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The Baseball Hall of Fame Thread


LethalStriker

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5 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

As always, my argument is the line is arbitrary. Greenies are bad, but endless cups of coffee are okay. Blood doping is bad, but lasik is okay. And so on ...

As people have said, how much would guys performance have dropped off in tthe dog days of August playing in KC or STL and so on without amphetamines? 

I honestly can't hold players accountable for doing something that baseball clearly didn't care about.  They did nothing to even discourage steroid use in baseball unitl they started testing in 2003.  Between 1977 and 1995 only Cecil Fielder hit 50 home runs.  After that, bums like Brady Anderson was hitting 50 homers in a season.  You can't get to the major leagues without being a competitionaholic, so when they see other players getting away with taking a shortcut, they are going to find a shortcut.  The people in charge saw this and instead of doing something about it...the celebrated it.  We all remember the Sosa/McGuire home run chase.  We also remember when that one writer questioned what McGuire was taking, and how he was shouted down.  If we punish those guys, we aren't punishing them for deceiving us, we're punishing them because we lied to ourselves about it.

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3 hours ago, supremebve said:

I honestly can't hold players accountable for doing something that baseball clearly didn't care about.  They did nothing to even discourage steroid use in baseball unitl they started testing in 2003.  Between 1977 and 1995 only Cecil Fielder hit 50 home runs.  After that, bums like Brady Anderson was hitting 50 homers in a season.  You can't get to the major leagues without being a competitionaholic, so when they see other players getting away with taking a shortcut, they are going to find a shortcut.  The people in charge saw this and instead of doing something about it...the celebrated it.  We all remember the Sosa/McGuire home run chase.  We also remember when that one writer questioned what McGuire was taking, and how he was shouted down.  If we punish those guys, we aren't punishing them for deceiving us, we're punishing them because we lied to ourselves about it.

Nail. Head.

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10 hours ago, Kuetsar said:

They only cared about PED"S when the home run records started to fall. I'm not sure how much greenies enhanced performance as much as helped guys get up for games, and we have much better stuff than that now.  Doesn't make greenies good or right, but that's the distinction, not that I think most writers give a shit.

On the contrary, I think the line was obvious.

Greenies enhanced performance more than steroids would have by far. In addition to @odessasteps's reason: The fact it's been 14 years now, and we're seeing more players suddenly reveal they have severe ADHD (and as such are able to get Adderall with a prescription), but less players reveal they have low testosterone (and qualify for prescription steroids) says what matters more to baseball players.  

Even beyond the facts, it's pretty obvious there: Steroids will help you tear the cover off the ball. Amphetamines can help you stay focused, and if you stay focused, you can hit a baseball in the first place. 

As far as distinction...the obvious distinction was "Jim Bouton talked about greenies in Ball Four and gave them a cute nickname, so writers think of the fact that every ballplayer was a closet speed freak as 'just a cute baseball thing' and ignored it."

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On 12/15/2018 at 11:31 AM, Tabe said:

At the end of the day, Evans had a good career but .248 is still .248.  Doesn't matter how much you walk, that just sucks too much to get into the Hall. 

My friend, you are doing exactly the same thing that the pearl-clutching, handbag waving members of the BBWA did. You are looking at a player's biggest single negative in a vacuum and using it to refute everything in the plus column. What is the one statistic that levels the playing field for everyone? No, it's not a trick question, just go ahead and shout out the answer, I'm sure that you know that the stat in question is "Runs Created". Whether you're batting leadoff, hitting seventh, or being called in as a pinch hitter, everyone has the same job, and that is to create runs. Okay, let's write off his first year in Detroit as a fluke season, getting used to all that weird breaking stuff they throw at you in the American League. The next three years show 40HRs, 85RBIs; 29/85 and 34/99 or averages of 34/93 while drawing more walks than strikeouts 93/92 (yeah, it's not a BIG difference, but it is a positive.) All told, he maintained a robust .249 as his batting average. I think it safe to say that Darrell Evans was a very productive component of the Tigers offense despite a low batting average. Oddly enough, there was a gentleman in NY who was doing much the same thing.

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9 hours ago, OSJ said:

My friend, you are doing exactly the same thing that the pearl-clutching, handbag waving members of the BBWA did. You are looking at a player's biggest single negative in a vacuum and using it to refute everything in the plus column. What is the one statistic that levels the playing field for everyone? No, it's not a trick question, just go ahead and shout out the answer, I'm sure that you know that the stat in question is "Runs Created". Whether you're batting leadoff, hitting seventh, or being called in as a pinch hitter, everyone has the same job, and that is to create runs. Okay, let's write off his first year in Detroit as a fluke season, getting used to all that weird breaking stuff they throw at you in the American League. The next three years show 40HRs, 85RBIs; 29/85 and 34/99 or averages of 34/93 while drawing more walks than strikeouts 93/92 (yeah, it's not a BIG difference, but it is a positive.) All told, he maintained a robust .249 as his batting average. I think it safe to say that Darrell Evans was a very productive component of the Tigers offense despite a low batting average. Oddly enough, there was a gentleman in NY who was doing much the same thing.

