HOVG player, IMO. Nothing to be ashamed about, either.

He's just on the other side of the borderline for me, but really close. Unlikely to make my ballot anytime soon.

Not a voter, but I'm always surprised just how close Lofton is to Brock -- until you add in defensive numbers. Normalized for era, I think most would agree that Brock was a better offensive player (depending on how you break down Brock's ~75% success rate vs Lofton's 80% rate in SBs). Lofton obviously has the big edge on defense - especially if you can just overlook the last 1/3 of so of Lofton's career.

I know the HoM hasn't elected Brock, either -- but if I were a voter and I tried to make the case for Lofton, I'd think you'd want some justification on why Lofton but not Brock. You have to be a really, really big believer in dWAR to make that case, I think, because offensively -- I'm not so sure Brock doesn't have a clearly better case.

I'll be very interested to see the ballots for this years voters and in particular, see the relative rankings of the two of them... I have a suspicion that there might be a bit of confirmation bias at play -- i.e., that Brock wasn't as good as his HoF career and thus gets dinged, while Lofton is generally viewed as somewhat underappreciated and gets a boost. Of the top of my head - I think you'd almost have to have them back-to-back -- and the only means of separation is how you view defensive analysis and whether/to what extent you give Brock a boost as a compiler.

I'm not a voter--so ignore away!--and I realize that my position is not really *rational* in any specific way....

...but I treat "leadoff hitter" as its own position, like "shortstop" or "closer."

And for essentially his entire career--hell, over the past 20 years--Kenny Lofton was the best leadoff hitter in baseball.

And it's not like it's a fluke, the way Jack Morris was the best starting pitcher of the 80s or Bill Freehan was the best catcher from 1963 to 1974. I'm sure if we could find some fair way to divide the numbers, Kenny Lofton would rank as one of the top 20 leadoff hitters in the game's history.

I realize one can easily make this absurd. "Kenny Lofton belongs in the Hall of Fame because he was the best 'leadoff hitter' of the past 20 years? Well, Brad Ausmus was the best good-glove, no-bat catcher of the past 20 years. Does he belong too?" And I acknowledge that my case doesn't come with a great deal (or any, really) statistcal support.

But I think it's important to value players who got the absolute most out of their specific skillset. I support Kenny Lofton for the same reason I support Ozzie Smith--Ozzie gave his teams as much value as was physically possible for a shortstop who could only rarely hit the ball out of the infield. And Kenny Lofton did the same--he was as valuable as an outfielder with single-digit home run power could possibly be during the Sillyball era.

Not a voter either. In response to zonk in #3, Lofton was a slightly better offensive player largely because of a higher OBP (even after adjusting for offensive environment), although this is outweighed by Brock's advantage in playing time. Looking at bb-ref, Lofton has about 520 runs from the offensive side of the game (including baserunning and taking into account playing time), compared with 538 for Brock. This is despite a 2000 plate appearance advantage for Brock.

However, Lofton benefits both from playing a more difficult position and from doing it better than Brock. Just the positional difference alone is worth 153 runs in Lofton's favor, and I don't think that's very controversial. Lofton was CF and Brock was a LF.

Lofton also gets another 163 runs as compared to Brock from being a great CFer whereas Brock was a poor LFer. This is where there's more room for debate.

Either way, though, I think it's easy to make the argument that Lofton was better than Brock. It's just not clear he's better enough to merit being the Hall.

#4: The simplest counter-argument there is that if the Indians had hit Jim Thome leadoff, it probably would have made very little difference to the team runs scored, whereas if you didn't have a catcher, you'd have a lot of passed balls (to coin a phrase.) The difference between batting order positions and fielding positions is that you don't "have to have" a leadoff hitter, at least in the sense of someone whose strengths (and weaknesses!) are peculiarly suited to that role.

Speaking of which, it probably goes without saying that when you say Lofton "was as valuable as an outfielder with single-digit home run power could possibly be during the Sillyball era", you are trying to spin a guy's weakness as a strength in a way that is basically impossible to buy.

Those are the best and most direct arguments against your position, but I also think that if one humored your argument a little further and made up the list of top 20 all-time leadoff hitters, it would not be a cavalcade of all-time greats. Sure, you'd have Rickey and Raines... some borderline HOFers like Ashburn and Hack... and then a bunch of guys like Brett Butler, George Burns and Roy Thomas who, despite being very good, it's hard to imagine in the HOF/HOM. Admittedly, Lofton might well be significantly better than top 20. Still, I'd at least make up that list before you cite it. ;)

Can we give him bonus points for being one of probably the five best college basketball players to play major league baseball?

Seriously, while I'm not a voter, I can't see how you can vote against Lofton. He doesn't compare with Brock at all - he blows Brock away. He has a better career WAR than Dwight Evans and a better peak.

Who is his competition for "best centerfielder in the 1990s?" I suppose Edmonds was a contemporary and was better. Who else? The start of Andruw Jones' peak just lines up with the end of Lofton's. Bernie Williams was maybe a bit better hitter, but not nearly as good an outfielder. Steve Finley was similar to Williams, but not quite as good.

