This is a lot of fun. I don't have many issues with his list except maybe I'd take off Zimmerman and Greinke and put Jose Reyes and Lincecum in their places, although perhaps Lincecum doesn't qualify.

Dale Murphy at 29 had won two MVPs, four consecutive Gold Gloves, had led the league in homers in back-to-back seasons, and he had also led the league in RBIs, in runs, in slugging percentage, in walks. And he was baseball’s ultimate gentleman too. Seemed like a dead lock Hall of Famer.

Murphy is just a hair before my time (in terms of following MLB intently enough to know players in the NL).
What exactly happened to him? Was it injuries? Or did he simply just "lose it"?

Chase Utley?

This is a lot of fun. I don't have many issues with his list except maybe I'd take off Zimmerman and Greinke and put Jose Reyes and Lincecum in their places, although perhaps Lincecum doesn't qualify.

A year ago, I would have agreed with you about Reyes because I thought he was going to pile up big counting stat numbers. That's no longer a given.

Chase Utley?

is 30 years old.

Since I'm on a Cabrera kick today: Miguel Cabrera would be a better choice at this point, IMHO, than Mark Teixeira.

Chase Utley?

As much as we acknowledge Utley as one of the best players in the game, he may end up in a tough spot with regards to the HOF. He got a very late start to his MLB career and didn't play a full season until age 26. As of now, he's 30 with only 978 hits and 161 HR to go with his nice .295/.379/.523 career line. He needs to show some longevity, I think, to have a serious Hall shot. At this point he's got a decent HOF peak but nothing else to speak of because of the late start. On the plus side he's not showing his age yet as evidenced by his terrific defense and 23/0 SB/CS this year.

If I had to handicap it now I'd say he won't get in.

Ryan Braun.

Since I'm on a Cabrera kick today: Miguel Cabrera would be a better choice at this point, IMHO, than Mark Teixeira.

Since he's number 5 on Poz's list, and Tex is at number 8 -- what's your point?

Since he's number 5 on Poz's list, and Tex is at number 8 -- what's your point?

Posnanski left off Cabrera initially, going from 4 to 6. He left a note in the comments when he corrected the post.

Post 2:

Murphy lost it. First he went from being a decent centerfielder to horrible in about 2 seasons so he moved to right field. Trust me, it wasn't because of the obvious greatness of Dion James. Then after a superlative 1987 even accounting for that being a turbocharged offensive year he fell off a cliff in 1988. And it wasn't that he dropped 70 points in average. He got slow. OVERNIGHT. He led the NL in hitting into double plays after being solid about avoiding the double play his entire career. Murphy went from stealing 16 bases to stealing 3. He didn't suffer a down year. He LOOKED bad. Now, when he DID hit the ball he had some power which salvaged the season to a very small degree. All of sudden Murphy went from looking powerful to looking heavy. His swing became mechanical as if it stopped and had to visit checkpoints before moving on.

It evolved from disturbing to alarming to baffling to sad.

As much as we acknowledge Utley as one of the best players in the game, he may end up in a tough spot with regards to the HOF. He got a very late start to his MLB career and didn't play a full season until age 26. As of now, he's 30 with only 978 hits and 161 HR to go with his nice .295/.379/.523 career line. He needs to show some longevity, I think, to have a serious Hall shot. At this point he's got a decent HOF peak but nothing else to speak of because of the late start. On the plus side he's not showing his age yet as evidenced by his terrific defense and 23/0 SB/CS this year.

He got only a 1 year later start than Wade Boggs. He's a more complete player than Boggs was, but won't stand out as much in any one category.

HW is right. The fall of Murphy was bizarre to watch.

I don't think saying Pujols is a HOFer right now is projecting. As soon as the sixth inning starts in the Cardinals opener, he's in.


The rest need to either decline gracefully or maintain what they're doing. I'd say that no more than 4 of the 9 on that list get in (which puts it overall at 50% which isn't a bad list).

Murphy had a history of knee problems, dating back to when he came up as a catcher. While that doesn't explain everything, those knees likely played a significant role in his early and rapid decline.

