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Even though he was overrated defensively -- by my observation he made a lot of fabulous running catches that a slightly faster outfielder would have got to sooner and made look more routine -- he was still very good in center field. And he was a good to great hitter for a long time.
He might be one of those guys who takes 2-3 years to reach 75%. But he seems to me to be a sure thing for the HOF eventually. (I don't think the hits or HR totals matter.)
I do not think Jim will reach the HOF.
While he had a fine peak he wasn't dominant. H*ckuva player. Just not quite there.
And I think more than a few writers think he is 'tainted' given the context.
I think a lot of people here agree that he should be a Hall of Famer, or is at least a damn good candidate. But the BBWAA has been awful about electing center fielders and Edmonds is more likely to suffer a fate similar to other overlooked candidates than make any headway. Though, I suppose playing in 2010 will at least push him a little further away from the bloated ballots of 13-14, so taht can't hurt.
Before I got to Mays/Mantle my top 10 was
1. Ken Griffey
2. Carlos Beltran
3. Jim Edmonds
4. Kriby Puckett
5. Bernie Williams
6. Cesar Cedeno
7. Dale Murphy
8. Vada Pinson
9. Fred Lynn
10. Amos Otis
That's a hell of a lot of "Hall of Very Good" guys. As a comparison at EVERY other position from the period 1970-2009 I had 7 or 8 clear Hall of Famers.
Are you looking at the BBWAA selections, or the combined BBWAA/VC selections?
Also, 7708 PA doesn't exactly seem like a long career for a Hall of Famer - it's 288th all-time.
But yeah, maybe the Veterans' Committee decades from now, which will basically just be going by statlines, will get around to him.
I think plenty of people here think that he'd be a deserving HOFer. Just eyeballing it, he looks to be comparable in value to Duke Snider (Snider leads him in AROM's WAR 67.2 - 66.6) with a smidge less offense (132 OPS+ v. 140 for Snider) and a smidge more defense (AROM has Snider as almost exactly average while he has Edmonds being above-average, if not necessarily deserving of 8 Gold Gloves). I suspect he'll get plenty of love in the Hall of Merit.
But he had a late start, peaked in his 30s, which led to relatively few All-Star games, nothing overwhelming in terms of MVP votes (one 4th, one 5th, a handful of other votes), and what Tripon says in #4. All of which leads me to agree with what appears to be the consensus here as expressed in #2: more likely to drop off the ballot than be elected.
Andre Dawson needs to be in there, as does Jimmy Wynn.
I suppose depending on how it goes, Brewer fans might hate him too.
1. Ken Griffey
2. Carlos Beltran
3. Jim Edmonds
4. Kriby Puckett
5. Bernie Williams
6. Cesar Cedeno
7. Dale Murphy
8. Vada Pinson
9. Fred Lynn
10. Amos Otis
Where was Lofton in your rankings?
Just because I'm lazy I go by position at which you played the most innings, so Dawson is in RF. Lofton is at #19.
And finally, I'm glad I posted this, because I've plum left Jimmy Wynn out of it. I must have skipped over a bunch of 1977 retirements.
Andruw Jones just missed out at #12 behind Willie Davis.
I weight Career WS, Per Game WS and best 4 seasons WS evenly. Jones has a better peak than the guys around him, but his career isn't as good and the last couple years have eaten into his per game advantage.
EDIT: Like Dawson I have Reggie Smith in RF
Cub and Cardinal fans can now hate him simultaneously. Excellent.
I suppose depending on how it goes, Brewer fans might hate him too.
- and you are leaving out us astros fans WHY????
will be the first time i remember ever booing any brewer
For ONE reason.
A CF platoon means Carlos ####### Gomez spends 2/3 of the time on the bench. I don't mind him as a defensive replacement/pinch runner; but the thought of him replacing Cameron (or even Gwynn, who is a similar player, but not quite as bad in his on-base-skills as Gomez, and a lefty, oh who am I kidding TONY GWYNN JUNIOR IS MUCH FREAKING BETTER THAN CARLOS GOMEZ) makes me sick.