The way I see it, if Lofton hadn't had his peak starting at the very beginning of his career, and hadn't bounced around as much, he'd be seen as a shoe-in. The guy was a great, underappreciated player.

#6: Haha, OK....So, while I acknowledge that this isn't perfect, I decided to come up with a list of the Top 20 leadoff hitters in baseball history. I used BB-Ref's PI tool, and set the following parameters:

OBP > .350 (LOFTON = .372)
HR < 00 (LOFT RUNS > 1000 (LOFT
SB > 400 (LOFTON = 622)
PAs> 5,000 (LOFTON = 9235)

Obviously, these totals are all cherry-picked, but I don't feel I've done anything egregious to single out Lofton (I mean, I'm pretty sure he fits in the middle of most of my arbitrary categories).

(I started this at 1901, because my first time through left me with a few sluggers from the 19th century--guys like Ed Delahanty, whom I know weren't used as leadoff hitters.)

I then ranked that list by WAR, and got:

1. Ty Cobb (159 WAR)
2. Tris Speaker (133)
3. Eddie Collins (127)
4. Honus Wagner (117)
5. Rickey Henderson (113)
6. Joe Morgan (104)
7. Frankie Frisch (75)
8. Paul Molitor (75)
9. Craig Biggio (66)
10. Kenny Lofton (65)
11. Tim Raines (65)
12. Roberto Alomar (64)
13. Sherry Magee (59)
14. Ichiro Suzuki (55)
15. Johnny Damon (52)
16. Max Carey (51)
17. Brett Butler (47)
18. Chuck Knoblauch (42)
19. Donie Bush (37)
20. Clyde Milan (34)

It's a pretty reasonable list of the best leadoff hitters in the history of the game, Eric Wedge be dammned. (I have to confess I'm not sure how often some of these guys were used as leadoff hitters--I have to imagine Tris Speaker fit the profile of a #3-type of hitter during his era. And I know Molitor spent most of his career as an OLD player, so his time is split between the leadoff spot and others.) But for the most, I'd say it pretty much conforms to popular opinion.

OTTOMH, the list is missing a few candidates (guys whose OBPs were too low because they played in pitcher eras, or whose steals were too low because they played in the 40s and 50s). So I suppose we can add guys like:

Ozzie Smith (64)
Richie Ashburn (58)
Stan Hack (55)
Luis Aparicio (50)
Bert Campaneris (45)
Lou Brock (39)
Willie Wilson (39)
Maury Wills (33)

to it, but I think the point's there. I think the numbers support calling Kenny Lofton one of the top 20 leadoff TYPE hitters of all-time.

I realize one can easily make this absurd. "Kenny Lofton belongs in the Hall of Fame because he was the best 'leadoff hitter' of the past 20 years? Well, Brad Ausmus was the best good-glove, no-bat catcher of the past 20 years. Does he belong too?" And I acknowledge that my case doesn't come with a great deal (or any, really) statistcal support.

But there are so many other issues with this. For starters: is it even true? Craig Biggio was Lofton's superior in the 90s, and Ichiro was his superior in the 00s.

I think the claim is flat out false, and the only way to get it to be true is to engage in exactly the type of boundary-defining trickery that posits Jack Morris as the best pitcher of his era.

Who is his competition for "best centerfielder in the 1990s?"

I'm pretty sure Griffey takes that crown.

Who is his competition for "best centerfielder in the 1990s?"

Debuted since 1977, 35% career games in CF

Yeah, just want to pile on here. It's Griffey Jr.

And for essentially his entire career--hell, over the past 20 years--Kenny Lofton was the best leadoff hitter in baseball.

I browsed this post at first and didn't even see the extent to which it was overstated. I think it's closer to the truth to say that Lofton was at no point during his career the best leadoff hitter in baseball.

In the beginning he's squeezed by Rickey Henderson. His prime (94-99, 780 Games at 114 OPS+) is easily trumped by Biggio (899 Games at 132 OPS+), and contested by Knoblauch (854 Games at 121 OPS+), even Brady Anderson (837 Games at 122 OPS+). I suppose Biggio hit #2 at some points during this stretch. Alomar was transitioning out of the leadoff role by the end of this. But the best you can say is that Lofton had a claim to the title.

Soon after that you have Ichiro rather conclusively taking the title, and Carl Crawford, Jose Reyes and friends waiting in the wings.

About once a week someone on BTF looks up the career WAR lists and comments on his surprise at how well Lofton ranks. A lot of that is his defense, which doesn't enter into this little discussion.

I guess it's just my way of saying that, when it comes to debates about value (Hall of Fame, MVP, etc), I give bonus points to unusual players--specifically, players who didn't hit for value. 2001 MVP, I'm voting for Ichiro! over Giambi, because Ichiro was a right fielder who hit 8 home runs--every other part of his game had to be perfect (whereas Jason Giambi is just boring. A slugging first baseman who can't run or play the field. Yawn.)

