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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
If I wasn’t so worried about being clutch-slapped by a confuded Kurt Sutter…I’d say Bruce.
6. Remove the generally overrated.
Don Drysdale had some good seasons, no doubt. But in an era when 20-win seasons were the standard, he won 20 games only twice. He had fewer wins, more losses and a worse ERA-plus than Kevin Brown. He had about the same ERA-plus as Bert Blyleven and almost 80 fewer wins. Hal Newhouser was 29-9 in 1944 and 25-9 in 1945, both war years when the majors were so desperate for players that one of his opponents had one arm (Pete Gray). Newhouser pitched 17 seasons and had a winning record in only seven. As colleague and friend Jayson Stark points out in “The Stark Truth,” Hack Wilson had five great seasons and seven not-so-great seasons in which he barely combined to hit as many home runs as he did in his famous 56-homer, 191 RBI year. Catcher Ray Schalk’s career average was .253—the lowest of any Hall of Famer—and his best season was .281 with 60 RBIs and 57 runs, so he must have received huge bonus points for being one of the 1919 White Sox who did not take a bribe to throw the World Series. Catcher Rick Ferrell was a seven-time All-Star but hit .281 for his career, led the league in passed balls five times and was out-homered by his brother, Wes, who was a pitcher. Give them all the boot.
And finally, remove any overrated Yankees. That means you, Phil Rizzuto.
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The Rules for Election have this explicit instruction: "No automatic elections based on performances such as a batting average of .400 or more for one (1) year, pitching a perfect game or similar outstanding achievement shall be permitted."
These are Don Larsen's HoF voting results. He lasted the maximum 15 years on the ballot:
1974 (29 votes - 7.95%)
1975 (23 votes - 6.35%)
1976 (47 votes - 12.11%)
1977 (39 votes - 10.18%)
1978 (32 votes - 8.44%)
1979 (53 votes - 12.27%)
1980 (31 votes - 8.05%)
1981 (33 votes - 8.23%)
1982 (32 votes - 7.71%)
1983 (22 votes - 5.88%)
1984 (25 votes - 6.2%)
1985 (32 votes - 8.1%)
1986 (33 votes - 7.76%)
1987 (30 votes - 7.26%)
1988 (31 votes - 7.26%)
I wish I could remember my students' thesis topics the way I can remember SNL jokes from the 1970s.
But if you want to lick it, it's a quarter.
Who were the good offensive players for the Cowboys?
It wasn't Aikman, because Smith and the receivers were so good.
It wasn't Smith, because the line and passing game were so good.
It wasn't Ervin, because Aikman and Smith were so good.
It wasn't the line, because the "skill" players were so good.
All I've heard since '92 is how overrated each player on those teams was, because all of the other players made them look good. So if none of them (using this circular logic) was really that good, how the hell did they win so much?
Ha, you're right. Never thought of it like that.
My biased take: Irvin and the O-line were fantastic. Smith was very good and a deserving HOFer but does not belong in the greatest RB ever conversation as his numbers would lead you to believe. Aikman was a good quarterback made great by the other dudes.
I don't have a problem with Aikman in the HOF because if you don't let in a guy with three rings and pretty damn good numbers, who do you let in? The time for discernment is "best ever" conversations and Aikman isn't in those, so no harm done.
I do think he was better than Johnson and Dilfer.
I agree with this, nearly word-for-word. Irvin is an unbelievably underrated wide receiver. The Dallas offensive line was tremendous. Smith was a very, very good back, perfect for a team with a good offensive line(*). Aikman was good, better than Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer, but not on the same level as Kelly, Young, Moon, Favre, and other contemporary quarterbacks.
(*) - Smith was an excellent back at hitting the hole provided, and getting a few extra yards by dragging a player or two. He could do this consistently. Dallas had an awesome line and at least good-to-very-good players across the board on offense. As a result, they didn't need a super-shifty back, like Barry Sanders, a home run threat, like Adrian Peterson, or even a do-it-all guy like Walter Payton; Smith, a back who could consistently get three to five yards, was perfect for their offense.
Is Terry Bradshaw to a T. Great announcer, decent QB with great teammates.