1. Ken Griffey 79.7
2. Carlos Beltran 57.1
3. Jim Edmonds 72.2
4. Kirby Puckett 43.4
5. Bernie Williams 57.3
6. Cesar Cedeno 49.1
7. Dale Murphy 45.3
8. Vada Pinson 29.0
9. Fred Lynn 37.5
10. Amos Otis 30.5
Others:
Andre Dawson* 59.6
Jimmy Wynn 57.1
Reggie Smith 56.1
Andruw Jones 61.3
Willie Davis 46.7
Duke Snider 53.6
Andy Van Slyke 50.4
Lenny Dykstra 50.5 Reggie Smith played more games in RF than CF. He also played 219 games at other positions, mostly 1B.
*Dawson played a lot more RF than CF, too.
No idea why, the hatred runs much deeper with the Cubs... but yeah.
Rk Player OPS+ RC G PA From To1 Ken Griffey 136 1989 2638 11196 1989 2009
2 Jim Edmonds 132 1364 1925 7708 1993 2008
3 Fred Lynn 129 1232 1969 7923 1974 1990
4 Jimmy Wynn 128 1149 1920 8010 1963 1977
5 Ellis Burks 126 1350 2000 8176 1987 2004
6 Bernie Williams 125 1445 2076 9053 1991 2006
7 Rick Monday 125 1021 1986 7162 1966 1984
8 Kirby Puckett 124 1201 1783 7831 1984 1995
9 Cesar Cedeno 123 1144 2006 8133 1970 1986
10 Ray Lankford 122 1045 1701 6674 1990 2004
11 Dale Murphy 121 1308 2180 9040 1976 1993
12 Chet Lemon 120 1077 1988 7872 1975 1990
13 Carlos Beltran 119 1145 1562 6877 1998 2009
14 Andre Dawson 119 1518 2627 10769 1976 1996
15 Robin Yount 115 1655 2856 12249 1974 1993
16 Amos Otis 114 1114 1998 8246 1967 1984
17 Andruw Jones 110 1147 1918 7845 1996 2009
18 Brett Butler 110 1276 2213 9545 1981 1997
19 Mike Cameron 107 1046 1829 7435 1995 2009
20 Kenny Lofton 107 1386 2103 9234 1991 2007
that is really REALLY weird. like how many astros fans in milwaukee could there POSSIBLY be? there fer sure ain't real too many who come to the Box and i haven't seen ANY trouble. no drunks screaming out swear words, no *()%*! throwing beers, no cops, no prob (the cub hate is mostly because of the unspeakably obnoxious cub FANS who pollute the Box)
and michael barrett, of course. and prolly a couple others who were on the 04 team
and i can't think of any brewer player hated by astros. any astro player hated by brewers? clank lee? can't be any of the pitchers...
Edmonds: 7708 PA, 3491 TB, 382 HR, 1176 RBI, .284/.377/.528, 905 OPS, 132 OPS+
"Halfway between" those career lines is pretty good. 340 HR, 1100 RBI, 895 OPS. Probably not Hall worthy, until you compare them with our latest two Hall of Fame outfielders. Of course, then we could find about a dozen more that are close that that. And then a bunch that close to that bunch... still, my intended point: somebody half between those two ex-Angels would be a nice player.
If he spends time in the majors this year, at least the absolute best candidates on the crazy upcoming ballots will have cleared out a little by the time he shows up. He'll still probably get lost in the shuffle, even though he's vastly better than Kirby Puckett.
Maybe. Keep in mind that we have to watch him. Sure, his defense is very good (so was Cameron's though) but it's no fun to watch a guy flail around with a sub-.300 OBP. It is, in fact, extremely annoying.
The following is for entertainment purposes only:
Here's a list of players who CHONE projects to be 21.5 runs above replacement next year (per 150 games). Obviously, I don't agree with some of these assessments, as this list is semi-CRAZY...
Chavez, Eric
Crisp, Coco
Duncan, Shelley
Escobar, Alcides
Freese, David
Gomez, Carlos
Gwynn, Tony
Hannahan, Jack
Hudson, Orlando
Iwamura, Akinori
Pence, Hunter
Salazar, Oscar
Suzuki, Ichiro
No! I mean, Lee was in Milwaukee for a while, but there's really no animosity.
I think it's pretty simple, really. Over the last couple of years, the Astros have been in town for a disproportionate number of weekend series. Weekends, drunks... trouble.
