Hernandez is surprising. He ranks so highly by different measures including MVP voting. So the voters saw something in him all those years while he was compiling a stellar sabermetric resume. Anyone have an explanation for why he is not in?

I think one major factor is that Hernandez played in tough circs for a hitter during a lower-offense era, and just doesn't look impressive in terms of career counting stats. 1,124 Runs Scored, 426 Doubles, 162 HR, 1,062 RBI. That's the same territory as Vada Pinson, Amos Otis, Brian Downing, Jose Cruz: HOVG numbers, for sure, but for a first baseman, even a very great defensive first baseman, it doesn't garner much attention from voters. In career numbers he's close to Mattingly, who isn't having much luck on the HOF ballot either.

One of these things is not like the others.

The MVP win shares looked out of place as soon as I saw it, considering that it measures how well a player did in MVP voting rather than measuring performance based on sabermetrics and statistics. The following paragraphs confirmed my suspicion when it was the only criteria to leave out Allen, Grich, Magee, Dahlen and Randolph.

Hernandez big problem is that he played in a terrible time for a high average hitter, almost any other era and his career batting average would have been well north of .300, and HOF voters have traditionally liked that.

MVP win shares may not be statistical, but they can still be sabermetric. It's just a different type of evidence. They do give an idea of how a player is perceived at the time, but they should probably be adjusted for era. It's easier to win the award in an 8 team league than it is in a 16 team one.

If this stance makes me unpopular here, than so be it.

Ooh, Daly's angry!

It's easier to win the award in an 8 team league than it is in a 16 team one.

Unless the 8-team league isn't awarding an MVP, like during Dahlen's career. (Well, except for the parts that came in a 12-team league.)

Yeah, that was the first thing that struck me about this, that describing someone as having a good "sabermetric" case is very counterproductive. It's like saying someone has a chronological case that they ran the fastest marathon...

Hernandez big problem

This reminds me, Cookie Monster hasn't been around.

Ooh, Daly's angry!

Just getting in the proper mood to read the Bonds thread.

I think Morong is taking a sensible approach here; cynthesising quantitative and qualitative analysis. I prefer that to the hyperrationalism that is sometimes thrown out here; the whole "if it can't be measured, it doesn't exist." line of thought. Sounds like a strawman here, but I get that vibe sometimes when I read DiPerna and a few others. Just like a hot piss test is the only acceptable evidence that a player took PEDs.

Hernandez big problem is that he played in a terrible time for a high average hitter, almost any other era and his career batting average would have been well north of .300, and HOF voters have traditionally liked that.

One thing that I think stat-heads should push more as a "sabermetric" statistic is the Neutralized Stats on Baseball-Reference. They've got some issues when you go back to the deadball-era or 19th century, but most people aren't going to be analyzing the HOF cases of 19th-century players anyway. But they control for context, but then put everything back into the traditional format that everybody's used to.

If you neutralize Keith Hernandez's stats, he ends up a career .310/.400/.456 hitter with a string of batting averages from 1979 - 1986 of .352-.331-.324-.316-.315-.330-.322-.327. Which, as JPWF13 notes, makes for a much stronger traditional HOF case.

The other guy whose case becomes slam-dunk obvious when you neutralize his stats, in my opinion, is Tim Raines. Neutralized Tim Raines is a career .314/.410/.455 hitter with 3,001 career hits, and a 4-year peak where he batted .350 (84-87).

I think that these sorts of numbers would be much more persuasive to BBWAA types than quoting WAR or VORP or even OPS+, because it's a language with which they're already familiar. You still miss some subtleties, of course; neutralized batting average is only marginally better than un-neutralized batting average as far as it goes, but, like I said, I think it really sells the case of Tim Raines and gives what I think is an eminently fair reading of Keith Hernandez's real value.

If you neutralize Keith Hernandez's stats, he ends up a career .310/.400/.456 hitter with a string of batting averages from 1979 - 1986 of .352-.331-.324-.316-.315-.330-.322-.327. Which, as JPWF13 notes, makes for a much stronger traditional HOF case.

The other guy whose case becomes slam-dunk obvious when you neutralize his stats, in my opinion, is Tim Raines. Neutralized Tim Raines is a career .314/.410/.455 hitter

From 1974-1990, KH hit .296, 16th among MLB players with 5000+ PAs
From 1993-2009, the 16th best batting average was .305

I've never heard anyone in baseball actually say this, but Hernandez - and Ted Simmons, Tim Raines and others - may be having the same sort of trouble with cocaine as McGwire and Bonds do/will on steroids. KH essentially forced Whitey Herzog to trade him for acting as if the team had no manager and he could do as he pleased. Ted Simmons, caught up in the Hernandez revolt, refused a move to first base over what appeared to be nothing more than a cocaine-fueled ego. Raines got caught, publicly. The BBWAA is hardly known for its consistency, but cocaine is a performance enhancing drug that these three guys got involved with way too far. I would vote for Simmons and Raines, and Bonds and McGwire, because I think that PEDs have existed since the 1800s (that's "eighteen") and should not be, in themselves, banned, but Hernandez' disruption of a well-managed team actually does drop him below the line in my analysis. - Brock Hanke

I've never heard anyone in baseball actually say this, but Hernandez - and Ted Simmons, Tim Raines and others - may be having the same sort of trouble with cocaine as McGwire and Bonds do/will on steroids.

Actually, with respect to Raines, several writers did mention it last year as being a negative factor in their voting. I don't know if those same writers mentioned it in their earlier discussions of Molitor.

Ted Simmons, caught up in the Hernandez revolt, refused a move to first base over what appeared to be nothing more than a cocaine-fueled ego.

I didn't actually remember Simmons as being a cocaine guy, but I'll take your word that he was. The counter-example, of course, is Paul Molitor. It gets mentioned now and then with Raines, so I'm sure it's having a marginal effect, but I don't think anywhere near the case with steroids and Mark McGwire, where it's probably costing him 60+% of the BBWAA vote (I think he'd have gone in on his first ballot with >80% of the vote, probably closer to 90%). At most, I think it's lowering Raines from 30% to 22% or wherever he is, and I honestly doubt that it's even that much.

