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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Friday, May 15, 2009
With Gary Sheffield just joining the 500 home run club as its 25th member and Jim Thome about to tie Mike Schmidt for 13th on the all-time list, I thought I would take a look at the group of ten players who have hit 500 home runs and aren’t in the Hall of Fame.
To define the average Hall of Fame position player, I used JBrew’s research based on Sean Smith’s historical WAR. According to the data, the median WAR of the Hall of Famers since 1955 is 70.6.
...What really sticks out here is that McGwire and Sosa are in the top ten in home runs, but are the last two in total WAR. The other glaring issue is that seven out of ten of these players (all except Griffey, Thomas and Thome) have been linked to PEDs in one form or another. I really want to see how the HOF votes for some of these players. McGwire was the first to test the voting waters and while results haven’t been good, he has the second lowest lifetime WAR of the club. It’s tough to tell how much of the lack of McGwire love is linked to his usage of PEDs and how much is because he wasn’t that good of a player. The real test will be when Bonds is eligible and how the voters react to his candidacy.
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1. JPWF13Poor Sammy.
Those are the four players who have been linked to the White Sox in one form or another.
What's the difference (in terms of evidence of PED usage) between McGwire and Sosa?
And Sammy's brother never said he injected Sammy.
I'm shocked no one has hammered on this yet. Does anyone here believe that it's at all fair to describe McGwire as "wasn't that good of a player?" He was a great player (with obvious playing time issues), and produced value at an impressive rate whenever he was in the lineup.
He was a great home run hitter. That's about the extent of his greatness. He was also very good at drawing walks. He was below-average at every other aspect of the game.
Now, I can see an argument that his home run hitting ability, by itself, merits a Hall of Fame induction, but I can also see the argument that he's a borderline case.
Single Season HR record:
1. Barry Bonds 73 2001
2. Mark McGwire 70 1998
3. Sammy Sosa 66 1998
4. Mark McGwire 65 1999
5. Sammy Sosa 64 2001
6. Sammy Sosa 63 1999
You could say the same of Harmon Killebrew.
...although as I take a second look at Ramirez's numbers, I find that his three best OPS+s (186, 184, and 173) occurred in seasons of 118, 120, and 147 games (respectively). His best OPS+s in seasons in which he played 150 or more games are 160, 153, and 152. By contrast, Sammy Sosa had a 203 OPS+ in a season in which he played 160 games, a 161 OPS+ in 156 games, and a 160 in 150 games.
It's tough competition when Manny Ramirez seems like one of the weaker members of a group.
Bullsh*t...This is the Baseball Writers we are talking about, not SABR... They let in Killebrew and McCovey (and Reggie Jackson) without much of a problem and they certainly would have let Mcgwire in with 500HR, massive celebrity status (placed upon him by these writers)....Absent the steroid scandal, the writers fond memories of Mcgwire's 1998 season would have been enough for Tom Pagnozzi and Joe Mcewing to ride his coattails into Cooperstown.
Edit: Karkovice, you can have a sip of my Coke. I do not have the Swine Flu.
Sure, and I would listen to an argument that Harmon Killebrew wasn't an all-time great.
But I do agree with #15 - no PEDs, and McGwire gets 90+% of the vote on his first ballot. HE SAVED TEH BASEBALL, after all.
McGwire's behind Jimmy Ryan, Tim Raines, Bob Johnson, Harold Baines and Dwight Evans (plus Rice) in HOF Standards.
50 Smith, Reggie 65.2
51 Carter, Gary 64.6
52 Sheffield, Gary 64.5
53 McGwire, Mark 63.7
54 Nettles, Graig 63.4
55 Randolph, Willie 63.0
56 Hernandez, Keith 62.9
He was good, but not as good as most people think, even before all the PED stuff.
Bonds and Palmeiro will be much harder to ignore as both have gold gloves, both have tons of hits overall, and Bonds has more MVP's than you can shake a stick at. Palmeiro will be the next big test for the writers. If they can ignore him, and then ignore Bonds (ie: under 30% support) then A-Rod better get nervous.