Wasn't dominant? He had back to back years of 1.000+ OPS and his 6 year peak of 00-05 is .292/.406/.584 153 OPS+....from a CFer. How is that not dominant?
This.
His defense is outstanding. As is his speed. Then again, you can't steal first. And he's got no power. I know he's young, and his pop is likely to improve somewhat; but what of his on-base ability?
He's got a little more gap power than Gwynn, I'll give him that. But the rest of his game is equal or inferior to Tony's.
Is that all the players who are predicted to be 21.5 runs above replacement on defense? Or just "a list" that you selected from a bigger list?
How can Oscar Salazar and David Freese have any defensive projections at all? Do we have good enough stats from the minors to get any sort of sample size?
Andre Dawson compiled 37.7 of his career 56.8 WAR as a centerfielder, including his top 5 seasons. He's a CF.
Dawson innings as a CF: 9,006.2
Dawson innings as a RF minus innings as a CF: 1,800.0
Dawson kisses as a FF host: 108,062
Cardinal fans don't hate him. At least this one doesn't, and I don't pick up any hostility from my fellow fans on blogs and listserves. Kind of sucked that he went to the Cubs, but we liked him and still do. Personally, he's my favorite non-Pujols Cardinal of the last couple of decades, and playing for the Cubs didn't change that, nor will playing for the Brewers. We got his best years and appreciated the hell out of them.
Because presumably, you'd have already been rooting against him, whether he played for the Cards or Cubs (or Brewers).
Edmonds has to be an easy HOM (he's much better than the borderline guys), and his delaying his retirement to the back of the glut may help him with the HOF. I could also see the HOF electing no one, great players like Jim falling off the ballot, and then the election rules getting changed to favor Edmonds ten years later when people remember how great his peak was and decide he was feared or something.
Anyone else think Edmonds was basically a sea-level Larry Walker in center with a slightly worse bat as an offset to the lower value position?
ARE YOU ON CRACK?
Um... yeah. Not much of a hitter, you're right. But he was every bit as good as Cammy in center.
Combination of what others were doing at the same time coupled with playing time.
Lots of guys putting up flashy numbers during that timeframe. Jimmy never led the league in anything. Never finished second in anything. He finished in third in slugging once.
That's not dominant. Not relative to his peers.
D*mn good play for a while though
Ernie Banks innings as a 1B: 10792.2
Ernie Banks innings as a SS: 9863.1
So, Banks is a first baseman?
Not even the Cubs apostasy can make me hate Jimmy Ballgame.
I don't think he has a prayer at the Hall, but I think he's worthy.
He leans that way, yes. But if you like, he's bi.
I'm assuming you're a Brewers fan. I'm a Twins fan.
The one really good thing I can tell you about Carlos Gomez is that--and this is just purely aesthetic--he really looks like he loves the game. I've never seen another player approach each game with so much joy.
Does it make him a better player? No*, of course not. But it sure makes it a lot easier for you to root for him--busting his ass on every play, ludicrously happy after victories and tortured after defeats. Even when he was taking time away from the clearly superior Denard Span last year, I still really enjoyed rooting for him, and you have to imagine a player like that makes his teammates try a little harder too.
It counts for something.
*I will echo the sentiments of the many posters above me and point out that Gomez is still a much more valuable player than you appear to be giving him credit. As an everyday player in 2008, Gomez put up a 2.3 WAR season (per Fangraphs)--which was similar to the 2009 seasons of guys like Hideki Matsui, Andre Ethier, Nick Markakis, Billy Butler and Grady Sizemore.
He leans that way, yes.
Wow, really? Banks's best season as a first baseman is roughly equivalent to his worst season as a shortstop. I don't see this at all.
Edit: Banks WAR by position (assigning seasons to the position where he spent the most time):
SS 55.7
1B 8.7
If that's not "best player at your position" for a string of years---that is, dominance---I don't know what is.
I oversold it: I meant to say I didn't think he was a plus defender and seemed very average with the Brewers. People said he was good in the field because he was fast, but he didn't seem especially great on routes. His UZR in the small sample with the Brewers was average. I guess it was better last year, but I didn't watch him enough to opine. The fielding stats on B-R have him slightly below average.
