robbed him of his depth perception. The thing is, we have to go by what he actually did, not what he might have done. What he did was put together a very nice twelve year career that falls woefully short of any meaningful HOF milestones.
SS – Phil Rizzuto: Pardon me while I vomit. Rizzuto mis-used his position as a broadcaster in the largest market in the country to whine for over twenty years about being snubbed by Cooperstown. He was likely the source of the Reese/Rizzuto mantra, which while totally nonsensical if you look at the numbers actually convinced a lot of people who should know better that the two players were similar. They most certainly were not. Pee Wee Reese produced runs, lots of them. Phil hit like my little sister and played  pretty solid defense. “But wait”, you say, “he was an integral part of the Yankees dynasty in the 1950s”. Well, sort of… The fact is that the Yankees won with him and they won just as handily without him. Let’s see, in 1946 they had Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Keller, Joe Gordon, Tommy Heinrich, and Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra as back-ups to Aaron Robinson. Yes, that’s right, two bonafide HOFrs were back-ups that season. Did they really need Rizzuto’s thunderous .310 SLG % to win? I rather think not. You look at the Yankee teams through the early 1950s, they lost DiMaggio, Gordon, and Heinrich and added Mantle, Bauer, Gil MacDougald and Billy Martin; hard to see where Rizzuto made much of a difference. In a nutshell, we have a guy that whined and cried his way into the HOF because people got so tired of hearing his tale of woe that it became clear that the only way to shut him up was to put him in the HOF. SPEED! GLOVE! And that’s it, you aren’t Pee Wee Reese on the best day that you ever saw, you aren’t even Luis Aparicio (and he doesn’t belong either).
SS-2B-1B – Tinker – Evers – Chance: Okay, this won’t count, but I want to make a point. These three buffoons combined offensive production doesn’t equal what Chick Hafey did in twelve years, and just for the record, he doesn’t belong in the HOF. If it wasn’t for that stupid poem, these guys wouldn’t have been given a second glance. Yeah, Frank Chance was an okay manager, nothing to get real excited about, but he was competent enough. Johnny Evers was a pretty decent 2B and Joe Tinker wasn’t an embarrassment at SS, but they were hardly the stuff of legends. In fact, all three rank in the bottom 25% of players at their respective positions during the time that they played. It’s demonstrable that you can get in the HOF by having a stupid bit of doggerel written about you or by being given a phony nickname (see: Hunter, Jim “Catfish”) 
NON PLAYERS
Owner - Tom Yawkey: Okay, so being a racist twat qualifies you for enshrinement? Okey-dokey, got it. Now just imagine how good the 1950s and 1960s Red Sox could have been had they not been dead last in baseball to integrate their roster. 
Owner/Commissioner – Bud Selig: He was a douche as an owner, a douche as commissioner, and there’s every reason to believe that he was a douche long before holding either position and that he remained a douche after holding these positions. In fact, in a game historically filled with douches of legendary proportions, Bud Selig stands head and shoulders above his fellows as a douche among douches.
 

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You have some good picks, and that RIck Ferell story can never be overtold. 

I'll add Bill Mazeroski-2000 hits, 853 Rbi's and a .260/.299/.367 split. Obviously only in for the homer in the 1960 world series.

How do you stand on Ozzie Smith? Numbers wise he's mostly worse than Aparicio, though his WAR is much higher. Must be the defense, but frankly I can't make heads or tails out of most of the defense stats.

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On 1/11/2018 at 9:59 PM, El Dragon said:

Ozzie Smith is arguably the best defensive baseball player to ever play the game. Even as a Cubs fan, he's nowhere close to a candidate for this listing.

 

Lou Brock, on the other hand... That we can talk about.

Okay, let us do that very thing... I date myself badly, but I am barely old enough to remember Lou Brock and he was a terrific player at his peak. Remember he was on the end of the 1960s and into the pitching-dominated 1970s. His job was to get on base and score runs and he did so with a single-minded ferocity not seen again until Rickey Henderson. 3000+ hits, a .293 avg and nearly 1000 stolen bases? What the hell do you want in a lead-off hitter that Lou didn't bring to the table? Maybe not the top 20% of HOF players but no way that he doesn't belong.