Productive <> HOFer

I didn't say Evans wasn't productive in Detroit.

And, yes, I am looking at his single biggest negative - because it that godawful.  Fact is, he only .270 twice - and one of those was their weird anomaly 1973 in Atlanta.  

At the end of the day, Evans was a .248 hitter with a career 119 OPS+ who had basically two standout seasons (and other good ones) who spent nearly half his career at 1B and DH.  He simply did not do enough.

 

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Bill Ballou of the Telegram & Gazette got the attention he so richly craved by announcing he was abstaining from voting because he thinks closers are bullshit

It was some bizarro twisted logic that because Mariano was great but most closers are shit and have an "easy job" no closer should be in but he didn't want to be known as the guy who might potentially keep Mariano from getting 100%

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1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

Bill Ballou of the Telegram & Gazette got the attention he so richly craved by announcing he was abstaining from voting because he thinks closers are bullshit

It was some bizarro twisted logic that because Mariano was great but most closers are shit and have an "easy job" no closer should be in but he didn't want to be known as the guy who might potentially keep Mariano from getting 100%

What a pompous, cowardly buffoon. The attention this guy deserves is a good swift kick to drive his head even further up his ass than it already is. "Easy job",  my Irish ass... The closer position is arguably the hardest position in baseball, certainly the most psychologically difficult,  that this walking turd has a vote on the HOF is a travesty. 

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1 hour ago, OSJ said:

The closer position is arguably the hardest position in baseball

It might be one of the hardest to be good at long term but the job itself is very easy. I chose some arbitrary "good season" numbers for a closer - 40+ saves, sub-2.50 ERA - and decided to see how often that's happened. 94 times. 9 of those are Mariano, leaving 85 for everybody else. That means it's pretty easy to have a good year as a closer. 

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14 hours ago, El Dragon said:

I just looked at the most recent balloting and Omar Vizquel has more votes then Scott Rolen, Gary Sheffield, Andruw Jones, and Lance Berkman combined and I hate the voters so much.

I love how you act like an elite defender who can't hit is less deserving than elite defenders who CAN hit like Rolen and Jones. Your priorities are messed up. 

[/snark] 

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On 12/25/2018 at 10:16 AM, El Dragon said:

I just looked at the most recent balloting and Omar Vizquel has more votes then Scott Rolen, Gary Sheffield, Andruw Jones, and Lance Berkman combined and I hate the voters so much.

Two of these things are not like the others, two of these things do not belong.

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31 minutes ago, El Dragon said:

I think we can debate Berkman and Scheffield getting the Hall, but I think they surely have a better case then "Career Slightly Above Average" in Omar Vizquel.

I was speaking of Rolen and Jones as they were two double threat players. We've had our little chuckle about Berkman before, and as for Sheffield, I think that there may be a position that I at 61 years of age can't play better than Gary Sheffield, but damned if I can think of what that might be... 
Perhaps there are two Omar Vizquels? There was the one in Seattle that Tabe and I would soil ourselves laughing at the very notion that he would merit inclusion in the HOF. And then there was another one that played in Cleveland, and let's face it, Cleveland doesn't have a whole lot to get excited about...

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As of today looks like "Gar, Mo, Doc, & Moose will all go in, oddly, I have no problem with any of that. Halladay had a short career, but he was lights out brilliant for most of it. Someone mentioned "aura" some posts back, yeah, with the exception of Mussina (who was incredibly good for a long time), these guys had "it", whenever they played you had the feeling that you were watching someone special. To a Seattle boy, there was nothing more comforting than Edgar Martinez coming up to bat with runners in scoring position, yeah, A-Rod, Griffey, and Buhner were all spectacular, but you just knew that the quiet guy they called "Papi" was going to get the job done.

When Mo Rivera took the mound, you might as well change the channel because the game was over, it was just that simple. I have never seen a guy that was so completely unhittable and I"m old enough to remember Koufax and J.R. Richard in his prime. It's nice to see that he's been named on all 162 ballots that have been made public, because quite frankly, if you don't vote for Mo Rivera, you should have your ballot taken away and you should be confined to covering curling, roller derby, and tiddly-winks because you obviously do not understand baseball on any level.

I've never been much of a Blue Jays fan, but when Doc Halladay pitched, you didn't change the channel, you knew you were watching a great pitcher. 

