If OBP is so important that HOF status can ride on this one stat, maybe there should be a magic number that equates to automatic enshrinement, similar to 300 wins or 3000 hits?

Obviously not the point, but Trivia!

16 of the 18 eligible players with a career .415 OBP have been elected to the Hall of Fame. Who's on the outside?

I forget, which half of his career did Andre Dawson play at shortstop again?

They did both play for the Cubs. And neither has been in my kitchen. So yes, they are very similar.

Trivia answer: Bill Joyce? Ferris Fain?

They are both carbon-based life forms. That's something.

Wonder how many of those 400+ HR Dawson hit while playing shortstop? hmmmm...., I need JoePo and the saber metric justice team to figure this out for me.

Dawson is not the worse candidate for the HOF, I think he's a better candidate than Rice. But you can't use the error of electing rice as a reason to elect another player.

But how valuable is 1100 games at SS really?

This guy seems very jealous of JoePo.

Someone needs to explain to this guy the relative value of defensive positions.

This guy writing in JoePo's style reminds me of the Led Zeppelin imitators from the 1970's.

At least he didn't say JoePo lived in his mother's basement, like most people that try to blast "the sabers"

1987 - hitters rule

1962 - pitcher rule

But Banks still = Dawson. I get it.

Trivia Answer: Eddie Stankey and Eddie Yost?

Bill Joyce? Ferris Fain?

Close; they're both over .415, but are ineligible, as neither played for 10 seasons.

Max Bishop?

Roy Thomas? Eddie Joost?

How about this doozie:

The game is different today, and I believe many players are only more interested in padding their OBP stats rather than actually winning games - see Adam Dunn.

No evidence to support that claim or anything. Adam hates to make outs, but doesn't care about winning.

Did anyone catch this JoePoz post from today:
"Baseball's Greatest Winner"

I cheated and looked it up. Man, Thomas was so close.

If Edgar Martinez is now "eligible", he must be one.

Did anyone catch this JoePoz post from today:
"Baseball's Greatest Winner"

Up until the reveal, I thought he was talking about Jim Thome. Yes, I know, I missed the 100 details that show it's not him, heh.

18: I overlooked him. If you count Edgar, there are 3.

Roy Cullenbine?

C'mon, this bloke is just being silly. I don't need to regurgitate the numbers here....

Bank's case was a slam dunk, it's not even close. To direct an article directly against Poz(or JoePo-that just doesn't sound right), is just the ravings of small man.

Repoz, sometimes I think you just post this drivel just to see what kind of rise you can get out of the community here. This one isn't even a challenge.

I was going to guess John McGraw, but then I remembered that he's in as a manager. That counts, right?

I finally know the answer to one of these trivia questions, or at least half the answer:

Cupid Childs!

Well done!

Max Bishop .423
(Edgar Martinez .418)
Cupid Childs .416

DelGrippo again? This is the same guy whose last article we all thought was a joke article.

And that last article *did* refer to sabre people as living in their parents' basement.

Now, the bottom of the lineup is supposed to each have an OPS+ of .900 or better or they are shipped out of town.

I would certainly hope your number 9 hitter could manage an OPS+ of at least 1 ... unless you're the Royals.

But post #4 isn't all that wrong. Bill Joyce did have a career OBP of .435 - but he played less than 10 years, so he's not Hall of Fame eligible. The same thing with Fain: .424 but in 9 years.

Joyce, Childs, and Bishop all came from high-offense times, particularly Childs and Joyce. Fain is an "Eddie," a participant in the post-WWII AL walkfest. (Stanky .410, Yost .394, Joost .361.) The Hall of Merit has no minimum career length rule, so we were free to consider all four of them. We did eventually elect Childs after he spend many years in the backlog. None of Joyce, Fain nor Bishop drew much support. In the particular case of Joyce: while we don't have a specified minimum career length, we are entitled to hold his short career against him if we choose. And by reputation, he was a dreadful fielder. He had nearly as many errors (509) as he had extra bases on hit (574).

Another "Eddie": Lake (.366)

If you want a "magic number" that is OBP-related, how about 4000 times on base? It is a bigger group than than the 3000 hit club (40 vs 27), but given that the new members include arguably the top SIX hitters ever (Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby), and only one guy who shouldn't be in (Staub), that hardly seems like a problem. Of course, arbitrary counting benchmarks are no way to determine who should be in the hall, but if this guy wants one that is OBP related, then 4000 TOB does pretty well.

you can't use the error of electing rice as a reason to elect another player.


Oh yeah? Just try and stop us.