What will be fun is watching the writers vote for Pettitte (I only used it twice for injuries) then say Clemens/Bonds/etc. are evil and not worth the vote.
Fair enough, and that's my own damn fault for not noticing.
I agree with this.
I also agree with this, although I should note with much amusement that he did win a Gold Glove.
He also accumulated that WAR total in 7660 PA. For the other guys in that group:
50 Smith, Reggie 65.2 - 8050
51 Carter, Gary 64.6 - 9019
52 Sheffield, Gary 64.5 - 10703
53 McGwire, Mark 63.7
54 Nettles, Graig 63.4 - 10226
55 Randolph, Willie 63.0 - 9462
56 Hernandez, Keith 62.9 - 8553
McGwire packed his value into a lot shorter period than anyone else in that group, and that does matter.
No, he was great, and his candidacy (absent the whole PED issue) rests on his peak, not career totals.
I never thought of Pettitte as a Hall-of-Famer, PEDs or no.
He's going to retire with between 230 and 250 wins, with a great winning percentage, and as a key member of at least 4 WS-winning teams. I don't see him as a hall of famer either, but I'm fully expecting him to get a decent amount of support ("Look at the wins! Look at the rings! He's the second coming of Whitey Ford!").
What easy calculation do people prefer to measure great seasons? WAR^2 per season? I hate arbitrarily picking best seven or best consecutive five seasons.
In the original article there are graphs comparing each player's season WAR to the average HoF's seasonal WAR in descending order. That lets you focus more on a player's best seasons relative to each other.
The fact that he got on base/hit for power at an all-time great level means that he's a clear HOFer despite his weaknesses.
Absent the steroids issue? A 162 OPS+ over 1874 games including a great peak is not "borderline" in any galaxy, especially not one in which sportswriters think that he Saved Baseball.
Since when are sportswriters not impressed by 588 home runs including four home run titles and a 70-HR season? McGwire was loved by the media before the steroids issue. There is no way he wouldn't have gone in on the first ballot.
He's 37, here is the list of pitchers from 1970 to date, and their "records" through the age of 37
(some guys had the front half of their careers cut off...)(Fibbo = Fibbonacci win points, a way of looking at a won loss record in one dimension):
W L ERA W-L% IP Fibbo1 Greg Maddux 289 163 2.89 .639 3968.2 311
2 Roger Clemens 260 142 3.07 .647 3666.2 286
3 Jim Palmer 245 134 2.77 .646 3581 269
4 Pedro Martinez 214 99 2.91 .684 2782.2 261
5 Mike Mussina 239 134 3.63 .641 3210.1 258
6 Steve Carlton 255 161 3.01 .613 3773 250
7 Tom Seaver 232 131 2.72 .639 3371.1 249
8 Tom Glavine 251 157 3.43 .615 3528 248
9 Randy Johnson 200 101 3.13 .664 2748.1 232
10 Andy Pettitte 218 128 3.89 .630 2776.2 227
11 Jack Morris 237 168 3.73 .585 3530 208
12 Don Sutton 224 151 3.03 .597 3471.1 207
13 Dwight Gooden 194 112 3.51 .634 2800.2 205
14 Bob Welch 211 146 3.47 .591 3092 190
15 Ron Guidry 170 91 3.29 .651 2392 190
16 Jimmy Key 186 117 3.51 .614 2591.2 183
17 David Cone 184 116 3.4 .613 2745 181
18 Fergie Jenkins 211 157 3.38 .573 3216 175
19 Catfish Hunter 181 117 3.19 .607 2646 174
20 Curt Schilling 184 123 3.32 .599 2812.2 171
Absent the Ped issue Petitte was going to be looked at by BBWAA voters much the same way Morris is looked at- if not better.
Sure - this is the same group of guys who thought that Kirby Puckett was a no-doubter, and that Bruce Sutter was something special.
I was more speaking to whether or not he actually was great than whether the writers perceived him as great. The latter is indubitable. The former, not so much.