Aikman did play very well in the postseason during their run (perhaps best of all during the loss to SF, perhaps the only time in his career when he actually put the Cowboys on his back), but other than that he just didn't do much. Winning one more Super Bowl than Jim Plunkett doesn't make him a HoFer.
Why can't a team be greater than the sum of its parts? After all, this is football, right? The whole freaking point is for the team to be greater than the sum of its parts.
Personally, Emmitt Smith was an amazing running back, and Barry Sanders was in the absolute perfect system for his style, since the run and shoot prevented stacking the box and gave him the space he needed. His playoff record was horrible, because he was useless in cold weather. He was hit for a loss more than anyone in history. He was useless on 3rd and 2. His line wasn't that bad, he had Lomas Brown for cryin' out loud.
He's easily the most overrated player in the history of the league.
Smith was incredibly durable, an extremely underrated trait in a running back. He carried his team when needed. He's miles ahead of Sanders in my book.
Given that there is no discernably coherent pattern of standards revealed by the HoF's inclusions and exclusions, yes, that's what I'm forced to think.
If you can tell me what their standards are, as reflected in their choices, I'd be ready to come to a different conclusion.
"Their" standards are the cumulative individual standards of several hundred writers, who don't always agree. Some of them may even think that Don Larsen was a Hall of Famer, if they weren't just paying him back for a few nights on the town.
Some of them are wise, some of them are fools, and most of them are probably a mix of wise and foolish. But when you've got an ever changing voting base and shifting levels of league offense and pitching, I'm not sure that expecting collective consistency is realistic, especially in marginal cases, and especially when your throw in a few wild cards like military service (Rizzuto and Travis) or the lack of it (Boudreau, Newhouser), character (McGwire), personality (Dean), and how they treated the press (Allen). What you're really expecting of them is that they all vote in approximate lockstep over multiple generations, and preferably for the candidates you happen to favor. I'm not sure that that will ever happen.
--------------------------
Why can't a team be greater than the sum of its parts? After all, this is football, right? The whole freaking point is for the team to be greater than the sum of its parts.
That's true, but please let us know when you come up with a formula that sorts all this out. Maybe we should just elect the coaches and the GM's and forget about the players.
Well, Andy, if I or someone else were claiming that it would be realistic for us to expect collective consistency from the HOF as it's been constituted over the decades, then this point might be relevant. But since no one has, it isn't. Instead all you've done here is validate the point I've been making, that the HOF as constituted over the decades has not demonstrated establishment of or allegiance to a coherent set of standards (and you would say, perhaps, it cannot).
Thus the comparison between the HOF and the HOM is not, as you over and over again claim it to be, one between two institutions performing effectively equally competent jobs at meeting their respective standards, just operating with differing standards. Instead the truth is that, as you admit, the HOF has done a demonstrably worse job of meeting a standard of any sort, and the HOF is designed precisely to illustrate what a HOF of the same size we actually have would look like if it had established and maintained far more consistent standards.
That's the relevant difference between the institutions, not the "intangible-valuers vs. statheads" dichotomy you repeatedly invoke. You must have read some of the HOM threads, right? They made use of all kinds of MVP vote info and other contemporary observation info that is far more than mere formulae on a spreadsheet.
EDIT: make that "the HOM is designed precisely to illustrate what a HOF of the same size we actually have would look like"
I'll give Namath the Super Bowl. But he couldn't repeat it. Couldn't win in the playoffs again, couldn't stay healthy. Even in Super Bowl III, Matt Snell's running and the self destruction of the Baltimore offense were equally big factors to anything Namath did.
Griese won two Super Bowls, yeah. In one of the years, the team went undefeated with another quarterback starting more than half the games and playing half the time in the playoffs. You look at the stats for the playoffs games in 1972-73, and Griese was throwing 11, 7, 6 passes in those games. Griese threw less in the playoffs than anyone before or since.
What's the signature play of Griese's career? Probably the 29 yard sack by Bob Lilly in Super Bowl VI. When that's your most memorable play, you've got a problem.
Football is a team sport, right?
If multiple Super Bowls is your standard, you are going to have what 4-5 (just guessing) QBs in your Hall of Fame.