Has anyone ever tried to explain to someone in the camp of "In the good old days, nobody knew what an OPB was and batters went to the plate looking to swing, not walk" how the game was actually played in the AL in the Age of the Eddies (and of the one Ted Williams)?

On Banks:

The key here is not so much that he compiled his career playing about half his games at SS. It's that, in those years at SS, he was the 2nd or 3rd greatest hitting SS of all-time. (Vaughn probably beats him out but he had been ignored) While it's somewhat scary to think of how he might have been treated in the voting if he'd ended up with 475 HR instead of 512, he's in the HoF because, for his 8 seasons at SS (esp 55-60), he was an inner-circle HoFer.

Really Banks had one of the stranger careers -- inner-circle SS in the first-half; average 1B in the 2nd half. His case is more similar to Koufax or Campanella than someone like Dawson. I'm a big Dawson fan -- I don't think he's quite HoF-worthy but I'll be happy when he goes in. But even I realize that at no time did Dawson really play like an inner-circle CF. 1980-83 is awesome but it's not Mays, Mantle, Cobb or even quite Snider awesome.

And as to "OBP padding" -- even if you ignored the absurdity of the concept, there's no evidence it's going on. Walk rates are not up substantially, "isoOBP" is not up substantially compared to historical standards. BA is up a fair bit and ISO has exploded. As I've pointed out in several threads, if Dawson had come along today, he wouldn't walk more, he'd hit for more power and put up roughly 2008 Ryan Braun numbers. Probably not quite that good in a typical year -- Braun's 2008 is nearly a dead-ringer for Dawson's MVP 1987:

Braun 2008: 285/335/553, 128 OPS+
Dawson 1987: 287/328/568, 130 OPS+

Dawson with lots more HRs and RBI though. And as I devilishly like to point out, nobody griped about Braun finishing 3rd in MVP voting last year. :-)

EDIT: I mean he was the 2nd or 3rd greatest-hitting SS ever _at the time he retired_.

[Banks'] case is more similar to Koufax or Campanella than someone like Dawson.

I'm trying to imagine what you'd get if you started with Koufax and added another 1800 IP or so of 95 ERA+ as a non-ace starter - except that he fell in with a winning team, got good run support, ran his wins total up to 280 or so, and broke Walter Johnson's strikeout record.

It's that, in those years at SS, he was the 2nd or 3rd greatest hitting SS of all-time.

There is a word "major league" to be inserted in there, to account for competition from the likes of John Henry Lloyd and maybe a couple of others. And you do acknowledge Vaughan (have to get his name in once with the correct spelling). In our Hall of Merit ranking vote, we were a little cooler towards him than even that indicates, ranking him 11th, just behind Appling and Cronin.

And as I devilishly like to point out, nobody griped about Braun finishing 3rd in MVP voting last year. :-)

Well, we were a little busy griping about the guy one spot ahead of him... if Braun had won, I think a couple of complaints might have popped up.

It is an interesting comparison, though.

Really Banks had one of the stranger careers -- inner-circle SS in the first-half; average 1B in the 2nd half.

Ernie was one of my favorites when I was a kid, but I didn't know enough then to notice how big that drop off was. Does anyone know if it was injury-related? I'd think it would have had to have been...

Does anyone know if it was injury-related?

In this thread, look for the appearance of Harveys Wallbangers around post 21, together with some earlier stuff about leg injuries.

There is a word "major league" to be inserted in there, to account for competition from the likes of John Henry Lloyd and maybe a couple of others. And you do acknowledge Vaughan (have to get his name in once with the correct spelling). In our Hall of Merit ranking vote, we were a little cooler towards him than even that indicates, ranking him 11th, just behind Appling and Cronin.

Fair enough on the Negro Leagues, etc. As to his ranking in the HoM list -- yeah, but you guys are nuts. :-) But really, isn't that your career list? Through age 30, his last as a SS, Banks had a 138 OPS+. Appling had only 2 full seasons of his career that match that, Cronin only matched it once. You guys put Yount ahead of Banks although, for the SS part of their careers, Banks blows Yount out of the water. This is why the HoM list is silly. :-)

Defense aside, I'd have a hard time believing Banks ranks any worse than 4th on a peak SS list (Wagner, AROD, Vaughan). I suppose that might depend on how long a peak you look at.

I'm trying to imagine what you'd get if you started with Koufax and added another 1800 IP or so of 95 ERA+ as a non-ace starter - except that he fell in with a winning team, got good run support, ran his wins total up to 280 or so, and broke Walter Johnson's strikeout record.