Yeah, but what they look at is raw wins, not winning percentage and definitely not Fibonnaci win points (no offense, I really like Fibbonacci win points, even if I can't spell Fibonacci - hopefully one of those 3 was correct). And really, Pettitte's win totals aren't all that impressive. I really don't see Pettitte as having gotten a lot of support absent the PED issue, and I also think that the PEDs will be a disqualifier for him too, even though the press seems to have this weird idea that he's the world's most honest drug cheat. Of course, if he pitches for 8 more years and wins 100 more games, then disregard entirely my second sentence, but I kind of doubt he's got more than a couple of seasons left in him.
Over a season or over a career? Over a season, I agree that they're not very revealing. Over a career, I think that they can provide a decent first-level evaluation - there aren't many "bad" pitchers who have crossed the 200 win barrier.
I really really don't like journalists, and I think there is a warranted cause in the death of newspapers. That they weren't innovative enough to embrace the new media, and instead took potshots at it. That instead of using their privileged position as scribes to a wide audience for greater benefit, they used it to toe the line, espouse outdated mainstream values and genuflect at the shrine of corporations and governments. While you feel bad personally for anyone who has lost a job, as an industry, they failed their natural selection test.
That's really no more revealing than counting innings pitched - there aren't many "bad" pitchers with more than 2000 IP, either. All that having lots of wins shows is that you've hung around a long time, which, yes, you need to be good to do.
EDIT : when I said neutralise, I guess I meant normalise
Which is why it's a first cut evaluation thing - given no information about two pitchers other than their career win totals, the odds are pretty good that the one with more wins was the better pitcher. The problem arises when writers stop their evaluation after this first cut.
It almost feels like the press won't hold his HGH usage against him if he gets close enough. I can imagine sportswriters saying "HGH? He only used it to get healthy, not to gain an edge; and besides, he was honest (*) about it."
(*) Bwahaha.
But the HOF isn't about goodness; it's about greatness.
Except if your name is Bert Blyleven.
Look, there's no reason run support "should normalize" over a long career (*). There's less noise in the signal than with a single season, certainly, but there's no inherent reason why run support should even out. And in fact, it often doesn't. This is a particular problem for players who spent many years with bad teams.
(*) To say nothing of bullpen support and defense.
Isn't strictly true. Great pitchers on bad teams move to other teams or their teams improve. Called Free Agency / Trade. Blyleven moved around a lot. Carlton stuck with the Phillies as the teams improved. Maddux moved from the Cubs. Vazquez, who had the makings of a great pitcher, was moved from the Expos. This happens all the time. I don't think it is a valid argument.
Catfish Hunter is in the Hall of Fame. The odds are pretty good that Kevin Brown won't be. (OK, he'll probably get swept into the whole PED thing, but he probably wouldn't have been, anyway.) Kevin Brown was a much better pitcher than Catfish Hunter. Dave Stieb was a better pitcher than Hunter, and the HoF barely gave Stieb a glance.
(I was going to say something about Blyleven, but decided it was too obvious.)
Look, there's no reason run support "should normalize" over a long career. There's less noise in the signal than with a single season, certainly, but there's no inherent reason why run support should even out. And in fact, it often doesn't.
Your next sentence was something about bad teams but you don't even need to invoke that. Check out the curious case of Juan Marichal and Gaylord Perry, teammates. I'd say more, but this is Dag Nabbit's territory.
Palmeiro will be easy to keep out because he not only failed the drug test, but he wasn't really considered a slam dunk even before that. (I would've voted for him, but that's just me.)
But Bonds is obviously a HoFer by traditional standards, and arguably the greatest player ever if you ignore the steroid issue. If he doesn't get in by the second year, or if he gets below 50% on the first ballot (unlikely, but YNK), you can pretty much kiss off any juicer ever getting into Cooperstown without a visitor's pass.
I also think that McGwire would've gotten 90% if he hadn't done his Mr. Mum act, but the "one dimensional" label may give some writers an out if they want to apply a "steroid discount" to Bonds but not a "steroid disqualification." That distinction is THE great unknown here among the 78% who didn't vote for McGwire, and it's a question that's not likely to be answered until Bonds and Clemens are up for election.