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5 minutes ago, OSJ said:

Okay, let us do that very thing... I date myself badly, but I am barely old enough to remember Lou Brock and he was a terrific player at his peak. Remember he was on the end of the 1960s and into the pitching-dominated 1970s. His job was to get on base and score runs and he did so with a single-minded ferocity not seen again until Rickey Henderson. 3000+ hits, a .293 avg and nearly 1000 stolen bases? What the hell do you want in a lead-off hitter that Lou didn't bring to the table? Maybe not the top 20% of HOF players but no way that he doesn't belong.

Well for one thing, he could take a walk. You are arguing about a leadoff hitter with a sub 350 career On Base Percentage. That is generally the No.1 thing I look for in a quality lead off hitter, and his career OBP just isn't very good. Basically, he has stats, but they are empty. He was a pure singles hitter, with a career slugging percentage of a whopping .410. Career wRC+ sitting at 109 basically still tells you he was never an exceptional offensive player.

Which leads us to the defense, and holy jesus the defense murders him. We can argue how effective the error stat is in baseball. But errors more then prove Lou Brock as one of the worst defensive Left Fielders to ever play. Here is the combined list of Left Fielders with more then 60 errors in there career: Jim Rice at 62, Luis Gonzalez at 64, George Bell at 84, Barry Bonds at 87, and Lou Brock at.... 167. Lou Brock has almost twice as many errors as the left fielder with the 3rd most at the same position in baseball history. His fielding percentage career was .958. .958! The only other Left Fielder in baseball history lower then .970 was George Bell.

Basically, Lou Brock is in for being the first of the "stolen base" guys, but he is nowhere near the best. Kenny Lofton was knocked off the ballot in the first year, and I don't think there is a single thing Lou Brock did better as a ballplayer then Kenny Lofton. Lofton's basically the same offensive player while being one of the best defensive center fielders of all time, were as Brock is one of the worst defensive LFs. 

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2 hours ago, El Dragon said:

Well for one thing, he could take a walk. You are arguing about a leadoff hitter with a sub 350 career On Base Percentage. That is generally the No.1 thing I look for in a quality lead off hitter, and his career OBP just isn't very good. Basically, he has stats, but they are empty. He was a pure singles hitter, with a career slugging percentage of a whopping .410. Career wRC+ sitting at 109 basically still tells you he was never an exceptional offensive player.

Which leads us to the defense, and holy jesus the defense murders him. We can argue how effective the error stat is in baseball. But errors more then prove Lou Brock as one of the worst defensive Left Fielders to ever play. Here is the combined list of Left Fielders with more then 60 errors in there career: Jim Rice at 62, Luis Gonzalez at 64, George Bell at 84, Barry Bonds at 87, and Lou Brock at.... 167. Lou Brock has almost twice as many errors as the left fielder with the 3rd most at the same position in baseball history. His fielding percentage career was .958. .958! The only other Left Fielder in baseball history lower then .970 was George Bell.

Basically, Lou Brock is in for being the first of the "stolen base" guys, but he is nowhere near the best. Kenny Lofton was knocked off the ballot in the first year, and I don't think there is a single thing Lou Brock did better as a ballplayer then Kenny Lofton. Lofton's basically the same offensive player while being one of the best defensive center fielders of all time, were as Brock is one of the worst defensive LFs. 

He was a pure singles hitter, on that we agree. Yes, he could have drawn more walks, that's a given. However, different times and all that. He played most of his career in a pitching dominated era and acquitted himself well enough at what he was supposed to do. Hit singles and be a disruptive fuck on the basepaths. I suspect one reason he didn't draw more walks is that pitchers tried their damnedest to get him out, you did not want Lou Brock on base in any way shape or form. You knew he would likely steal and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it except tire yourself out throwing to first to keep him in check. 

Outfield error stats are very problematic, I watched the whole careers of George Bell and Barry Bonds. George Bell was a butcher in the field. Bonds compiled errors trying to get to balls that no one human could have. They aren't remotely comparable. I know what the numbers say, but I don't recall anyone suggesting during his playing career or shortly thereafter that Brock was a liability in the field. I'm going to go with the Bonds analogy on this one. The biggest problem with the error stat is that you get penalized for trying heroic plays as opposed to playing it safe.