My sense is that BBWAA voters (and fans in general) think of cocaine as a performance-depressing drug, so it's sort of its own punishment when it comes to the Hall of Fame. You see this a lot in discussions of Dave Parker. With him, the cocaine use is frequently cited as costing him the Hall of Fame, but it's typically in the sense that without the cocaine, Parker would have hit 500 HR, gotten 3,000 hits, won another MVP or two, and had slam-dunk obvious HOF stats, not in the sense that the real Dave Parker amassed a HOF-caliber career but voters are docking him for cocaine use.

I wouldn't be all that shocked if Simmons tried coke, but I never heard that before.

Thanks for all the great comments. Kiko, in #10, that makes alot of sense. Can you generate all-time leader lists with neutralized stats?

Can you generate all-time leader lists with neutralized stats?

Me personally? No. No, I don't think that BB-Ref has such things, which is a shame, because it does make it a little hard to put these numbers in context, so to speak. How many guys have 3,000 "neutralized" hits? Probably more than have 3,000 real hits, since one of the "neutralizing" factors is to assume 162-game seasons throughout history, but enough more that 3,001 isn't impressive enough to be an automatic HOF ticket? I don't know. I also think that it would make for much more informative similarity scores if those were constructed based on neutralized stats. But far be it from me to criticize the work of Sean Forman; the man is a baseball-stat god, of course.

Also, if you want a chuckle, neutralize Old Hoss Radbourn's career - dude had 297 neutralized wins in THREE seasons: back-to-back 100-win seasons where he pitched about 2,000 innings! Like I said above, the neutralized stats only work really well since the advent of the liveball era (they're okay in the deadball era, except that they leave the mix of 2B-3B-HR basically unchanged, so the best deadball-era home-run hitters still only hit 10-12 "neutralized" home runs per season, which seems to be failing to adjust for a fairly significant aspect of their context).

But I think that you could explain the process in 2-3 sentences and show the results for Raines. Maybe compare Raines to some other guys - say, Gwynn, Molitor, Boggs, to go more modern, maybe Derek Jeter is somebody whose offensive profile is fairly similar - to give a flavor of how context is what makes Raines look worse than he really was. I think you could do that fairly easily in a way that might open some eyes of current HOF voters (assuming that you can get them to read it, of course).

[9] "I prefer that to the hyperrationalism that is sometimes thrown out here; the whole "if it can't be measured, it doesn't exist." line of thought."

Ironically, I think it was the HoF voters who undervalued Hernandez's fielding because it couldn't be properly measured and valued. I think it is much clearer and defensible now to say that he was arguably the best fielding 1B ever and provided signifcant value to his teams, supported by analyses made possible by new sources like retrosheet PBP data and the evolution of thinking about the value of fielding vs. pitching in terms of runs saved, etc., since Hernandez was eligible for BBWAA voting.

"Raines got caught, publicly. "

In fact, Raines came out on his own, in an award-winning article by Michael Farber (then of the Montreal Gazette, now in SI).

You count all the star pro athlete publicly admitting to a drug problem at the age of 23 on one hand, and I'll show you 4 closed fingers.

And yes, golden-boy Paul Molitor seems to escape this scrutiny.

Dwight Gooden went to rehab at age 22. Does that count as "admitting to a drug problem"?

I meant it in the context of you seeking help before the media publicly outs you. I don't remember Doc's circumstances.

Ted Simmons, caught up in the Hernandez revolt, refused a move to first base over what appeared to be nothing more than a cocaine-fueled ego.

Brock, I'm confused here about the timing of events. Hernandez was traded in the middle of 1983, Simmons was already a Brewer at that point. If Simmons was asked to move to first and refused, what were they planning on doing with Hernandez?

If you neutralize Keith Hernandez's stats, he ends up a career .310/.400/.456 hitter with a string of batting averages from 1979 - 1986 of .352-.331-.324-.316-.315-.330-.322-.327. Which, as JPWF13 notes, makes for a much stronger traditional HOF case.

Well, even if you neatralize his stats, he's still looking up (only by a little, but still) at John Olerud as a hitter. And Olerud, while no Hernandez with the glove, was no slouch either. I know that a lot of you guys just rave about Hernandez' D, but can anyone point to some analysis of his defense?

I mean, I like you guys, but "you should have seen the way he came in on bunts!" doesn't necessarily convince me of his overwhelming defensive mastery in and of itself.

FWIW, BPro has Olerud and Hernandez as roughly equals defensively (a difference of maybe 5 runs saved over their careers), but I take those numbers with many, many grains of salt, of course.

FWIW, BPro has Olerud and Hernandez as roughly equals defensively (a difference of maybe 5 runs saved over their careers), but I take those numbers with many, many grains of salt, of course

CHONE (EDIT: Not CHONE, but Sean's WAR numbers) has them as being roughly 25 runs different on defense (Hernandez ahead of Olerud), although I don't think that captures things like scoops (at which both were excellent), and I'm not sure how it captures things like cutting down the lead runner (at which by reputation Olerud was good and Hernandez was excellent).

Rally's numbers are available on his site AND b-r.com. He has Keith at +120 runs and Olerud at +97.

Rally's numbers are available on his site AND b-r.com. He has Keith at +120 runs and Olerud at +97.

Thanks RJ and Tango.

So basically, Olerud and Hernandez are the same player (i.e. roughly the same career value), except Olerud's got the better hitting counting stats, and Hernandez has the MVP and was a slightly better fielder.

and Hernandez has the MVP and was a slightly better fielder.

Sort of. By the current metrics, Hernandez is slightly better, but my understanding is that there are slightly different systems used for current players and for older players, based on the modern availability and extent of PBP data. Since I'm not sure where the cutoff/transition line is for the modern PBP data availability (Tango will almost certainly know when it is), I'm also not sure if the defensive runs for Hernandez and Olerud are being calculated in the exact same way under Sean's system.

Brock, I'm confused here about the timing of events. Hernandez was traded in the middle of 1983, Simmons was already a Brewer at that point. If Simmons was asked to move to first and refused, what were they planning on doing with Hernandez?

Didn't Herzog want to move him to the outfield? When I first saw Brock's post I thought that he might be confusing Simmons and Darrell Porter for some reason.