Same here. I suspect Rafael Palmeiro and Kenny Lofton have similar Hall of Fame resumes. But the degree of difficulty for a player like Lofton to produce that kind of value is just so much more impressive to me. In order to produce that much value when you can't hit home runs...you need to be an A+ in just about every other possible measurable aspect of baseball.

11 wins of that WAR number is defense. WAR has Bernie -12 wins on defense. Otherwise Bernie is +5 wins on offense and positional adjustment. Was Lofton really better than Jim Edmonds and Mike Cameron in CF?

Personally, I'd draw my in-out line between Jones and Damon on that list above. That 60 WAR line seems ever more useful to me, because I keep eyeballing lists like this, drawing kneejerk conclusions about who belongs in the HOF and who doesn't, and then finding out I've unintentionally set my cutoff right there.

With the whole discussion about Lofton and centerfielders, I wanted to throw my "uber-stat blender" results out there.
This includes 6 different systems that use a baseline of replacement player or bench player.
I've got 3 WARs, 2 WARPs, and WSAB.

Recently I did this for everyone who played ANY past 1980.
Anyway, I won't blather on but will simply list the leaders (note that Dawson and RSmith show up as corner outfielders
in how I broke things down). Oh, and I kind of lazily filled in the blanks for systems that I didn't have some of
the more recent years.

Anyway, here goes (oh, and don't worry about the numbers themselves, that's just the number I get from my system).

GRIFFEY, KEN JR. 45.40
EDMONDS, JIM 38.70
BELTRAN, CARLOS 34.05
LOFTON, KENNY 32.85
JONES, ANDRUW 32.76
CEDENSO, CESAR 30.78
WILLIAMS, BERNIE 30.37
LEMON, CHET 30.32
LYNN, FRED 29.21
BUTLER, BRETT 28.95
DAMON, JOHNNY 27.85
OTIS, AMOS 27.22
PUCKETT, KIRBY 27.21
CAMERON, MIKE 26.40
BURKS, ELLIS 26.29
MURPHY, DALE 26.01
OLIVER, AL 25.85

I'm going to save time and declare everybody wrong. :-)

Yes, Lofton's war is heavily defense-dependent. But "only" 11 wins of that are Rfield the rest is positional adjustment.

Lofton vs. Cameron -- Lofton barely has any Rfield advantage over Cameron but has 19 more WAR. Please, this isn't even close. OBP matters remember.

Lofton vs. Williams -- yes, if you pretend they were both average defensive CF, Williams wins. They weren't. Lofton might not have been 11 wins good but he was good; Williams might not be 12 wins bad but he was below-average. And are you really saying that an average-fielding Williams with 60 WAR wouldn't be worth considering?

Lofton vs. Beltran -- Lofton has a 4.5 win Rfield advantage ... and a 4.5 WAR advantage. That means their offensive contribution has been equal. Now Lofton has 1500 more PA which is huge so Carlos will most likely pass him in offensive output although as a RF. Yes, I'd take Beltran in a second but the fact that Lofton is that close OFFENSIVELY to Beltran is what surprises me.

Lofton vs. Andruw -- Andruw has a nearly 15 win Rfield advantage but is 5 WAR behind. Similar to Cameron, Lofton was much more valuable offensively than Andruw.

Lofton's problem is pretty much the same problem all the non-Griffey types have -- there were a lot of good CF in this timeframe. You can clearly make cases for Griffey, Edmonds, Beltran and maybe Jones on a peak case (although that's all defense). Is the 3rd-4th best CF of his era worthy of induction?

Also please understand the nature of measurement error. There is nearly as much chance that Lofton was under-credited as there is that he was over-credited. Unless you can show bias there's little reason to put any more faith in Lofton's +11 than Cameron's +10 or Beltran's +7 or Bernie's -12 or Damon's +0 or Edmond's +9.

And, if I did my math right, he's currently 4th in oWAR on that list with Beltran likely to pass him. His is NOT a defense-heavy case, the man has 54 WAR without defense. That requires serious consideration.

Or do we toss out the baserunning value too?

Was Lofton really better than Jim Edmonds and Mike Cameron in CF?

Well the numbers have them pretty close, over ~2000 G careers. And is that so hard to believe?

Lofton was

1) one of the fastest players in the game
2) able to stick in centerfield for his entire long career, through age 40, while playing for multiple teams.

(He also looked like a good fielder to me, but I guess that's not really something to put much stock in.)

A question for HOM voters:

If you took Lofton's BRef defensive numbers at face value, would you vote for him? Who would you rank him near?

A few comments about the list Dave Malvolio generated in #8:

Perhaps the most problematic of your criteria is the restriction to <300 HR.

One thing that gets you is "before 1920." And your top four names were Cobb, Speaker, Collins, Wagner. In terms their own times would have understood, they were power hitters. They batted in the middle of the order, and they drove in plenty of runs.

But then: is there any reason you can't have a leadoff hitter hit home runs? One name omitted from that list because he had over 300 HR was Bobby Bonds. While Bonds wasn't a lifelong leadoff hitter, he did bat leadoff quite often, and had some memorable seasons, scoring as many as 131 runs in a season.