Sure, Barnaby. Catchers with knee problems can be trouble to project.

Murphy's decline really was so abrupt as to be bizarre; for a season or so I kept thinking it was a fluke, but it quickly became obvious that it was all over.

The sad part is that if he'd had anything like an ordinary decline, he could have been part of the early run of the great Braves teams, which seems like the least he would have deserved for all the terrible teams he suffered through. The gods of baseball, they are cruel.

Here are guys I like as futures:

Tulowitzki
Matt Kemp
Justin Upton

Justin Verlander
John Lester


Darkhorses:

Robinson Cano
Andrew McCutcheon (there is nothing NOT to like about this kid)
Michael Young (a bit old at 32 but seems to like third base and could get his second wind toward 2500 plus hits)

Dan Haren
Mark Buehrle (Guaranteed he will be pitching at age 42)

HW is right. The fall of Murphy was bizarre to watch.

Truly was.

As a kid, I remember Dale Murphy was every bit the ballplayer a healthy Carlos Beltran is. He wasn't a 'reputation' GG OFer -- I remember him being an exceptional CFer; maybe not a Devo-like ballhawk, but always well-positioned, accurate armed, and definitely ++ range.

If it ain't the odd couple, I don't know what is -- but Murphy and Doc Gooden are the two players from my youth that I still can't believe didn't end up no doubt about it HOFers.

[EDIT: Or, as Barnaby says before I jumped into the thread before reading the whole thing. Murphy moved out from behind the plate at a relatively young age, but I think he had already had a serious knee injury from a home plate collision]
The only explanation for Murphy's decline - I think he did have some knee problems that got rapidly worse when he passed age 30, and he most certainly wasn't the type that would even sniff any marginally legal medical treatments.

I know the bar is higher for OFers - but personally, he'd still be on my HOF ballot. For most of the early-mid 80s, he was the best player in the NL.

I know the bar is higher for OFers - but personally, he'd still be on my HOF ballot. For most of the early-mid 80s, he was the best player in the NL.


Me too. But it's mostly the oddity of timing. I was at an age - and he was on TBS - that I watched Murphy nearly every day at his peak and was much less engaged when his career ended. I still saw some games and was amazed at the drop off, but in my mind, it's the early 80s and Murphy is a HOFer.

Folks should try and find Murphy from 1982-1983 and Murphy in 1989. His swing in 1989 could be timed with a sundial. He was beginning his swing at the top of a pitcher's motion which made him completely at the mercy of a decent breaking pitch. He made like a Miss America in a parade waving at pitches in the dirt.

If that was knees it was the Ebola virus of knee ailments.................

Levi,

I never considered that a normal-decline Murph would have been on the '91 and '92 teams, anyway. That is in fact pretty sad.

What is even sadder is that Murphy would probably have been a smarter baserunner than Lonnie Smith.

Folks should try and find Murphy from 1982-1983 and Murphy in 1989. His swing in 1989 could be timed with a sundial. He was beginning his swing at the top of a pitcher's motion which made him completely at the mercy of a decent breaking pitch. He made like a Miss America in a parade waving at pitches in the dirt.

But was his swing slow? That's what I'm not clear on.

:P

Keith Hernandez wrote a game-by-game account of the 1985 season. He mentions that Dale Murphy was voted the most feared batter in the National League (I think Don Mattingly won it in the AL... Jim Rice wuz robbed). So every time they play the Braves, Hernandez refers to him as Dale "Most Feared Hitter" Murphy.

That's my only "memory" of Murphy. I'm 24.

One of the things that I often thought about Murphy was how the spike in walks in '87 combined with the team performance may have affected his approach. During his MVP years, he was a 90+ walk guy and it went up over 115 in '87. But a bad Braves team became horrendous in '87 and those walks didn't seem to move the needle on team wins. Murphy, very publicly, saw himself as the person who was responsible for plating runs. In '88, Murphy was much more aggressive, swinging at many more borderline pitches. His walks dropped by a third that season and continued to crater thereafter. Swinging at worse pitches and a slower bat speed (I agree with Harveys on that one) meant there was nothing left.