That's right, Jon. The Cards signed Porter; traded Kennedy to SD for Fingers, Shirley and Tenace; traded Durham for Sutter. Then wanted Simmons to move to first; move Hernandez to left field to replace Durham. Then Herzog wanted to trade Fingers for starting pitching (the strong rumor was to Oakland for two of Keough/McCatty/Kingman) that became a deal with Milwaukee for Sorenson. The deal expanded to include Simmons/Vuckovich to the Brewers for David Green/Lezcano (to which Simmons balked and became a big brouhaha).

MVP win shares may not be statistical, but they can still be sabermetric.

Not to get you all riled up again, but I agree completely with this. Sabermetrics is not "stats", it's an attempt to objectively answer questions about baseball. Statistics are a tool for doing that, in some cases.

Then wanted Simmons to move to first; move Hernandez to left field to replace Durham.

Interesting. I wonder how that would have worked out. Hernandez was an insanely great defensive 1B (I'm glad my system has him at #1 but this is one case where I won't hedge about measurement error. Hernandez was way better than any 1B I've ever seen, if anything the measurement is on the low side.) I have no doubt if he was right handed he would rank with Brooks Robinson among the alltime defensive greats at third. But I don't know if he had the foot speed to be all that great in left. He probably would have been OK, but his value to the team would have been greater at 1st.

#31 Sure Hernandez would have been more useful at first, but prior to the trade to Milwaukee you've got Porter, Simmons and Hernandez -- all of whom you're going to play. Simmons might have been able to handle left when he came up (sort of anyhow) but I can't imagine him being sent to left at that point.

As is often the case the left fielder is picked by default.

MVP win shares may not be statistical, but they can still be sabermetric.

I think this is exactly backwards. They are pretty obviously "statistical," in that they require tabulating and then examining numbers. I don't think they tell us anything useful about the players themselves that we can't better examine from other, more primary sources.

I'm going to get mad because you agree with me? I'm out of my mind, but not that far gone.

Right, Ron, and the signing of Porter came first. So, on the morning of December 8, 1980, the Cards had catcher Porter, Simmons, Terry Kennedy and Steve Swisher on their team. Obviously, trading for Lezcano (a tremendously underrated player IMO) solved the LF situation.

By the end of his Cardinal days Simmons had a HUUUUUGE ass and was pretty damn slow. I can't IMAGINE him playing the outfield at that point.

Also, I know Simmons had a wicked nicotine habit but I've never heard a sniff of a rumor about him and coke.

I don't think they tell us anything useful about the players themselves that we can't better examine from other, more primary sources.

I completely disagree. MVP shares are, by definition, primary sources since they tell us what knowledgeable observers at the time thought. We may disagree with their conclusions but MVP awards (and therefore shares too) should be taken very seriously, I think. The idea that we know more about players from past generation than the people that actually saw them play regularly seems a bit foolish to me. I think that any of us would be tremendously insulted if someone twenty years from now told us that they know more about someone like Juan Pierre than we do.

By the end of his Cardinal days Simmons had a HUUUUUGE ass and was pretty damn slow. I can't IMAGINE him playing the outfield at that point.

No, no. Simmons would have played first and Hernandez would have played left field. (sidenote: some of you may recall that the Brewers played Simmons at third base for a while in like 1984). And, yes, Simmons did have a huge ass. I had forgotten just how waddly he was until I just saw that mlb.com special on 1982 today.

If you want to see a HUUUUUGE ass on a baseball player -- and who among us doesn't? -- Roy Campanella is the standard by which all posterior amplitude must be judged. Seriously, if you ever see film of him playing, it looks like he's running around with a couple of ice chests strapped on back there.

While I hate to admit my ignorance, sometimes it gets the best of me. What are neutralized stats? Talking about something being neutered just makes me nervous. Is it normalized, era adjusted or what?

I completely disagree. MVP shares are, by definition, primary sources since they tell us what knowledgeable observers at the time thought. We may disagree with their conclusions but MVP awards (and therefore shares too) should be taken very seriously, I think. The idea that we know more about players from past generation than the people that actually saw them play regularly seems a bit foolish to me. I think that any of us would be tremendously insulted if someone twenty years from now told us that they know more about someone like Juan Pierre than we do.

We know plenty more about a lot of things now than we did twenty years prior. Why should Juan Pierre be any different than particle physics? Or the treatment of disease? Or the history of World War II?

I am hopeful that 20 years from now, I shall know more then than I do now. Partly because it means I'm not dead. But partly because it means that I've grown and changed and developed. And I hardly think that I'm done learning about baseball - you, me, all of us still have a lot to learn about baseball. (Yes, even Juan Pierre.)

All kind of things got discussed and tossed out as ideas in those wild few days in the 1980-81 offseason, but I'm skeptical that Herzog would ever have really put either Simmons or Hernandez in the outfield. For one thing, I think Herzog valued speed in the outfield a little too much for that. That played a part in him considering Leon Durham expendable. The Cardinal farm system was not noted for producing power hitters; Durham was at that moment the exception. But Durham wasn't going to push Hernandez off 1st and he wasn't really fast enough to be Whitey's kind of outfielder.

There were some non-necessarily baseball-value things going on at the time, and no, I don't think that cocaine played any part. Not that year. One of the bigger items: Herzog absolutely needed to the man in charge in the dugout and the clubhouse. Simmons was intelligent, independent, and not beholden to Herzog - and that made him a threat to Whitey's dominance. I think that contributed to Herzog's willingness to unload him, and it may have been in the back of Herzog's mind when he signed Porter. If unloading Simmons isn't at least a possibility, I don't see that signing Porter makes a lot of sense.

Here are what I think were the forces in operation:

1. Herzog had a (possibly irrational) level of confidence in Darrell Porter, and really wanted Porter.

2. Herzog wanted a grade-A closer so badly that he pursued parallel-track negotiations seeking both the famous closers available - both Bruce Sutter and Rollie Fingers. I suppose he could have called off the second of those trades after the first one clicked, but he let both proceed.

3. As stated above, Simmons was a threat or potential threat to Herzog's authority; he wouldn't hesitate to move him.

4. There were three major-league ready players who hadn't been fully worked into the the lineup yet: Terry Kennedy (caught in the catcher logjam), Leon Durham (see above), and Tom Herr. Of the three, Herr was the one who was Herzog's kind of player; the other two were expendable.