Another celebrated power-hitting leadoff hitter was Brady Anderson. Checking him against your criteria: OPB .362, check. HR 210, check. Runs 1062, check. PA<5000? That was a seriously redundant criterion; how are you going to score 1000 runs without at least that? (Anderson had 7737). The only thing he's missing is the 400 SB, and he had 307 of those.

But that raises another question: what if you relax the SB criterion? Do you really have to steal bases to be a top-notch leadoff hitter? Dom DiMaggio has your 1000 runs scored, crammed into just 10 years. And a .383 OBP. But he didn't steal bases. And what about the AL players who came just after DiMaggio - collectively the "Eddies". Checking up on a few of them:

Ferris Fain: career too short, just 595 R.
Roy Cullenbine: didn't really score runs - didn't bat leadoff.
Johnny Pesky: 867 R.
Eddie Joost: 874 R.
Eddie Stanky: 811 R.
Eddie Yost: the rest fell short on career length, but Yost had the career: 1215 R. I should add that all of these guys had the required OBP, and more.

Then, just going for pure OBP, how about the superior 1980's descendant of the Eddies: Wade Boggs? Boggs had 1513 R (in 10740 PA), only 118 HR, and a career .415 OBP. He didn't steal bases, and he wasn't a good baserunner in any other way - but anyone on base as often as that is going to score runs.

Now, Joe Morgan. Of course Joe Morgan would have made a fabulous leadoff hitter. But (at least with Cincinnati) he didn't bat leadoff. He batted mostly 3rd, and was a fabulous #3 hitter. Which raises the question of why Pete Rose didn't make your list? Answer: it's the stolen bases again. Rose had 2165 R and a .375 lifetime OBP, but he didn't steal bases. Go look at the Reds' lineups from the mid-70's. What would you have done? Bat Morgan leadoff and Rose 2nd? Bat Morgan leadoff and Rose 6th? Or leave well enough alone and bat Rose leadoff? I'd probably opt for the "leave well enough alone" camp, although I might have put Morgan 2nd instead of 3rd.

I thought entering this I would be one of Lofton's biggest supporters, although I now think he is borderline (although I think he is on the "in" side of that line). While Lofton does quite well with the B-R and FG systems, he absolutely craters with the BG system. As indicated above the key is with his defense. Lofton doesn't quite rank in the top 80% of CF defensively, and in the BG system it is practically impossible to end up with a negative defensive value. So in a lot of ways it depends on how wide you believe the defensive spectrum can work. I personally lean more towards the B-R and FG systems, but when in doubt, regress towards the mean. I end up seeing a good comp for Lofton being Max Carey.

One thing that could have been said and probably was said. (And maybe it was Bill James who said it, although I'm not sure of that):

In the early 90's, Deion Sanders was drawing an enormous amount of attention. (For one thing, he lived to draw attention.) Sanders was skilled enough to survive in MLB, and he was very, very fast. One year, Sanders had an XBH line of 6-14-8. Anyone who can do that is certainly fast. But for all you remarking on the speed Sanders had and trying to make that cover more facets of value that it really can, why not turn your attention to a baseball player who really could do all those other things; and the baseball player to look at would have been Kenny Lofton.

---

Can we give him bonus points for being one of probably the five best college basketball players to play major league baseball?

How did Tony Gwynn compare to Lofton?

---

The 1996 Indians scored 952 runs; 132 of them were by Lofton.
The 1997 Indians scored 868 runs. Lofton wasn't there - he spend that year in Atlanta, then came back to Cleveland the next year.
The 1998 Indians scored 850 runs; 101 of them were by Lofton.
The 1999 Indians scored 1009 runs; 110 of them were by Lofton. That was the year Manny had 165 RBI.
The 2000 Indians scored 950 runs; 107 of them were by Lofton.

Of course those rosters were fabulous collections of offensive talent and Lofton was fortunate to have the privilege of leading off for them. But he did do that well.

I'm pretty sure Griffey takes that crown.

Of course it is. Brain cramp/east coast bias.

How did Tony Gwynn compare to Lofton?

Lofton was probably good enough to play in the NBA - he held the all-time steals record at Arizona for quite a while before Miles Simon broke it. Gwynn was a standout at SDSU against much weaker competition. I'd think Dick Groat, Danny Ainge and maybe Chuck Connors are the guys here who give Lofton the biggest competition. Only Groat was remotely in his league as a baseball player. Carl Yastrzemski played college basketball, too, but I don't think he was anything special as a basketball player.

One point of interest - not really in his favor or against him as a HOM candidate, but more of a "what could have been" kind of issue - is that Lofton was at Arizona on a basketball scholarship, and didn't play college baseball until his junior year. This probably slowed his progression to the majors, as he was a rookie at age 25. In the post-Jackie Robinson era, very few players of his caliber have reached the majors that late.

Also, I think that the fact that Lofton stuck around so long past his prime has made people forget what a great centerfielder he was in his prime. He wasn't Andruw Jones or Devon White, but he had great range, and tremendous leaping ability at the wall. Also, unlike most of the other top outfielders who are really fast guys with no power, he could throw.