Right. Which is why you don't stop your analysis with wins (or ERA, or Ks, or whatever). At the same time, there are certain thresholds where, if a pitcher falls below them, it is almost impossible for them to demonstrate sufficient greatness. For starting pitchers, in terms of wins, that minimum has basically been declared as 150. For ERA, the threshold is probably around 4.00. It's threshold like these (which are somewhat arbitrary) which allow people to quickly filter down the number of candidates for greatness (by cutting out the merely good), and then focus on the deeper analysis to separate the truly great from the very good.
Of course, there's still a matter of context - a one-size-fits all notion of what a good (or even great) ERA is has trouble standing up. What if you're a peak-value case, and your peak came in the AL of 1930-1937?
(The Hall of Merit did elect Wes Ferrell with his 4.04 ERA. Of course, Ferrell is one of our most marginal electees, and we probably wouldn't have done it had we not also credited his own hitting. And the Hall of Fame has the wrong Ferrell.)
Not at all, if voters apply an evidentiary standard (whatever they may deem the evidence to be), as opposed to a "discount."
Some voters may feel that the evidence that Bonds used is strong, while the evidence that Sosa used is weak, and thus vote for Sosa but not Bonds.
The HOF ordinarily loves guys like Mark McGwire (Greenberg, Mize, Kiner, Stargell, Killebrew, McCovey, and so forth).
The voters made Greenberg wait 4 years, Killebrew 4 years, Kiner 15 years and Mize was a VC selection. The voters also turned down Dick Allen and currently scoff at Albert Belle. The voters have generally NOT been that impressed by short-career sluggers (Stargell, Killebrew and McCovey all had very long careers).
McGwire packed his value into a lot shorter period than anyone else in that group, and that does matter.
It certainly does matter -- in HoF terms, a short career HURTS your case.
Again, McGwire would have sailed in but, historically, the voters have not been kind to short-career sluggers. Really the only one who ever had an "easy" time with the voters was Greenberg. Now, of course, there aren't a lot of relevant comps for the obvious reason that if you cream the ball through your first 1500+ games, teams are happy to give you playing time to keep creaming the ball. So this list is guys with short careers due to extenuating circumstances or extreme cliff-diving (it's not clear which group Allen belongs in).
And he missed several seasons due to the war.
Incidentally, does anyone know why Mize had to wait so long to get into the Hall? That's one omission which always baffled me, since he basically killed the ball for his entire career, was a big HR guy, hit for average, fielded his position well, and missed three prime seasons to the war. it's obviously not a lack of respect during his playing career, since he was a 10-time All Star, and finished in the Top 5 of MVP voting on four occasions. Any ideas? Was he secretly a colossal jerk, or was this just one where the writers completely screwed things up?
McGwire lost a close 3-way battle at 9-10-11 of our 19 HOM 1Bs to Willie McCovey and Negro Leaguer Buck Leonard (voting pts 257-246-242). McGwire was closer to 8th (Eddie Murray 274) than 12th (Killebrew 197).
http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/hall_of_merit/discussion/election_results_we_like_first_basmen_gehrig_foxx_anson_mize_and_brouthers_/
None of the other guys are eligible yet.
sweeping generalization cleanup in Aisle 5, please......
Mussina is probably deserving, but he's going to have some difficulty getting in, I think, so Pettitte's not going to get too much serious consideration.
Pitchers with Pettitte's win total need serious Hall of Famish items on their resume to get in:
Multiple Cy Youngs or Cy Young-type seasons (Gibson or Marichal come to mind).
An unusual consistency in breaking the 20-win barrier (Catfish Hunter).
An incredible postseason record (Schilling, Smoltz) -- Pettitte's is merely good
Plus he has other problems: His ERA is high, he has little black ink, there will be plenty of people who say, "He was never an ace." His career coincided with an unusual number of great pitchers.
Dave Cone has a much better case, imo.
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