I'm trying to think whether he has anything left... he was serviceable in 2008 at age 38, but now he's missed a year and he's turning 40 at the end of June... He surely can't play center anymore, and his drop in batting average doesn't bode well. And he likely doesn't have the secondary skills anymore to support the low batting average, particularly not at a corner OF position.
I'm rooting for him but I don't like his chances.
For a somewhat abbreviated career the guy should be at the top of something once in a while. And can any of us in good faith point to Gold Gloves as such an example? I don't think so.
Jim is right there. And I mean "right"..."There". But not quite
Think of it this way, the Kevin Costner way. Ninety percent of the tickets sold to movies he starred in were very good movies: The Untouchables; Bull Durham; No Way Out; Field of Dreams; Dances with Wolves; and JFK.
But the other ten percent of tickets sold were in mediocrities and total dogs like Wyatt Earp, Waterworld, The Bodyguard, Revenge, The Guardian, Swing Vote, Message in a Bottle, The War, Rumor Has It..., The New Daughter, 3000 Miles to Graceland, The Postman and Dragonfly*.
By your theory, the only films which should count are the few he made which were excellent, because it was in those he derived almost all of his FAR. Yet that makes no sense. Costner played some good shortstop. But he played even more first base.
*I never saw Dragonfly. (It also starred the great Ron Rifkin.) These are some quotes from critics on rottentomatoes, where it scored 7%:
--"Kevin Costner has an uncanny aptitude for gravitating toward the dopiest projects in sight, but this time he's outdone himself."
-- "Muddled, melodramatic paranormal romance is an all-time low for Kevin Costner."
-- "What Costner and everyone else is in constant danger of is spouting some awful dialogue."
-- "Abysmal film that’s an embarrassment to all concerned."
-- "The movie is incapable of generating surprise...[it's] a snore-inducing tidal wave of New Age corn."
-- "It's hard to take the weepy, oozing emotions of Kevin Costner's maudlin new film Dragonfly seriously."
-- "A sappy, often absurd disappointment."
-- "Easily the worst film I've seen all year."
-- "A numbingly pretentious project."
Well, his peak healthy period coincided with Barry Bonds' freakish 5-year stretch of being the best baseball player in the known universe, and he played alongside Albert Pujols in the years that Bonds didn't cover...
For the purposes of a general, player ranking discussion, obviously Banks was both a first baseman and a shortstop. That's not really the discussion we were having - we seem to be making the simplifying move of classifying players in one single position. When doing that, I (and I think most people here) prefer to use the position at which the player accrued the most value, not the one where he spent the most time.
OK, fine. But if asked to rank the best SS of the 50's and 60's, do you exclude Banks because he was a firstbaseman? That doesn't make any sense. The list of top CF since 1970 doesn't include Dawson, and you say that's fine because he is a RF by virtue of him playing more in RF than CF. But Dawson's vale, just as a CF, is as good or greater than many of those on the list who played nearly exclusivley in CF.
Dawson total WAR - 56.8, as a CF ( through 1983) - 37.7
Dale Murphy total WAR - 44.4, WAR as a CF (1980-1985) - 32.8
Kirby Puckett total - 45, as a CF - 38
Amos Otis total 40.2
Vada Pinson total - 49.1, as a CF - 44.7
If those guys can make the list of CF, why can't Dawson.
Jimmy is one of those cases where, while he may have statistically demonstrable dominance, he did not have perceived dominance. I think that, looking at his 2000-05 years, he was putting up a 153 OPS+, playing a good number of games (for a CF), and winning the Gold Glove every year.
But during that stretch, his best marks in the traditional stats, and the more accepted percentage stats are:
Batting Average: 1 9th place finish
OBP: 2 6th place finishes and 1 9th place
SLG: 1 3rd, 1 5th and 1 10th
Runs: 1 3rd
HRs: 1 5th and 2 7ths
RBI: 1 6th place.
So it was not just that he did not lead the league -- he did not even make the top 10. His total Gray Ink number for his career is 60. That just does not feel like dominance.
Now, for a CFer, that may still be pretty good; but BBWAA voters tend to expect HOF CFers to hit more than that.