I think the issue with Lofton is that he was extremely valuable as a base stealer, but not quite at the Henderson/Raines level. He wasn't as good a hitter as those guys, but he was a better outfielder -- much better than Raines. He isn't a guy like Evans where the mainstream media long ignored his key skill. Instead, he's a guy who's skillset was diverse, and where a lot of the contribution comes from something we statheads mostly ignore - base stealing - but which the mainstream media talk up a lot.

I'd think Dick Groat, Danny Ainge and maybe Chuck Connors are the guys here who give Lofton the biggest competition.

You're missing at least one other.

> the man has 54 WAR without defense

That falls into the "not quite enough" category for me. I'm not saying Lofton wasn't better than Bernie (he was). I'm just questioning the "better than Mike Cameron defensively". I always thought Mike Cameron was top-notch with the glove, it's hard to be much better than him.

Bob Gibson was a very good basketball player.

There's also pitcher Chris Young, who played two years of basketball at Princeton and was first team All Ivy once and second team once. Went for 20 points and six boards against Kansas as a sophomore, 22 points and four rebounds against UNLV the same year.

His game wasn't suited to the NBA - he was a 6'10" center whose offensive game was best 15-20 feet from the hoop - but he was one heck of a college basketball player. Young's basketball stats.

You're missing at least one other.

One more, right-hander Ron Reed played a couple of seasons for the Pistons back in the sixties.

Lofton's post season record was very poor. If your prone to giving some players a bump for post season value, then you have to nick Lofton's value at least some.

He was a guy that teams always wanted for the post season, but inevitably, he had mostly bad or mediocre series at best.

In fully 10 of his 20 post season series he failed to register even a .300 OBP. In 4 others he was at just .333, well below his career avg.

He only had about 6 really good playoff series, out of 20 played.

20 Series, 95 games, 438 PA's, and most of it was poor.

#30: It is really striking, especially because lead-off hitters just--per reputation--are always considered even more important to a team's success in the playoffs.

I'm reminded of Rickey Henderson in the 1989 ALCS (Oakland vs Toronto):

Game 1: 0 for 2, but draws 2 walks, adds an HBP, and steals two bases in an Oakland victory.
Game 2: 2 for 2, draws 2 walks, and steals 4 bases! Oakland wins
Game 3: 1 for 4 with a double, a walk and a stolen base. Scores 2 runs, but Oakland drops their only game.
Game 4: 2 for 4 with 2 2-run homers; also adds a walk. Oakland wins.
Game 5: 1 for 3 with a triple, a walk, and a steal. Oakland wins the series.

All told: He reached base 14 times in 23 plate appearances (6 hits--4 for extra bases--7 walks, 1 HBP), stole 7 bases without being caught, and scored 8 runs. Just total domination in every game.

...Kenny Lofton never really did that.

Dave Winfield was on a Big Ten Champion Golden Gophers hoops team. He was also a prominant participation in a big brawl.

I'd think Dick Groat, Danny Ainge and maybe Chuck Connors are the guys here who give Lofton the biggest competition.

You're missing at least one other.

One more, right-hander Ron Reed played a couple of seasons for the Pistons back in the sixties.

Plus Gene Conley. And Lou Boudreau was a very good college hoopster, and played in the NBL (forerunner to the NBA) after being ruled ineligible for college after signing with the Indians.

edit: Also Tim Stoddard, starting forward on the 1974 NC State National Champions.

I guess it's just my way of saying that, when it comes to debates about value (Hall of Fame, MVP, etc), I give bonus points to unusual players--specifically, players who didn't hit for value.

Pete Gray says "Hello."

I seem to recall Steve Hamilton of "folly floater" infamy played in the NBA, or could have*. Don Kessinger was an all-American hbasketball player at Ole Miss. Cotton Nash had a couple of cups of coffee with the White Sox & Twins; before that, he played in the NBA & ABA.

Edit: Yep; Wikipedia says he played 2 years for the Minneapolis Lakers.

That falls into the "not quite enough" category for me. I'm not saying Lofton wasn't better than Bernie (he was). I'm just questioning the "better than Mike Cameron defensively". I always thought Mike Cameron was top-notch with the glove, it's hard to be much better than him.

Lofton: 0.89 dWAR per 162 G, Cameron: 0.80 dWAR per 162. I don't know that I'd call that "much better", more like "about the same, given the difficulty of measuring defense".

So Lofton's got some stiff competition. Even throwing out guys with trivial MLB careers like Ainge and DeBusschere, there remains Groat, Conley, Reed, Winfield, Stoddard, Boudreau, Gibson, and Gwynn.

Robin Roberts, too.

So, with basketball, I'd probably stick with Lofton, among guys who had really substantial MLB careers. There is a general consensus that the level of baseball play has gone up over time, but I would argue that the difference in the quality of basketball in the late 1980s compared to the 1960's and before is huge. In Boudreau's era, they didn't even jump to block shots. College basketball probably talent probably peaked around Lofton's era, as shortly after that, players started to go directly to the NBA, or stay in college only one year. Maybe the overall level of basketball talent available has counteracted that trend, but I think at least in terms of top level talent, era right before Garnett and Kobe went to the NBA was probably the peak.