Not saying if Namath is/isn't a Hall of Famer, but having to 'repeat it' certainly isn't any kind of realistic mandatory standard.
I agree that rings shouldn't be the only standard for the HoF, but there are a lot more than 4 or 5 quarterbacks on that list. Counting pre-merger NFL / AFL and AAFC championships, there have been 19 multiple winners, 9 of which came during the Super Bowl era:
Arnie Herber** 4
Sammy Baugh** 2
Sid Luckman 4
Otto Graham 7 (4 AAFC, 3 NFL)
Bobby Layne 2
Johnny Unitas 2
Norm Van Brocklin 2
Bart Starr 5
George Blanda 2 (AFL)
Jack Kemp 2 (AFL)
Roger Staubach 2
Bob Griese 2
Terry Bradshaw 4
Jim Plunkett 2
Joe Montana 4
Troy Aikman 3
John Elway 2
Tom Brady 3
Ben Roethlisberger 2
**Single Wing formation tailbacks who also did nearly all of the passing
Was Smith merely "very good" or "fantastic" and "amazing"?
Was the line "fantastic" or just "quite good"?
Was Irvin "fantastic" and "unbelievably underrated" or "very good"?
Was Aikman a "good quarterback" or did he just "manage to not screw it up"?
And before you accuse me of splitting hairs, remember that "Hall of Very Good" is a back-handed compliment around here.
My origninal post wasn't about Aikman's HOF worthiness (though how do you keep out a guy with his numbers who won 3 out of 4 Super Bowls and came within a game of going to the 4th?); it's about the constant commentary that the individual Cowboys weren't really that good while players on similar teams (the late 80's 49ers or early 00's Patriots) are viewed as far superior.
Well, even though the three of us didn't use the exact same terms, it at least has established a range for each of the four player/groups. And Aikman's range is the lowest.
You've thrown out quite a strawman when you bring up the 49ers and Patriots dynasties, too. Let's look a little deeper, at how you might rank the players from each team.
QB: 1. Montana, 2. Brady, 3. Aikman. I can't see that there's much argument here. In 2001, Brady was nothing special, but by 2003-2004, and then 2007, he was an excellent quarterback.
RB: 1. Smith, 2. Craig, 3. Jamison/Dillon. The Cowboys clearly have the edge here. The Patriots running backs were pretty fungible, and Roger Craig was quite good, but nowhere near Emmitt's level.
WR: 1. Rice, 2. Moss, 3. Irvin. You could probably see some argument that Irvin is better than Moss. It's really close, to be honest. These are three excellent wide receivers; you really could argue that each one was the best player on his team. (Moss is also a bit of a cheat, he was only on the Patriots for one Super Bowl, which they lost. Troy Brown is much, much worse than Michael Irvin.)
OL: 1. Cowboys, 2. 49ers, 3. Patriots. All had very-good-to-great offensive lines. The Cowboys is considered one of the best of all time.
So again, who's saying that "the individual Cowboys weren't really that good while players on similar teams (the late 80's 49ers or early 00's Patriots) are viewed as far superior"?
As a fan of those teams, it was uncanny. The Cowboys turned around from Godawful to a dynasty in almost no time. You'd listen to a game and the announcers would casually point out that practically every player on the team was the best in the league at what they did. "Well now, Moose is the best blocking back in the league." "Novacek is the best TE in the league, after all." The linemen were all better than anyone, and the punter, and I swear they had some long snapper (I can't remember who) who by whatever criteria they judge long snappers by was better than anyone else. And this all seemed so natural, as if of course a team with no weaknesses would naturally be assembled so blithely.
They did not talk about Aikman in that way, and it's true that nobody classed Aikman with Favre or Elway or Young, with reason. But he was obviously a very solid QB and, as I've said upthread, doing everything right, even with help, is not a negligible skill.
The factoid I remember best about Smith's value to the team was the 1993 season, where he was in some kind of holdout situation. He missed the first two games, and the Cowboys lost them. He returned and they won seven or eight in a row, then Smith had a minor injury and they lost their next game without him. They lost a crazy game on Thanksgiving in the ice and then didn't lose again, so they were something like 15-1 in Smith's starts and 0-3 when he didn't start. Coincidence? You decide :)
Honestly, I can't control what anyone else's opinions about the 1990s Cowboys were, including Eddo and T&B. As for the 80s 49ers and early aughts Patriots, Eddo's comparisons look valid, though the Boys have to be ahead of the Pats at WR since Moss has played such a small role in their success.