5. (Created after the fact) But without Durham, the organization wouldn't have a high-ceiling hitting prospect.

6. (Created after the fact) But how do you use two famous closers?

So the Herzog made the following moves (not necessarily in correct chronological order):

* Signed Porter. That took care of #1 and made everything else all the more confused.

* Durham and Ken Reitz to the Cubs for Sutter. That took care of #2 and two of the three parts of #4: it moved Durham, and by clearing the (vastly overrated) Reitz out of the way, allowed Oberkfell to take over 3B, leaving an opening at 2B for Herr. And it created problem #5.

* Kennedy et al. to San Diego for Fingers. That lowered the catcher crunch by one, finished off #4, and solved #2 a second time, creating problem #6.

* Fingers, Simmons, and Vuckovich to Milwaukee for Sorensen, LaPointe, Lezcano, and David Green. That took care of #3 (Simmons gone), #6, and #5 (with Green playing the part of "the future").

It took another year, and a swindle or two, to finish out the lineup. Sorensen got turned into Lonnie Smith. For the swindle part, there's this pair of trades of an outfielder for a pitcher and a pitcher for an outfielder: Tony Scott (who was never actually any good) for Joaquin Andujar, some fungible pitcher (whose name I've forgotten) for Willie McGee. And then the trade that may have happened for non-baseball reasons: Templeton and Lezcano for Ozzie Smith.

There were some non-necessarily baseball-value things going on at the time, and no, I don't think that cocaine played any part. Not that year. One of the bigger items: Herzog absolutely needed to the man in charge in the dugout and the clubhouse. Simmons was intelligent, independent, and not beholden to Herzog - and that made him a threat to Whitey's dominance.

Absolutely right. Whatever else Herzog was doing in that incredible transaction spree, he was demonstrating as loudly and clearly and forcefully and unambiguously as humanly possible that nobody in the Cardinals' clubhouse or anywhere else on the planet should have a shred of a doubt as to who was in charge. It was going to be Whitey's team, Whitey's operation from top to bottom, win or lose.

It was among the very most bold and brassy exhibitions in the game's history, positively McGraw-like.

Brilliant overall post, BTW.

OCF, I completely agree on almost points. In fact, I started to write almost the same thing and the deleted it in my #35 post.

The only position that I disagree on is the part about Simmons being a threat to Herzog's leadership. I think that this is just nonsense; a by-product of a seat-of-the-pants analysis by Bill James in the 1983 Abstract. Herzog was going to trade Simmons so he could get Porter. He believed that Porter's defense, walks and desire far outweighed Simmons skills (batting average and ability to hit left-handers). So, I'm pretty convinced that Simmons was going to go just because he didn't have the right skills to catch for Herzog. I would be stunned if Herzog, even for a minute believed that Simmons would be a challenge to his authority. Herzog was very tight with Gussie Busch by this point and knew that he held all the cards (no pun intended). If he could find a way to keep Simmons and it all worked out, great, if not Simmons would go. If Herzog didn't believe that Ewing Kaufman was a threat to his leadership, they he certainly as hell didn't believe that Simmons could ever be.

We know plenty more about a lot of things now than we did twenty years prior. Why should Juan Pierre be any different than particle physics? Or the treatment of disease? Or the history of World War II?

I am hopeful that 20 years from now, I shall know more then than I do now. Partly because it means I'm not dead. But partly because it means that I've grown and changed and developed. And I hardly think that I'm done learning about baseball - you, me, all of us still have a lot to learn about baseball. (Yes, even Juan Pierre.)

Well, of course, but that's not germane unless you and I and everyone else who actually lived to see those players, fail to keep up with contemporary scholarship. Sure, if someone crawls under a rock and says, "Well, I don't care what new things we know now, I was there and I know best" then you'd be right. But, if thirty years from now, there are new metrics and some young kid tells you that Derek Lowe was the third best pitcher of this generation, then you are going to laugh in his face. You know way more about Lowe than those who never saw him play will ever know.

Ultimately, I fall back on my historical training here. There is just no way that anyone will ever convince me that, given the same tools, a person who never saw a player play regularly can ever be as well informed as someone who saw that player in action (or at least was a fan during that era). I may now know more about why FDR did what he did that someone born in 1920 but I will never know what it was like to live in the 1930s-1940s regardless of how much I study.

Analyzing a player with just metrics is like trying to describe the flavor of a Dr. Pepper to someone who has never tasted it. That analyst might be able to tell me what the ingredients are; how they interact; what parts of the mouth they stimulate, but they won't ever understand the essence of the thing until they take in all the evidence, both empirical and subjective. Look, you can do your research your way and come up with very interesting and important insights, but you need a synthesis to get a complete picture.

some fungible pitcher (whose name I've forgotten) for Willie McGee.

Bob Sykes. That trade probably doesn't get made today.

-- MWE

Analyzing a player with just metrics is like trying to describe the flavor of a Dr. Pepper to someone who has never tasted it. That analyst might be able to tell me what the ingredients are; how they interact; what parts of the mouth they stimulate, but they won't ever understand the essence of the thing until they take in all the evidence, both empirical and subjective. Look, you can do your research your way and come up with very interesting and important insights, but you need a synthesis to get a complete picture.

+1. I knew there was a reason AG and I got along so well :)

-- MWE

Analyzing a player with just metrics is like trying to describe the flavor of a Dr. Pepper to someone who has never tasted it.

Hear, hear. That is one exquisite analogy.

Anthony: you may be right. I may be underestimating the extent to which being willing to trade Simmons was driven by straight-up player evaluation (Herzog style). Simmons was already 30, and would be 31 the next year, and he had 10 1/2 years of being a major league regular catcher under his belt. Whose line was it, anyway - "Better to trade a star a year too soon than a year too late"? Is that McGraw? And it is true that Cardinals got by far the most valuable part of Simmons's career; as a Brewer he was a distinctly lesser player.

Player evaluation, Herzog style had its ups and downs, but if there's one piece of that 1980-81 trading binge I want to give him particular credit for, it's seeing through the hype surrounding Ken Reitz. Younger BBTF readers who go to his bb-ref page now would be flabbergasted to read some of the nonsense that was being written about Reitz (or about Reitz and Templeton as a package deal). It's hard to comprehend that he was ever considered a star, but he was. (One hint: check his career splits by month, and look at April.) Herzog thought that a 3B-2B of Oberkfell-Herr was going to be better both offensively and defensively than a 3B-2B of Reitz-Oberkfell, and he was right.