Other than his first few seasons (when I made a bunch of money selling his RCs), Mike Mussina never exactly had that "aura" that we speak of, but when you crunch the numbers and apply context, there's really little doubt that he was an elite pitcher. 

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I promised this awhile ago, and am just now getting around to it... Let us examine the HOF cred of one Dave Parker:

 

1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in baseball? Did anybody, while he was active, ever suggest that he was the best player in baseball? Best all-around player? No, but S.I. lauded him as baseball's best hitter on several occasions, and I would have to agree.

2. Was he the best player on his team? The Cobra was certainly considered the best hitter on both the Pirates and the Reds, the less said about his fielding, the better.

3. Was he the best player in baseball at his position? Was he the best player in the league at his position? Dave Parker was an indifferent fielder at best. It's odd, because he had a cannon for an arm, one would think his defensive stats would be better than they are. He led the league in errors at his position several times and I'm not going to make the Barry Bonds defense of attempting heroic plays, he just wasn't that good a defensive player.

4. Did he have an impact on a number of pennant races? Absolutely, imaging the Pirates or Reds dynasties without Parker is like imaging the Rolling Stones without Charlie Watts.

5. Was he a good enough player that he could continue to play regularly after passing his prime? He could and he did. Parker played almost twenty years, finishing his career in Oakland as a valued role-player. 


6. Is he the very best player in baseball history who is not in the Hall of Fame? Leaving aside the Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens issues, we look at position players and Ken Boyer and Bobby Grich certainly have a solid case.  I would have to say that he is one of the best, but certainly not the best player not enshrined.

7. Are most players who have comparable career statistics in the Hall of Fame? Y'all know that I have a big problem with the comps on Baseball Reference as they do not factor in eras. Parker's comps are ridiculous by any stretch of the imagination, his closest (Luis Gonzales) scores a 903 in similarity. Now I watched a lot of Dave Parker's career and all of Luis Gonzales and the two are about as similar as James Brown and Barry Manilow. Parker's totals came in a pitching dominated era and are amazingly good when you factor that in.

8. Do the numbers meet Hall of Fame standards? Eh, sort of, kind of, maybe... We've talked about Gary Sheffield being the floor for RFs, in actuality it should probably be Parker. 

9. Is there any evidence to suggest that the player was significantly better or worse than is suggested by his statistics? Considering his era, his offensive production isn't just good, it's astonishing. Sadly, I think the defensive stats tell a pretty accurate story.

10. Is he the best player at his position who is eligible for the Hall of Fame but not in? I'll get into a big argument with the Sheff fanboys, but I think Parker was far superior as a hitter. Neither guy really belonged in the outfield. Some people are born to DH...

11. How many MVP-type season did he have? Did he ever win an MVP award? Yes he did with a 95% vote and was in the discussion numerous times.

12. How many All-Star-type seasons did he have? How many All-Star games did he play in? Did most of the other players who played in this many games get in? 7 time All-Star and considering how good his teams were, that's saying something. 

13. If this man were the best player on his team, would it be likely that the team could win the pennant? He was and they did, he led the 1979 Pirates to the LCS and WS and was simply studly at the bat, hitting .333 in the playoffs and .345 in the WS. He was awarded the WS MVP for his performance. 

14. What impact did the player have on baseball history? We he responsible for any rule changes? Did he introduce any new equipment? did he change the game in any way? No to all.
 
15. Did the player uphold the standards of sportsmanship and character that the Hall of Fame, in its written guidelines, instructs us to consider? It depends on your views on illicit drugs, for which, see question #16.
 

16.  Is there a major negative for this player, and if so what is it and is it a valid reason to keep him out of the HOF? Are other players with the same negative in the HOF? There are two major knocks on Dave Parker and they are sort of related. In the 1970s, Mr. Parker (like myself and many, many others) had a fondness for what we called Peruvian Marching Powder. His penchant for taking bumps of coke in the outfield may well have contributed to his awful fielding. On the other hand, Parker put up numbers in a pitching-dominated era that are just absurd, he was that good.  He was the best hitter on two dynastic teams and no slouch when he came to Oakland. The argument can certainly be made that Parker was the best hitter of his generation. I think keeping him out because of the cocaine use is silly, as I don't give a rat's ass what someone is taking as long as they come to play and there's no question but that Dave Parker came to play (well, to hit anyway). The biggest knock that I see is that he falls into the great hit - poor field category, but he was such a dominate hitter that it's really hard to keep him out based on that. I think the only reason he's not in is the coke and that's ridiculous.  

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16 hours ago, Tabe said:

What is the second dynasty that Parker was the best hitter for? Mid-80s Cincinnati wasn't a dynasty and he wasn't the best in Oakland. 

I consider the mid-80s Reds to be the tail end of the Big Red Machine. 

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