As for Aikman, his entire Hall of Fame case is tied to the Cowboys' team success. His numbers aren't that good. His Pro Bowl appearances are directly tied to being the QB of the best team. The only way he warrants election is through some automatic number that is rightfully criticized for baseball. 3 rings = Hall of Fame (though 2 does not).
Someone asked upthread for Griese's signature moment. Name Aikman's great successful comeback? While the whole "Brett Favre has led his team to 53 comebacks when trailing in the fourth quarter" is ridiculous, considering what it considers a QB-led comeback, is there even one Aikman-led comeback that stands out. Can you name one time when he, rather than Emmitt or the offensive line, put the Boys on his back and pulled victory from defeat? I'm sure it probably happened once or twice, though they sure don't stand out.
My perception at the time- living in Buffalo at the time- was as follows:
Kelly >Aikman
Thurman Thomas > Smith
Reed = Irvin
but the Cowboys had a MUCH better Off line
a much better Def line (basically except for Bruce Smith my impression was that every man the Cowboys had on dee was equal to or better than his opposite number on the Bills)
He's 14th in passes completed
23rd in yards
55th in TDs
42nd in Qb rating (FWIW)
38th in passing yards per game
82nd in yards per pass
35th in net yards per pass attempt
22nd in completion %
You know before I looked it up I thought his rate stats were better than they were...
By way of comparison, this guy who retired in 1997 isn't in:
13th in passes completed
14th in yards
14th in TDs
45th in Qb rating (FWIW)
36th in passing yards per game
39th in yards per pass
23rd in net yards per pass attempt
I conclude from this that Smith had some sort of psychic ability to control Leon Lett.
I think your perception was a bit off; while Thomas and Smith are vastly different types of backs, Smith is definitely not worse than Thomas. Also, Irvin was a tremendous receiver, better than Andre Reed (who is unfairly forgotten these days).
You are correct, in my opinion, about the offensive and defensive sides. Only Bruce Smith as better than any Cowboy at any non-skill position.
13th in passes completed
14th in yards
14th in TDs
45th in Qb rating (FWIW)
36th in passing yards per game
39th in yards per pass
23rd in net yards per pass attempt
I warned him to keep his distance from the I-Man, but he wouldn't listen.
Smith played in the Leon Lett game. It was the one game the Cowboys lost in 1993 in which Smith was healthy (he got one carry in the loss to Atlanta, which I assume is because he was hurt).
You are likely quite right about Irvin, but Smith was helped by his line a hell of a lot more than Thurman was by his- I just can't see Smith being as effective with the Bills as Thurman was, but I can see Thurman being just as effective with the Boys as Smith was.
Smith made then line, not the other way around. I mean they were all great, but I'd take Emmitt with an average line over that line with an average RB every time and I don't see how it's close.
I'm a Cowboys/Bills fan, so I have unique perspective.
It's not like the Bills line was a bunch of garbage either.
Thomas was the best player on the field in SB XXV and was clearly the MVP, even in the loss. He truly was a great player.
But once Emmitt hit his stride, which was a little after Thurman, it wasn't close. IMO he's the best back in the history of the league not named Jim Brown.
I agree with this, and I hate the Cowboys. Backs like Emmitt are the kind you build championship offenses around, and Emmitt was the best of his kind in my lifetime.
Actually, the better the back is, the worse the team is, because it entices coaches to go to the ground game more when the best way to win games in the NFL is through the air. Early, often, and relentlessly.
Of course, NFL coaches will never try this. The teams that have come close -- some of Warner's Rams teams, Brady's 18-0 team -- have won.
Like designating a closer in baseball, going to the ground in the NFL is a sub-optimal strategy. It's really stunning that coaches haven't figured this out yet.
You need to be able to do both.
How'd that run and shoot work out?
And teams throw more now than they ever have before, so I think the coaches are on to the pass at this point.