So, I think it's fair to say that there needs to be a big era adjustment for Lofton versus anyone other than Gwynn. Lofton played against much tougher talent than Gwynn. I can't actually find a stats database for college hoops that goes back more than about 10 years. My general impression is that Lofton was as good a point guard as some guys in his year who were 1st round picks and had long NBA careers, and my only inference from the fact that he wasn't drafted is that he had made it clear he planned to play baseball. Gwynn was drafted, but with a 10th round pick, and the NBA draft was cut to 2 rounds by Lofton's time. Winfield was a 5th round pick.

In general, comparing other people to Lou Brock's career is dicey at best, because Brock has the huge WS credentials and a very long career. Without them, he would have had a lot slower time getting into the Hall. I think he would still have been elected, and by the BBWAA, but not like he was. Also, starting in 1966 (Brock was still young then) Lou played in a ballpark that was a horror to try to hit home runs in. Lou had decent power, especially for a leadoff man (Bill James summed his non-WS candidacy very well by saying, approximately, "He got himself into scoring position constantly, in an era where getting two hits behind you was anything but a given."), but that aspect of his game gets forgotten because it didn't show in his ballpark. The same is true of Eddie Yost and anyone else in Griffith, Old Comiskey, or the Astrodome (Wynn, Cruz). I think Lofton is a good borderline candidate, but Lou Brock is a poor place to start making comparisons. Tim Raines is a much better place to start. - Brock Hanke

Gibson was a Globetrotter back in the day when that meant something.
Cat could hoop.

With regards to leadoff being a separate position, sure there are exceptional power hitter who would score a ton of runs in the leadoff spot, but their teams would not be best served by batting (say) Babe Ruth leadoff. His power is of greater value further down the lineup.

Bill James had a good example of this (from a study reported in his 1992 Baseball Book)

He took a generic team. Ran 100 seasons with Rickey Henderson (using career averages through 1991) as their leadoff hitter. Then ran 100 seasons with Willie Mays (career average) as the leadoff hitter. And a third time through with Steve Sax (1991 stats as the leadoff hitter)

Then 100 seasons with Henderson batting 3rd, then 100 seasons Mays batting 3rd. (Replacing 1991 George Brett as the #3 hitter)

Leadoff Stats


Batting 3rd


ATRS = average team runs scored.

Now the point of the study isn't to show Henderson was as good as Mays. They're rated as equals in CF defensively for purposes of the study. Mays had much better in season durability, Mays has a decline phase built into his stats and Henderson doesn't. It's just meant to compare them offensively using the best sim available (Dick Cramer's) and to look at the influence of lineup position.

When both batted third the teams scored the same number of runs (despite Mays driving in a lot more runs and scoring as many). When they both batted leadoff, Rickey's teams scored 9 more. It's not a profound difference, but it is a real one. Mays has a big advantage in isolated power and that less when they're batting leadoff because a leadoff hitter is going to have more PAs with nobody on (and not just because of that first at bat. Bottom of the order hitters tend to be poor at getting on)

edit: Also Tim Stoddard, starting forward on the 1974 NC State National Champions.

AFAIK Stoddard and Lofton are the only two players to have appeared in both the World Series and the NCAA Final Four. Ironically enough they both graduated from Washington HS in East Chicago, IN (obviously not at the same time).

Brock re #40: I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you are concluding--are you saying Lofton was better than Brock and Brock is not HOM worthy so there is no reason to compare them, whereas how he compares to Raines, who is HOM worthy, will help figure Lofton's worthiness? Or that the ballpark factors/timeline differences between Brock and Lofton are too broad to breach, and that Raines' and Lofton's situations were more similar?

Either way, Lofton is ten times the defensive outfielder than either Raines or Brock was. Isn't Richie Ashburn probably the most similar player to Lofton, in terms of ability, and what his skill set was? Ashburn drew more walks, Lofton stole more bases and had a bit more power, but they're very similar players.

Ashburn is a good comp, and I think Max Carey is as well. Similar hitting profile, stole lots of bases, and played a great defensive CF.

Ashburn played during a mini-deadball era and Lofton during an offensive boom. That affects their relative value.

Yeah, Ashburn and Lofton have very similar career WAR values (Lofton's is 7 wins better). Lofton has better-looking offensive numbers. Ashburn has a better OPS+, but Lofton probably comes out a bit ahead because of the stolen bases.

Also, Ashburn played in the 50's - that wasn't really a mini-dead ball era. The 60's were, but 1962 was Ashburn's last year, and that was the year hitting started to go down.

True enough, but the 50's weren't exactly known for high run scoring. Probably akin to the 80's.

An interesting note - I sort of alluded to this already - but among players with at least as high a WAR as Lofton, only Edgar Martinez and Lofton himself debuted as old as 24. I may have missed one of the old-timers, but certainly none of the modern players did. That doesn't really affect anything in terms of whether he deserves to enter the HOM, but it's a sort of interesting fact. I don't think you could find two really good players who were much more different from one another in other respects.