Oh yeah, Kenny Lofton is a bonafide HOFr. The fact that he isn't in proves that the BBWA had no fucking clue what they were watching when he played.

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While I get the argument in theory about errors not being a good metric, I will say saying Brock's errors came because of his range leading to difficult catches just doesn't hold up to numbers. Here are the top 5 Left Fielders on fangraphs in terms of innings played in Left Field, and how many putouts they got in those innings

Barry Bonds: 22,907.2 innings, 5,223 putouts, 89 errors

Luis Gonzalez: 20,518.2 innings, 4,438 putouts, 64 errors

Rickey Henderson: 19,926.2 innings, 5,209 putouts, 113 errors (this includes his time spent in CF, I believe)

Lou Brock: 18,483.2 innings, 3,710 putouts, 167 errors

Tim Raines: 16,777 innings, 3,762 putouts, 48 errors.

 

Now, there is an argument for there just being more fly balls hit in the modern times leading to more chances to make outs. I can't really deny that idea without a deep dive that would literally take years of me watching how many balls fell in areas other LF's could potentially catch. But you might notice Brock simply made less catches then his obvious comparisons in Left Field. Reigns got more putouts in his career in spite of playing over a full season less time in his career at the position. That would imply Brock simply didn't get to fly balls at the same rate as the Bonds, Henderson, or Raines of the world. Heck, even going a step further, his putout rate is even significantly better then Luis Gonzalez, who nobody considered an elite left fielder. Even if we assume that's because of Gonzales getting more opportunities, that still seems like a much better comparison to his defensive talents then Bonds.

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Nicely done and very well-reasoned. I would tap out except for one little detail that I hate hanging an argument on except that it seems so significant... That is players talk, broadcasters talk, beat writers write; in the case of the latter duo, this is what they get paid to do. Players with glaring weak spots get called on the carpet, this is one of the things that livens up broadcasts and sells newspapers. George Bell was rightfully demonized for his shitty fielding, a contemporary of Brock, Dick Stuart was mocked so badly in the press that he almost had a nervous breakdown. So this isn't anything new, if anything the papers were more vicious during Brock's time than they are now. I recall reading articles that made Dick Allen out to be the Antichrist back in the early 1970s. So you would think that if Brock was regarded as such a shitty outfielder as the error stats seem to indicate that someone would have written or commented on the fact, yet I can't recall anyone ever suggesting such a thing. I also don't recall anyone lauding him as great defensive player, but the general consensus seemed to be that he was quite adequate. You don't see him being pulled in late innings for a defensive replacement, something that certainly would have occurred if he were perceived to be a liability. So we're left with two choices: #1. Managers and the press and his peers were completely  blind to Brock's horrid defensive play. Or #2 In this case the stats are more than a tad misleading. I have to lean toward #2. There's just no there there when it comes to contemporary accounts citing him as a bad defensive player. 

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1 hour ago, Lamp, broken circa 1988 said:

if Hoffman misses the cut again my brother might explode

Billy Wagner was a lot better and doesn't even get a sniff. 

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4 hours ago, Tabe said:

Billy Wagner was a lot better and doesn't even get a sniff. 

Billy Wagner had every opportunity to request AC/DC as his walk-on music and he didn't do so. The fault is his. ;-) 

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I wonder where (or who) Nightengale is using for his info.

Because just on public ballots alone - Edgar is higher than Hoffman (79.2% vs. 77.3% - 164 votes vs. 160).

Usually the guys close to the margin drop below it so either he doesn't know how to read a spreadsheet, it is basing it on random other writers he knows telling him they voted for Hoffman or he is getting it directly from the HOF

For some reason - I have an issue if it that last point

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I could see talking to the older folks who don’t release their ballots publicly. And, stereotypically, I could see them voting for Hoffman and not Edgar.

BTW, as a Padres fan, I have no issue with Hoffman going in, but if I was voting, he would not be in my 10 choices. 

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