You state this like it there is a rule written in stone that raw innings are all you look at, to determine where you place a player, when it really is a matter of preference and weighting. In the absence of an 11th Commandment stating Thou Shalt Place A Player Where He Accumulated The Most Innings, it is perfectly valid to hold the opinion that value provided is at least as good a way to judge it as raw innings, at least for these ranking lists.
Except for Kirby Puckett. (Yes, he does better in some of the categories you listed as BBWAA significant.) Edmonds' omission from a Hall that let Puckett in on the first ballot is going to bother me for years before it actually happens.
Yes, the rule is written in stone. Ernie Banks was not just a shortstop. He was bi-positional, with about half his innings at 1B (10792.2) and slightly less than half at SS (9863.1). He also played some 3B and LF. If you examine the stone inscription, it says it does not matter where most of his WAR came from.
But again, would you exclude him from a list of best SS from his era because he played more innings at 1B? That would be ridiculous.
Given that Rice and Dawson have been elected the past couple of years, though, I have a hard time imagining that Edmonds will always be on the outside looking in, particularly if he somehow manages to worm his way to 400 HR. A pile of Gold Gloves and a truly outstanding peak should get him in eventually, even if he has to wait until 2030 to get there.
So I feel I should reiterate, I chose to rank him as a RF because I'm lazy and didn't want to calculate values at each position, just go with innings.
I did however go with Banks as a SS, just because that one is kind of silly.
Lacking in some consistency I know, but no worries it's just #46 on the list of flaws with my lists. I'm mostly doing it for the process rather than the results. For instance the greatest thing to come out of my rankings is Dick McAuliffe. Never heard of him before last week and now I know he was one of the best SS of the 60s.
This sounds vaguely familiar.
If you consider peak value at all in terms of evaluating players, and you take the step of classifying players within a single position (which we agree is oversimplifying, but people do it all the time, as evidenced by this thread), it makes sense to consider the position the player occupied at his peak in that classification.
Just to note -- Puckett has 122 points of gray ink, where Edmonds has 60, and that was in a shortened career. That was in part because he was remarkably durable. After his rookie year, the only short seasons he had were strike-shortened.
Note that, in 12 seasons, Kirby had 7,831 PA and 14,623.2 innings in the field, 12,245.0 in center field. In 16 seasons, Edmonds had 7,708 PA, and 15,250.1 innings in the field, 14,262.2 in center field.
No, I would not exclude him from a list of best shortstops for that reason. He is among the best shortstops ever. He also has a really cool hat which says "Mr. Cub." However, when considering the best shortstops of all time, he is hurt a bit by the fact that he played SS only for about 7.5 seasons. The same problem will harm the argument for A-Rod at SS. A-Rod is one of the greatest baseball players of all time. But he moved to 3B at age 28. So that move hurts him some, too, in a shortstop argument.
You still have to rank him 2nd all time among shortstops, though, don't you? I mean, even if his career ends in 2003 that's a hell of a career, and his defensive value is far from zero in the 2004-??? period. It might become something cited in an argument to leave him behind Wagner*, but that's as far as you can carry it, isn't it?
* and, if you like, Lloyd
Since Rifkin appears to be arguing with the following statement:
I think that what you're saying can be equally applied to the other side of the argument.
Is that all the players who are predicted to be 21.5 runs above replacement on defense? Or just "a list" that you selected from a bigger list?
Offense + Defense + Position Adjustment. also, it's the entrie list (took the CHONE xls, filtered it). You'll note the list included Hafner, among others, so it wasn't just defense. :)
I posted it because it's a funny collection of names and because I liked the coincidence of it listing both TG2 (who I'd just come down on) and Gomez (who I'd praised).
How can Oscar Salazar and David Freese have any defensive projections at all? Do we have good enough stats from the minors to get any sort of sample size?
Not to be obvious, but sample size is hardly the problem...
There are many significant issues with using minor league defensive stats - but they're still pretty useful - and efforts to translate them have been made. (By Sean/AROM, for one, obviously - he had a bit in the HT(?) about this a year or four back.)
Go to minorleaguesplits if you want to see untranslated estimates...
Anyway, if you don't like the numbers, replace 'em with your opinion based on scouting reports/observation/etc... - most of the time, they line up relatively well, though there are certainly no shortage of outliers.
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