RE: #44. No, first off, I claim that Lou Brock is a deserving HoF member. What I am saying is that the credentials that got him there are odd enough that comparing them to Lofton's credentials doesn't work. Raines' credentials are a lot more like Lofton's in terms of strong and weak points than Brock's are. I think that Raines, as well as Brock, should be in the Hall. I just would not start a Lofton comparison with Lou. I'd start with someone like Raines, who presents the same sort of credentials as Lofton does. - Brock Hanke

Let's talk about Kenny Lofton's 1994 season. For those who adjust strike seasons up to 162 games, his 1994 comes in at 11.0 rWAR. He was the best player in the American League. If you're looking for a peak candidate with career bulk, then Lofton should be solidly on your ballot.

But was Lofton really that good in 1994? I was 11 years old during that season and cried the day the players went on strike. One of my most vivid memories of that season was the peak performance of Frank Thomas. I had to see how baserunning, position, and defense not only erased the Big Hurt's 67-point OPS+ lead over Lofton, but left him two full wins behind when prorated to 162 games.

It's a parallel of the Biggio/Griffey comparison that Bill James made in the last Abstract. Thomas leads in batting runs, 106-53, but Lofton closes the gap with everything else. Baserunning, ROE and DP events halve the margin, with Lofton adding 17 runs and Thomas taking away 9, making it 97-70, Thomas. Lofton gains another 3 runs for playing CF while Thomas loses 11 for 1B/DH, so it's 86-73, Thomas. Finally, Lofton's defense in CF was +19, while Thomas was -11 at 1B. Lofton takes the lead, 92-75. Add 23 runs to each player for replacement level and the final score for RAR is 115-98 for Lofton when adjusting to 162 games.

The baserunning and positional estimates seem quite reasonable, so the only way to say that Thomas was better than Lofton that year would be to argue that Lofton was an average defensive CF.

Well, I have to agree that Lofton had a pretty awesome 1994.
But I think Baseball Reference WAR gives his season more value than other "uber stats".
That doesn't mean that it's incorrect to do so, but it makes me skeptical.
Of the usual 7 uber-stats I tend to reference, brWAR is the only one that has Lofton higher than Thomas.
I included Griffey and probably should have included Belle as well...

fgWAR brWAR bgWAR bgWS bgWSAB drWARP1 bpWARP1
FRANK THOMAS 7.3 6.3 6.7 27.6 19.4 9.3 7.6
KENNY LOFTON 7 7.7 5.1 23 13.2 7.9 4.9
KEN GRIFFEY, JR 7.2 6.6 5 21.6 12.5 7.2 4.8

Ugh, sorry that looks so bad.

Anyway, I do think Lofton is a pretty serious candidate for the Hall Of Merit... It'll just take a few years for the glut to clear out...

The 1996 Cleveland Indians: lifetime WAR earned by players on the major league roster of that team. (Totals not quite complete, as 2 or 3 of them may not be retired quite yet.)

71.4 J. Thome
66.7 E. Murray
66.6 M. Ramirez
65.3 K. Lofton
59.4 J. Kent
51.5 O. Hershiser
46.9 D. Martinez
42.5 B. Giles
42.3 O. Vizquel
40.6 J. Franco (does not include NPB)
37.4 A. Belle
27.4 G. Swindell
26.8 J. McDowell
26.0 K. Seitzer
22.8 C. Nagy
18.7 T. Pena
17.6 J. Burnitz
16.0 C. Baerga
13.2 S. Alomar
11.5 E. Plunk
11.4 J. Mesa
11.2 P. Assenmacher
11.0 B. Anderson (pitcher)
11.0 K. Mercker
59.2 others

The total is 874.4.

I'm not claiming this is a record, since I haven't made a systematic search. But it's not going to be easy to top.

Holy Mackerel.

What about the 1995 Indians? While they didn't have Kent, they did have Dave Winfield, Orel Hershiser, and Dennis Martinez. And they actually were better than the 1996 team, as they won more games and made the World Series.

Note that Hershiser and Martinez were on both teams and you'll see them counted in post 55.

Net changes from the 1996 Indians to the 1995 Indians:

Add Dave Winfield (59.7), Ken Hill (22.0), Bud Black (19.7) and Olson (13.7). Net +115.0

Subtract Kent, Franco, Swindell, McDowell, Seitzer, Anderson, and Mercker. Net -202.0

Change many in the "others" category for many in the "others" category. The '95 team had a higher class of "others" including David Bell, Dennis Cook, Mark Clark, and John Farrell, but the less-settled '96 team had more of them. Net +1.4.

That gives a sum for the 1995 team of 788.6. So for these comparisons we should stick with the 1996 team.

Man I totally missed them on the list...smooth

Add Dave Winfield (59.7), Ken Hill (22.0), Bud Black (19.7) and Olson (13.7).

Strangely, I met two of these people last night.

It's not a winner, but I did the research, so I might as well post them, as a good second-place candidate.