Have you met Bert Blyleven?

Fair enough on the Negro Leagues, etc. As to his ranking in the HoM list -- yeah, but you guys are nuts. :-) But really, isn't that your career list? Through age 30, his last as a SS, Banks had a 138 OPS+. Appling had only 2 full seasons of his career that match that, Cronin only matched it once. You guys put Yount ahead of Banks although, for the SS part of their careers, Banks blows Yount out of the water. This is why the HoM list is silly. :-)

The problem is that Banks years at first base hardly add anything to his resume. At his best, he was a mediocre first baseman and was subpar for a majority of his years there. IOW, he made it to #11 in our group almost solely on 8 years of play, which is pretty impressive.

Now, if you're primarily a peak voter, Walt, then that's a different story, of course.

BTW, it wasn't a career list. We have peak voters that had Banks much higher than others from the electorate.

Is Joe Jackson officially ineligible? I just thought he never got enough votes, but was not "banned" like Rose is.

Is Joe Jackson officially ineligible? I just thought he never got enough votes, but was not "banned" like Rose is.

He was banned from baseball for life, so yes, he's ineligible.

for his 8 seasons at SS (esp 55-60), [Banks] was an inner-circle HoFer [...] at no time did Dawson really play like an inner-circle CF

My thoughts exactly when I RTFA, so I'll just chime in and say "Yea Walt" :)

From 1954 through 1961, those eight seasons, the top 20 in major-league OPS+ are seventeen OF or 1B plus Eddie Mathews, Ernie Banks, and Yogi Berra (Banks is 10th); all three legitimately among a tiny handful of best players ever at their positions in peak terms.

From 1977 through 1983 (his CF years), Dawson is 26th in the majors in OPS+, behind guys like Sixto Lezcano and Chet Lemon. Certainly with his defense and baserunning, he comes out to be one of the better ballplayers of those seven years, and perhaps briefly the best player in the NL for a few months in '83. But as a sustained peak, it should remind nobody of Ernie Banks.

The problem is that Banks years at first base hardly add anything to his resume.

This is only a "problem" if you're doing something silly like ranking how good a SS someone was based in part on how good they were during their 1100 games at 1B or 1200 games in CF. :-)

Now if you did something sensible like rank SS based on seasons spent playing SS ...

you'd probably want a peak list (on which Banks would rank quite high, higher than Yount, Cronin and Appling) and a career list on which Banks might rank quite low given he only played 1100 games there (but still higher than Yount). If you wanted an overall list, you'd have to balance peak and career AS A SS much as one does in making HoF decisions.

But what in the world the fact that Yount was a much better CF than Banks was a 1B has to do with who was a better SS is lost on me. (Cronin and Appling played many more games at SS than Banks and presumably do pass him fairly handily in career value at SS, probably by more than enough to make up for the peak differential.)

Articles like this make me wish that I was illiterate.

The Hall of Merit, as well as Bill James in the NBJHBA, ranks the shortstops as baseball players, not shortstops; one simply gets put in the shortstop pool if the plurality of one's value is as a shortstop. This is an eminently sensible way of doing things, while arbitrarily chopping up a players career depending on where they happen to be playing seems strange to me.

The Hall of Merit, as well as Bill James in the NBJHBA, ranks the shortstops as baseball players, not shortstops; one simply gets put in the shortstop pool if the plurality of one's value is as a shortstop. This is an eminently sensible way of doing things

I tend to agree. Breaking things down by position for these sorts of ranking is just a convenient way to organize players into more manageable subsets. Within that group, it makes sense to look at VORP (or whatever) based on replacement-level for the positions actually played (eg, Banks would take a hit for his time as a 1B). Doing things this way, while complicated, doesn't strike me as inconsistent.

EDIT: Duplicate post.

EDIT: Apparently triple post. Sorry, not quite sure how that happened.

He was banned from baseball for life, so yes, he's ineligible.

Joe Jackson is still alive?!?

It ain't so.

The Hall of Merit, as well as Bill James in the NBJHBA, ranks the shortstops as baseball players, not shortstops; one simply gets put in the shortstop pool if the plurality of one's value is as a shortstop. This is an eminently sensible way of doing things

Why, thank you, kind sir! :-)

Seriously, if we did it the way Walt suggests (which has merit if we were doing strictly a peak list, instead of the combined peak, prime and career list we actually did), many of the multi-positional stars would be royally and unfairly screwed, IMO.

Walt appears to be primarily a peak guy, which is fine. Of course, it's not the only way to gauge merit.