Sean Smith gives Reitz a career WAR of -4.1. Only 3 of his 11 seasons were positive with only one year being +1 or higher, 1978, which was 1.2. He had only 84 career Win Shares. His best year was 15 (considered average). He had only 3 others with even 10. I had him last (96th) in career WS per 648 PA among 3B men through 2001 with 10.72. In about 5000 PAs he had a BFW of -21.9. 6 of his 11 seasons were -2 or lower.

As a special bonus on top of what Cyril just said, Reitz was extremely durable. He was hardly ever out of the lineup. I don't have the energy to hunt down contemporary quotes saying what a good player he was, but if someone wants to try, I'm sure you can find them.

It tastes terrible.

I don't know that it matters an awful lot though when we talk about many things. No, you can't "know" what it was like exactly, but you can synthesize the "feel", I think. Not perfectly, and we have lots of video, but when you listen(ed) to Buck O'Neil talk about NeL games, you *can* imagine it. It isn't perfect, but I think we can create a feel for a given player.

Whose line was it, anyway - "Better to trade a star a year too soon than a year too late"? Is that McGraw?

It was Branch Rickey.

Brock Hanke, if he finds this thread, can very likely provide a definitive answer on the Herzog-Simmons imbroglio.

It was clear at the time, however, that Whitey was actually giving up overall value to put together a team that worked his way.

Whitey's greatest trade, however, and the reason why he is in the HoF due to being able to battle the mid-80s Mets juggernaut to a draw, came three years later when he sent David Green, Dave LaPoint, Jose Uribe and Gary Rajsich to the Giants for Jack Clark. I bring that one up only so long as someone is close enough to Treder's physical location to ensure that he doesn't reserve a bathtub and a dull razor blade once it has been entered into the record...

Whitey's greatest trade ... came three years later when he sent David Green, Dave LaPoint, Jose Uribe and Gary Rajsich to the Giants for Jack Clark.

I my first post above, I paired off Scott for Andujar with Sykes for McGee as an example of a "shuffle": trade position A for B, turn around and trade position B for A. And Whitey made out like a bandit on that one. I tend to think of the later trade, the one you're referring to, as also part of a shuffle. To do that, I have to ignore Green, Gonzalez (aka Uribe), and Rajsich - but Green wasn't going to a superstar after all, Uribe was never going to take Ozzie's job, and Rajsich was just a spare part. To think of it as a shuffle, think of it as LaPoint for Clark (SP for 1B/RF) and pair it off with George Hendrick to the Pirates for John Tudor (1B/RF for SP).

And if you think of it that way, consider the potential for the deal that wasn't made: the Giants could conceivably have traded Clark to the Pirates for Tudor, and left Whitey holding the bag. Didn't happen. From Whitey's point of view, it's like he traded LaPoint for Tudor (not close in value) and Hendrick for Clark (not close in value) and throwing in Green and Uribe wouldn't balance either one.

MVP shares are, by definition, primary sources since they tell us what knowledgeable observers at the time thought. We may disagree with their conclusions but MVP awards (and therefore shares too) should be taken very seriously, I think.

While I agree with this, I'd also consider that later information can tell us that the good sense of MVP voters might be overwhelmed by actually living next to the hype of a given candidate. If three sabermetric measures tell you one thing, and MVP shares another, I'd be inclined to favour the sabermetric measures. If it's two plays one + MVP, I'd look at which particular saber measure was involved.

I say Woodrow Wilson's Mexican policy was fundamentally imperialist because it denied Mexicans a right to self-determination. Good luck at getting that past the Fiendish Cohort of Arthur S. Link into Wilsonian Historiography.

EDIT: As is often the case when I post tired, I forgot something from the last paragaph: 'But the 14 points are always thought to demonstrate Wilson's anti-imperialist credentials.'

Player evaluation, Herzog style had its ups and downs, but if there's one piece of that 1980-81 trading binge I want to give him particular credit for, it's seeing through the hype surrounding Ken Reitz. Younger BBTF readers who go to his bb-ref page now would be flabbergasted to read some of the nonsense that was being written about Reitz (or about Reitz and Templeton as a package deal). It's hard to comprehend that he was ever considered a star, but he was.

Absolutely, absolutely. While doing my research on Herzog, I was also stunned by respect that Reitz commanded. I only really remembered him as crappy Cubs third baseman. Reitz was considered a gold glove caliber third baseman, mostly because he never made errors, and he was beloved in St. Louis. Rick Hummel called him, “one of the most popular Cardinals of recent vintage." But, boy did Herzog hate Reitz, or at least hate that he was holding up the Sutter deal. Herzog threatened to have him sit on the bench all year and then slammed him by saying that he could bring in a "sun lamp and a Jacuzzi so [Reitz] could get his [perpetually perfect] sun tan.

By the way, we make fun of current general managers for their dopiness but John Claiborne gave long-term contracts to not only Reitz (5-years, 1.75 million and a no-trade clause), but also to Steve Swisher and Mike Phillips.

Didn't it turn out after the trade was made that David Green was really three years older than everyone thought? I seem to remember it that way.

I say Woodrow Wilson's Mexican policy was fundamentally imperialist because it denied Mexicans a right to self-determination. Good luck at getting that past the Fiendish Cohort of Arthur S. Link into Wilsonian Historiography.

I love Paul. I went to a lefty-oriented graduate school, so I find it hard to believe that anyone believes that Wilson was anything but an imperialist.