The famed 1989 Texas Rangers:

ryan 84
palmeiro 66
kevin brown 64
buddy bell 61
sosa 60
moyer 47
kenny rogers 47
franco 41
hough 38
baines 37
sundberg 35
gonzalez 34
scott fletcher 27
wilson alvarez 24
stanley 19
sierra 14
buechele 14
Bobby Witt 13
palmer 10

Add some assorted detritus after this and you get them up to 777.

Oh, it's all silly. The 1928 Philadelphia A's will crush everyone:


Cobb 160
Speaker 133
E Collins 127
Grove 98
Foxx 95
Al Simmons 64
COchrane 51
Jack Quinn 50
Eddie Rommell 42
Max Bishop 36
Rube Walberg 31
Bullet Joe Bush 29
Ehmke 29
Dykes 28
Bing Miller 25
George Earneshaw 18
Sammy Hale 11
Joe Hauser 11
Mule Haas 10

1,040 with that. I can't imagine anyone can challenge it. Having 5 of the 30 best players of all time on your team has its benefits.

A quick basketball note: The best basketball player ever to play major league baseball was very probably Dave Ricketts. Dave goes back to the pre-Bill-Russell days, when the constant-running transition game was not yet in the NBA. However, he was a two-time All-American center who was chosen first in the NBA draft. I don't mean "in the first round of the draft", I mean FIRST in the draft. For 2-3 years, he lived up to that hype, and then opted for baseball. He would have been much better off at basketball. As a baseball player, he was a backup catcher.
- Brock

I apologize. I had the wrong Ricketts. The basketball star was DICK Ricketts, who was Dave's brother, and who was a pitcher who only got into a few games for the Cardinals. DEFINITELY should have stayed with basketball. - Brock

Crossposting

45. Misirlou's got a busy day, he's wearing a vest Posted: April 05, 2012 at 06:18 PM (#4098905)
Lofton's a hard one for me. I noticed his HoM thread way too late to contribute to it, but his case is one of my main concerns regarding WAR. Normally when WAR seems out of whack it's because of the defensive metrics. But Lofton's offensive WAR seems way too high to me for an outfielder with a 107 career OPS+. His speed no doubt makes up some of the difference, but still....


Well, first of all, his running is not negligible. It's about 11.5 of his career 53.8 oWAR. Would a 42 oWAR and 57.5 overall look more right to you for an averaged speed CF with a 107 OPS+? Also, he got 26 runs as a positional adjustment rather than a -120 that a corner guy would normally get. His 107 OPS+ accounts for only about 12.5 of his total 65.8 WAR. That seems reasonable.

46. Booey Posted: April 05, 2012 at 06:36 PM (#4098916)
Well, first of all, his running is not negligible. It's about 11.5 of his career 53.8 oWAR. Would a 42 oWAR and 57.5 overall look more right to you for an averaged spped CF with a 107 OPS+? Also, he got 26 runs as a positional adjustment rather than a -120 that a corner guy would normally get. His 107 OPS+ accounts for only about 12.5 of his total 65.8 WAR. That seems reasonable.

All of that makes sense. I suppose it's mainly just that it's rare these days to see a HoF/HoM case built like his. Other guys who's primary weapon was speed were much better hitters than Lofton (Henderson, Raines). And the ones that weren't are often considered overrated around here (Brock, Ichiro).

47. Misirlou's got a busy day, he's wearing a vest Posted: April 05, 2012 at 06:46 PM (#4098923)
Well, Raines is an interesting comparison. Both have about the same career WAR, but as you noted, Raines was a much better hitter. Neither has an big advantage in running components, Lofton leads 114 runs to 111, or playing time, Raines leads 310 to 281. But Raines was an average fielding (-7) corner outfielder (-105), while Lofton was a great fielding (+112) CF (+26), thus allowing Lofton to more than make up the batting run deficit (306 to 125)

Eleven comps for Lofton. Outfielders with OPS+ 97-117, PA 8000-10500, WAR 45+

OPS+ isn't that useful a marker of offensive effectiveness for an OBP-heavy leadoff hitter, like Lofton or Raines, and particularly so if the hitter was fast. Lofton was obviously not the offensive player that Raines was, but when one takes into account his defensive superiority, it's very close between the two.

Not a voter, but I'm surprised that Lofton is ahead of Beltran in WAR, despite Beltran also being a great fielder and baserunner as well as a far superior hitter to Lofton. Part of that is having a career almost 20% longer (with more of it in CF), but part of it is that bbref WAR likes Lofton's fielding and baserunning even more than it likes Beltran's. Which is impressive.

Ashburn is a pretty good comp. It's funny, if you look at the defensive numbers for Ashburn and Lofton at their peak, the numbers are pretty comparable. However at age 32, Ashburn's numbers fell off a cliff presumably due to injury, whereas Lofton has a nice gentle decline through his 30s (without venturing into the minefield of white guys losing their speed after 30).

Updating the list in [#11] with new WAR. Hunter comes onto the list. Edmonds takes a big tumble. Cameron falls from 2 WAR ahead of Puckett to 5 WAR behind.

Debuted since 1977, 35% career games in CF