Mark Buehrle (Guaranteed he will be pitching at age 42)

He'll have to rethink his oft-stated desire to retire when his current contract is up.

If you had done this exercise in 1989, probably the first year I obsessively followed baseball:

1. Cal Ripken 1315 G .277/.350/.461 204 HR 744 RBI
2. Dwight Gooden 100-39 2.64 ERA 1291 IP
3. Daryl Strawberry 957 G .260/.361/.520 215 HR 625 RBI
4. Don Mattingly 1015 G .323/.372/.521 164 HR 717 RBI
5. Tony Gwynn 1060 G .332/.388/.437 45 HR 416 RBI
6. Kirby Puckett 924 G .323/.357/.469 96 HR 506 RBI
7. Will Clark 582 G .308/.381/.524 98 HR 352 RBI
8. Eric Davis 640 G .275/.369/.530 142 HR 413 RBI
9. Roger Clemens 95-45 3.06 ERA 1284 IP
10.Jose Canseco 568 G .270/.342/.503 128 HR 424 RBI

Others:
Bret Saberhagen 92-61 3.23 ERA 1329 IP
Ruben Sierra 589 G .273/.317/.479 98 HR 374 RBI
Bobby Bonilla 601 G .278/.359/.452 66 HR 306 RBI
Kevin Mitchell 548 G .275/.352/.509 100 HR 319 RBI
Glenn Davis 737 G .264/.337/.478 144 HR 454 RBI
George Bell 1039 G .289/.331/.495 181 HR 654 RBI
Barry Bonds 566 G .256/.346/.458 84 HR 223 RBI
Frank Viola 117-98 3.84 ERA 1858 IP
Fernando Valenzuela 128-103 3.19 ERA 2144 IP

Guys who no one talked about being HOF candidates, but whose numbers look pretty darn good
Kent Hrbek 1156 G .290/.371/.496 201 HR 724 RBI
Alvin Davis 881 G .290/.394/.474 131 HR 530 RBI
Danny Tartabull 603 G .283/.373/.502 106 HR 375 RBI
Teddy Higuera 78-44 3.28 ERA 1085 IP
Mark Gubicza 84-67 3.51 ERA 1316 IP
Jimmy Key 74-49 3.36 ERA 1115 IP
Ron Darling 87-55 3.38 1391 IP

Since he's number 5 on Poz's list, and Tex is at number 8 -- what's your point?

As PH mentioned, Cabrera was not on the original list and No. 5 was a blank space.

However, this did not seem like an oversight by Poz, as Cabrera was explicitly mentioned in Teixeira's comment, along with Morneau, Howard, Fielder and Gonzalez, as first basemen who could make the list if they kept playing at a high level. Now he has Cabrera at No. 5 and deleted his name from the Tex comment.

I agree with this change, but it's making my comments (here and on his page) look pretty stupid right now. :-)

Like dlf, I wonder about the role of 1987 in Murphy's decline. A lot depends on what the fluke year is in there. We see a great peak from 1983-85, then a decline in 1986, followed by a huge 1987 and then the drop off the cliff.

My guess is that Murphy's skill set maybe was right in a sweet spot that was particularly affected by the offensive trends from 1986 to 1988 and beyond. Let's say Murphy's decline started in 1986. However, in 1987 the number of HR hit in the NL went up by almost 20%; so, maybe whatever affected slugging in 1987 played particularly well to his skill set, offsetting that decline to give him one last great year. But, in 1988 the number of HR in the NL went down again by almost 30%, and that was particularly hard on a skill set that was benefiting a lot from context.

If 1987 is the fluke year, then maybe he had a decline that was still pronounced, but not quite as sudden as the dropoff from 1987 to 1988 would suggest.

the first thing i thought of when i saw all those names in post 27 was 'bill james abstract' ... good times.