Oh, and I found notes that I took from a Bob Broeg column right after the trade that I think are interesting:

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
12/16/1980 2C
BOB BROEG

Either The Godfather down at Grant’s Farm or his athletic surrogate, known in the sports underworld as the “White Rat,” made an offer the art-fancier simply couldn’t refuse. They offered Ted Simmons embarrassment and – for heart balm – several hundred thou. Or come to think of it, Ted, if you want any money for moving expenses, put the tab on those other brewers with the capital B. Actually, I find myself understanding both sides in the latest episode of, at least, St. Louis’ most startling week since Rogers Hornsby was told to take his .400 average and world championship to New York 54 years ago. . . . I can’t say I blame Simba. Maybe professionals’ feeling shouldn’t get hurt at these prices. But Ted would indeed look like a monkey’s uncle trying to play first base in skilled Keith Hernandez’s shoes. If I’m disappointed in Simmons, it’s not because of fuzzy logic by which the Cardinals would have been hurt in two positions . . . Did Herzog hope that Hernandez, expected more likely to be traded, would object to the position switch. I know that Simmons was a shoemaker in left field, but many left fielders were or are . . . Pleased that Hernandez apparently will stay, hopeful that Herzog can instill in the talented young man the subtleties of winning ball White expects, I AM disappointed that Simmons wouldn’t consider a situation such as the one involving Yogi Berra and the late Elston Howard, . . . I learned long ago that ‘name’ players in a deal will swing public or even professional judgment. In general, though, and I share this feeling, there’s view that not only did the Cardinals gain a likely pitching help [Shirley, Sutter] . . . but there was what Branch Rickey would call an addition by subtraction. That is, the departure of Ken Reitz. Reitz tried hard. The truth is, though, that not only was he painfully slow, but he also hit neither for high average nor power. Excellent fielding alone is quite a luxury at a position where you’ve go to get plenty of pop. One seasoned observer even expressed the though that he had seen Reitz lose a step in ground coverage and a bit of snap in his accurate throws to first base. . . The fact is, as Herzog must see it, the Cardinals have helped themselves defensively where, classically, it counts the most. The improvement is expected behind the plate, on the mound and at second base. With Garry Templeton at shortstop and Tony Scott in center field, they’ve got it “down the middle.” . . . Wisely, Herzog is not counting on ailing starters Silvio Martinez or John Fulgham until he sees them in action. Also, it should be remembered that Whitey has balanced the books pretty well, financially, shedding some extremely high salaries while taking on others. . . . Herzog is going to need aggressive leadership, excellent receivership and, at least, pretty good hitting from Darrell Porter, . . . whom he handed a bundle on a silver platter, and Simmons’ job too. For what it’s worth . . .some observers say that when Porter gave up the fire-and-brimstone that drove him to the alcohol-drug rehabilitation for relief, he became . . . a ‘marshmallow.’ Otherwise, the White Rat and The Godfather down there at Grants’ Farm might wish they had not fixed it so that Simmons felt as if he had an opportunity, if not an offer, he couldn’t refuse.”

Finally, the part of this whole thing that I forgot to mention before, but Broeg talks about, is that there was a serious rumor for a while that Herzog was going to trade Hernandez. There was ongoing talk about how Herzog didn't like his casual attitude toward the game at the time. I didn't know this at the time, and it adds a lot of important background to Hernandez's subsequent trade to the Mets.

I love Paul. I went to a lefty-oriented graduate school, so I find it hard to believe that anyone believes that Wilson was anything but an imperialist.

I guess I just chose the wrong supervisor. He confessed to me the other day that he's an ex-Trot (for a few months).

I can validate the Reitz Respect tones of the mid 1970s, as I lived through it. Hey, that makes me a primary source!

The truth is, though, that not only was [Reitz] painfully slow, but he also hit neither for high average nor power.

Which, of course, leaves out the part that really dragged down Reitz's offensive value - his lack of walks left him with an abysmal OBP. Sure, you didn't hear many people talking about OBP in 1980, and I'm not even sure what Herzog ever said about OBP - but Herzog's actions do suggest that he valued batters who avoided outs and got on base. I also see Broeg talking up Tony Scott, who would be gone (traded for Andujar) midway through the next season, and Templeton, who would be gone the next offseason. Herzog very famously valued speed, but the expendability of Scott reveals that speed alone wasn't enough.

No discussion of Ken Reitz (or any player from that era) would be complete without perusing his Carboard Gods entry, if he has one.

[26]

So basically, Olerud and Hernandez are the same player (i.e. roughly the same career value), except Olerud's got the better hitting counting stats, and Hernandez has the MVP and was a slightly better fielder.

IIRC, Hernandez career WS is at least 3% higher than Olerud's.

Olerud's OPS+ was 128 in 9,063 PA and Hernandez's OPS+ was 128 in 8,553. Olerud's entire advantage in better counting stats accrued comes from having 510 more PA--6% of Hernandez's total PA or the equivalent of one leaderboard qualifying season.

Olerud was a very good first baseman. However, Hernandez was not just a "slightly" better fielder. Yhe difference in Gold Gloves awarded (11 to 3) reflects how significantly different they were viewed as fielders, regardless of the value one imputes to 1B defense.

I saw both Olerud and Hernandez play; I think it's very hard to compare the two defensively from numbers alone, but here they are.

As first basemen, Olerud faced a greater percentage of plate appearances that ended with a ground ball in play than did Hernandez (29% vs. 28%).
*Hernandez's career rate (per PA defended) of unassisted putouts at first base is 6% better than Olerud.
*Hernandez's career rate of assists is 10% better than that of Olerud.
*Hernandez's career rate of assists to other bases, i.e., excluding 3-1 plays at 1B, etc., is 30% better than that of Olerud.
*Hernandez's career rate on DPs started and finished, e.g. 3-6-3, is 40% higher than that of Olerud.

See, this makes me wish that MLB would lighten the #### up about making clips available online, so we could look at awesome Hernandez defensive plays just as easily as Magic Johnson or Larry Bird highlights.

That trade probably doesn't get made today.

I dunno. I bet McGee's appearance fee is a lot higher than Sykes' but I'm not sure you'd be getting sufficient "rubber chicken speech above replacement" value.

(One hint: check his career splits by month, and look at April.)

The Reitz Mirage is kind of an inseason Cerone Effect. Start each season hot (including 1980, when he was above .400 through mid-May) and create the widespread impression that you're much better than your full season numbers indicate. I wonder if anyone else has ever benefited from it as much as Kenny.

bobm

Great stats in comment #60. Where did you get them or how did you compile them?

Cy

Cy: the data was located on the "advanced fielding 1B" section of each player's bb-ref player page. Any errors in interpretation or analysis are solely mine.

Bob Sykes. That trade probably doesn't get made today.