I agree with this change, but it's making my comments (here and on his page) look pretty stupid right now. :-)

Well, now that I have the explanation, I feel a little sheepish about bringing it up. Jeez, now I not only have to RTFA, I have to RTFC after TFA, to be accurate.

For most of the early-mid 80s, he was the best player in the NL

Well, there was this guy named Schmidt or something who played for Philly IIRC...

Do appreciate the Murphy anecdotes. Bill James also was convinced he'd make it. I do wonder if we would have had threads this decade bitterly discussing his worthiness if he had say managed to make it to 450 HRs-the peak is good, very good, don't get me wrong (he blows Puckett's out of the water), but he did get a lot of help from his home park. Still, it looks like he would rank about 4th-5th among postwar CFers: Willie, Mickey & the Duke are clearly ahead, but I'd have to put him ahead of Puckett too, which leaves the likes of active players like Beltran and Andruw, and he clearly beats them out as well. Doby is a close call.

Still, it looks like he would rank about 4th-5th among postwar CFers: Willie, Mickey & the Duke are clearly ahead, and I'd have to put him ahead of Puckett too,

The Hall of Merit rankings in the category you name:

Elected:
1. Willie Mays
2. Mickey Mantle
3. Duke Snider
4. Larry Doby (some Negro League value is included in this ranking)
5. Richie Ashburn
6. Jimmy Wynn
7. Andre Dawson

Not (yet?) elected:
Kirby Puckett (11th on 2009 ballot)
Dale Murphy (26th on the 2009 ballot)

Still, it looks like he would rank about 4th-5th among postwar CFers: Willie, Mickey & the Duke are clearly ahead, but I'd have to put him ahead of Puckett too, which leaves the likes of active players like Beltran and Andruw, and he clearly beats them out as well. Doby is a close call.

Ken Griffey Jr.

Team of guys from just the 80's in the AL who at one point looked to be taking over their league:

1b: Justin Thompson
2b: Jody Reed
ss: Tony Fernandez
3b: Kevin Seitzer/Gary Gaetti
c: Lance Parrish
lf: Willie Wilson/George Bell
cf: Lloyd Moseby
rf: Jesse Barfield/Danny Tartabull

Gotta love them '80s Jays.

Yeah, I knew I was forgetting somebody (Dawson too). I wonder how Dawson got in the HoM over Murph-more arcane positional adjustments? (same league & time, same positions, both even switched to RF at about the same time). Does all that WAR stuff see Dawson as an awesome (heh) fielder, and Murph as a slug out there? Otherwise the voting in 2005 (AD: 326 points. DM: 134 points) makes no sense to me.

I wonder how Dawson got in the HoM over Murph-more arcane positional adjustments? (same league & time, same positions, both even switched to RF at about the same time).

Somebody actually with the Hall of Merit can answer more definitively, but Dawson's got an extra 500 games so he appeals to the career voters a lot more than Murphy would. But he's also got an excellent peak/prime in the early '80s in Montreal, so he doesn't lose much (if anything) to Murphy among peak voters. I also think that fielding statistics generally think that Dawson was an excellent center fielder in his prime. I'm less sure what the metrics think of Murphy's defense.

1b: Justin Thompson

Jason, you mean. Justin was a once-promising Detroit pitcher, mostly in the late '90s. I was surprised to see via bb-ref that he actually pitched a couple of innings in 2005 after not having appeared in MLB since '99.

Kiko: as someone who never supported Dawson, I'm the wrong person to ask. I went looking at the Murphy discussion thread, the Dawson discussion thread, and some of the ballot discussion threads from between 1999 (when Murphy appeared on the ballot) to 2005 (when Dawson was elected). I don't have all that much to report - you can look at those threads yourself if you want to. (They're linked on the HoM front page.)

Here's an unholy combination of a career grafted from two different statistical lines: take the top 6-year middle of Dale Murphy's career and wrap the beginning and end of Lonnie Smith's career around it. Murphy has very little apart from the heart of his career, while Smith started and ended well but has a giant doughnut hole in the middle.