What was surprising was that after the WS loss in 1981, Steinbrenner went nuts (more so than usual), he publicly declared that the team was too slow, they needed to get faster, they needed to steal bases...

He went out and overpaid for Dave Collins and Ken Griffey, then traded for Omar Moreno...
Griffey was a decent player, but fragile and in decline, Collins and Moreno were, well fast, and overrated due to Sbs, but well, they sucked rocks.
Why surprising?
The Yankees already HAD better versions of Moreno and Collins, they had McGee who was fast, played CF and hit .322/.360/.454 in AA at age 22. They had Otis Nixon who stole 107 bases in 1982 between AA and AAA.

Of course, if the Yankees hadn't dumped McGee they may not have felt the later need to go get Rickey Henderson :-)

Seriously, back then building via the farm was completely alien to King George, later came Mattingly, and it was after Mattingly that George would allow other farm hands to get a shot with the Yankees.

bobm

Thanks

Cy

I bet McGee's appearance fee is a lot higher than Sykes'

I dunno, have you seen his appearance?

See, this makes me wish that MLB would lighten the #### up about making clips available online, so we could look at awesome Hernandez defensive plays just as easily as Magic Johnson or Larry Bird highlights.

The thing with KH, that most people who saw him play understand, but those who didn't have a hard time grasping was that if KH was righthanded, he would have been a SS- at least until he was in his 30s and lost all his speed. I can't thing of another 1B, in my lifetime, who you could say the same thing about, you have guys like Tex and Pujols who could probably play a passable 3rd, you have some 1Bs who could be passable LFs (not saying much), but if he wasn't a Lefty KH would have been a SS in his 20s. As it is, how he ended up at 1B instead of the OF was kind of odd- he was FAR more athletic that the typical 1B we've seen the last 30 some odd years.

The Reitz Mirage is kind of an inseason Cerone Effect. Start each season hot (including 1980, when he was above .400 through mid-May) and create the widespread impression that you're much better than your full season numbers indicate. I wonder if anyone else has ever benefited from it as much as Kenny.

Reitz also hit markedly better at old Busch Stadium than he did on the road, so to the home town fans he seemed a good bit better than he was. Of course, his numbers at Busch still weren't good, but they didn't stand out as much in their actual decrapitude. I think that explains why so many people had a good impression of his play.

The Cards actually traded him away earlier (1975, pre-Herzog), but got him back a year later. He was reliably bad...

PMI, but what was the Cerone Effect?

PMI, but what was the Cerone Effect?

Making a long career out of one good season.

Aside: Willie McGee's unusual appearance earned him the nickname was "E.T." One of my favorites. It's not as good as story as Jeff/Jeffery Leonard's Prison Face/Penitentiary Face nickname story but still awesome.

PMI, but what was the Cerone Effect?

James coined it (it might not have been Effect, but something along those lines), about putting together one really good season early and milking it for years afterwards as people waited for you to return to that true level of talent, as Rick Cerone did. Reitz would put together a good first month, virtually every year, get noticed for it, and by season's end he'd be anonymously back to his overall crappy level of play.

Ha! Cerone had nothing on Jim Rice.

trying to describe the flavor of a Dr. Pepper to someone who has never tasted it

It's like a party in my mouth, and everyone's invited?

Making a long career out of one good season.

Which is not to be confused with the Ed Sprague Axiom, which is gettin a nice extension and raise from one good post season series.

Didn't it turn out after the trade was made that David Green was really three years older than everyone thought? I seem to remember it that way.

As a Giants' fan, I can tell you with 100% confidence that Green was really thirty-three years older than everyone thought.

Reitz also hit markedly better at old Busch Stadium than he did on the road,

While I don't specifically remember this about him, his record (singles and doubles but not triples and HR, lots of DP) does hint that he was probably a ground ball hitter. Busch Stadium in those days, with its deep fences, good batter's vision, and fast carpet, was a good place to be a ground ball hitter and a bad place to be a fly ball hitter. That suggests that being traded to the Cubs was just about the worst thing that could have happened to him.

Steve: for what it's worth, bb-ref still lists Green with a Dec. 1960 birthday, which would make him 20-23 through his first stint with the Cardinals and 24 with the Giants. I take it that that date is of questionable credibility. I also seem to recall hearing that Green had serious drinking problem.

Didn't it turn out after the trade was made that David Green was really three years older than everyone thought? I seem to remember it that way.

As a Giants' fan, I can tell you with 100% confidence that Green was really thirty-three years older than everyone thought.

Green was, IIRC, the first player (among many) whose age had been fudged in that way. Formerly, the lies worked in the other direction.

He had just a terrible start to his lone season as a Giant (3-for-42). And it kind of appears that the Giants took it as personally as Steve is in his post above: they unloaded Green after his sorry '85 campaign, making the trade on Green's birthday.

Steve: for what it's worth, bb-ref still lists Green with a Dec. 1960 birthday, which would make him 20-23 through his first stint with the Cardinals and 24 with the Giants. I take it that that date is of questionable credibility. I also seem to recall hearing that Green had serious drinking problem.

Yeah, there was never anything detailed or specific about it in those pre-internet days, but the sportswriters sure did a good job of sending coded messages that Green was a piece of work. First of all, just I guess because of his appearance, nobody (except, apparently, gullible GMs) bought the age he was passing himself of as, and on top of that he apparently (and again, nothing that I read was ever precise about it, but you could sure tell what they were hinting) never met a cocktail he didn't love.

Steve: for what it's worth, bb-ref still lists Green with a Dec. 1960 birthday, which would make him 20-23 through his first stint with the Cardinals and 24 with the Giants. I take it that that date is of questionable credibility. I also seem to recall hearing that Green had serious drinking problem.

Wikipedia also lists him as still having a Dec. 1960 birthday, but they're probably using B-R as a source for that. As to the drinking problem, Green spent time in alcohol rehab, so your memory is right on that one.

Green was, IIRC, the first player (among many) whose age had been fudged in that way. Formerly, the lies worked in the other direction.

Huh? Ballplayers by the dozens have been fudging their age in exactly that direction since time immemorial.

Reitz also hit markedly better at old Busch Stadium than he did on the road,

While I don't specifically remember this about him, his record (singles and doubles but not triples and HR, lots of DP) does hint that he was probably a ground ball hitter. Busch Stadium in those days, with its deep fences, good batter's vision, and fast carpet, was a good place to be a ground ball hitter and a bad place to be a fly ball hitter. That suggests that being traded to the Cubs was just about the worst thing that could have happened to him.

Reitz home and away:

1973 STL home 234/263/311 road 235/248/358
1974 STL home 294/327/384 road 250/273/343
1975 STL home 278/305/354 road 260/291/326
1976 SF home 259/277/340 road 276/309/325
1977 STL home 282/318/464 road 240/264/361
1978 STL home 253/296/335 road 240/265/378
1979 STL home 293/326/414 road 243/271/349
1980 STL home 336/370/435 road 207/233/326
1981 CHC home 229/281/319 road 198/234/233

Personalky? That's an awesome mento, Don.

The Reitz Mirage is kind of an inseason Cerone Effect. Start each season hot (including 1980, when he was above .400 through mid-May) and create the widespread impression that you're much better than your full season numbers indicate. I wonder if anyone else has ever benefited from it as much as Kenny.

My guesses, Todd Benzinger and Shea Hillenbrand

checking now...

Shea, career 1st half: 295/.333/.454
2nd half: .271/.305/.421

His best month was April: .321/.359/.477

Benzinger had that rep, but his split stats don't seem to bear that out.

I love how a thread titled "Some Players with a good sabermetric case for the Hall of Fame" turned into a discussion of Ken Reitz and David Green. I'm fairly sure that neither of them have much of a case, sabermetric or otherwise, for any baseball-related Halls-of-Fame.

The stats that Steve posted in #85 do suggest that Busch Stadium helped Reitz some, although it wasn't night and day. It looks like what hurt him most in 1981 wasn't so much Wrigley Field as the fact that he just wasn't any good any more.

Kiko: Hey, we did get in a little Whitey Herzog, and there is a HoF case for him.

The stats that Steve posted in #85 do suggest that Busch Stadium helped Reitz some, although it wasn't night and day. It looks like what hurt him most in 1981 wasn't so much Wrigley Field as the fact that he just wasn't any good any more.

Yes, and some reader responses I received following a THT article I published a while back that discussed Reitz made reference to Reitz having developed an intimate relationship with cocaine. I'd never heard of that before, but apparently others have.

I love this thread. Brings back memories of the first few seasons I followed baseball. Don't remember watching Reitz play but had his baseball card. I was growing up in Louisville, KY, so I remember Green well. He was supposed to be a big, big deal. Faster than Lonnie and McGee people said, and was supposed to have power too. If you believed the hype he was going to be a cross between Andre Dawson and Cesar Cedeno. Not sure if even the Cards believed all that though.

Start each season hot (including 1980, when he was above .400 through mid-May) and create the widespread impression that you're much better than your full season numbers indicate. I wonder if anyone else has ever benefited from it as much as Kenny.

Dan Haren (ducking...)

-- MWE

AROM: the shortstop traded to the Giants in the Clark deal played in Louisville as Jose Gonzalez, right?

If you believed the hype [Green] was going to be a cross between Andre Dawson and Cesar Cedeno.

And before he left St. Louis, he was playing mostly 1B, which isn't exactly the position you would prefer for the hypothetical player you describe.

(Which does reflect back to the original topic of this thread, since that was after Hernandez was traded to the Mets - and if you ask who Hernandez was traded for, the answer comes back as "not much.")

I love how a thread titled "Some Players with a good sabermetric case for the Hall of Fame" turned into a discussion of Ken Reitz and David Green.

They go where they go, ya know? Besides, talking about bad players is often more enjoyable that talking about the really good ones who are likely to remain on the outside looking in at Cooperstown.

Reitz' OPS at Busch while he played with the Cards--.701. On the road while a Cardinal--.616. 85 points of OPS, about 13%, more than twice the home-road difference for the team over the time frame (.722/.684, 38 points of OPS). I said markedly, not massively.

His GO/FO ratio (which is available at BR) doesn't suggest that he had strong ground-ball hitting tendencies.

The yearly splits seem to tell us that he stopped hitting on the road at all in '80, and stopped altogether in '81. Whitey timed it perfectly...

I recall Brock Hanke telling me that Reitz got into some substance abuse issues while with the Giants in '76. Ssn Francisco was his home town, it was the mid-70s, and he was 25 years old. Combine those elements and you've got a high potential correlation for some serious tomfoolery.

EDIT: Nice one, Mike. The same principle probably also applies to (neo)-sabermetricians... (ducking)

the shortstop traded to the Giants in the Clark deal played in Louisville as Jose Gonzalez, right?

Here's how I told the story in a THT piece:

By far the most amusing angle on the deal had to do with Uribe, who was at that point not playing under the name of Jose Uribe, but instead under the name of Jose Gonzalez. That spring training, the young Dominican shortstop announced to the media, as best he could in his extremely limited English, that he wished no longer to be known as Jose Gonzalez, but instead as Uribe.

"No problem," the media responded. "Henceforth and forever we'll call you Uribe Gonzalez!" And so went the announcement through all the usual channels.

"No! No! That's not what I meant," the ballplayer haltingly communicated over the next several days. "Not Uribe Gonzalez!"

Reporters and broadcasters, struggling to understand, sent out a revised announcement: "Sorry, we had it wrong. This ballplayer does in fact wish to be called Jose Gonzalez after all."

"No! No!" said the increasingly flustered ballplayer, now likely wishing he'd never brought it up in the first place. He did his best to make it clear what he meant: "Not Jose Gonzalez, and not Uribe Gonzalez. I want to be known as Jose Uribe. Got that? J-o-s-e U-r-i-b-e."

And so, finally, the third announcement went though all the usual channels—actually more than the usual channels by now, because this silly little story was beginning to acquire some "News of the Weird" notoriety—that this obscure good-field no-hit little shortstop shall, "Henceforth and forever be known as Jose Uribe!"

Who knows, maybe that's not what he meant either, but he just got sick and tired of trying to get the rest of us to understand.

At any rate, the best line on the whole comedy of errors was delivered by the exquisitely mordant Giants broadcaster Hank Greenwald. "Whatever else," Greenwald said, "This guy certainly is the Player to be Named Later."