Of course, NFL coaches will never try this. The teams that have come close -- some of Warner's Rams teams, Brady's 18-0 team -- have won.
Like designating a closer in baseball, going to the ground in the NFL is a sub-optimal strategy. It's really stunning that coaches haven't figured this out yet.
Kind of depends on your personnel, though, doesn't it? Many great modern teams would fit your description, but not all. The Redskins in the 80's used Riggins, Byner and the Hogs to establish dominance of the scrimmage line. This then reduced the effectiveness of the blitz, and allowed immobile QB's like Williams and Rypien to thrive. The Dolphins in the early 70's did likewise with Csonka, Kiick and Morris. Your overall point is well taken, but it can't be reduced to a formula. There almost always has to be at least a semblance of a credible threat from the ground in order for the passing game to flourish.
And for Warner's Rams, Marshall Faulk says "Hi."
Do you mean as of the year 2010, Ray? Or more and more over the past few years? There have been some weak NFL teams featuring great running backs (the Bills were mediocre when Simpson was there), but on the whole, the superior ones tend to win, or at least have over my lifetime (Smith, Payton with the '85 Bears, Marcus Allen, etc). The whole non-sucky history of the Detroit Lions within living memory can be summed up by Barry Sanders. Even the Oilers, who were never much of a team, were pretty formidable during Earl Campbell's prime.
I think they'd both do worse if they switched teams. Smith, a really effective straight-ahead-then-require-two-or-more-tacklers-to-bring-him-down back, was perfectly suited for a great line like Dallas's. Thomas, an incredibly versatile back, was perfectly suited for Buffalo's no-huddle, more opened-up offense.
------
Passing is more effective on average, yes. And I'm a big believer in passing to set up the run, not the other way around. However, game theory is a huge factor, here. You can't totally abandon the running game (which I assume you realize, Ray).
Also, keep in mind, in the early-to-mid 90s, the rules favoring the passing game hadn't been implemented yet.
I'm not really advocating a run vs. pass strategy. Only that if you have a run-based offense, which have won championships, it's better to have a chain-mover type like Emmitt than a game-breaker type like Barry Sanders. It is probably true that under today's rules, any kind of run-based offense is inferior to a pass-first one.
And it wasn't a fluke, the Giants almost beat them week 17 too.
Yes, an offense designed almost excluslively through the air would change the dynamics and so looking at current stats isn't representative of that reality, but there is _plenty_ of field to make this work.
It seems rather clear to me that coaches go to the ground game so often mostly because they extremely overestimate the cost of an interception.
But, of course, runningbacks can fumble as well.
Unlike in baseball, where you can essentially put your best players on the field and just worry about pitching changes, game strategy is utterly crucial to the success of a football team.
And poor game strategy can make a good quarterback appear to be a bad one.
Of course, I wouldn't stop at an all-air offense; I'd also go for it on virtually all 4th downs unless I'm pinned at my own 25. Teams give up a huge opportunities by punting on 4th down, particularly on their opponent's side of the field.
I also suspect I'd kick FGs less and go for TDs far more, but I haven't worked out yet a decision table for that.
A bit, but not as much as one would think. I believe that we don't really have a good read on how good quarterbacks are, or could be, because coaching strategy is so inextricably linked to the success of a quarterback.
Kind of like how a pitcher playing behind a rotten defense (in this analogy, the gameplaning of the head coach and offensive coordinator would be the "defense") would appear to suck.
I don't claim this team would win every game. But by the Super Bowl the analogy no longer held, because Belichik had abandoned the air-attack strategy somewhere around mid-season.
Or because far fewer people give a tinker's dam about those Halls of Fame. Which is in part due to the fact that it is not sportswriters voting on them. Giving the vote to the BBWAA was an absolute stroke of genius for Cooperstown. It guarantees massive publicity as the voters and columnists pontificate and bloviate about it -- which publicity, in turn, draws the interest of the readers.
By contrast, there are far, far fewer columns and column inches devoted to all of the other Hall of Fames. Nobody is drumming up interest, so far fewer people care.
Once you have a decent lead, the cost of an incomplete pass becomes consequential. Clock management is a big part of the NFL, and not just in the last two minutes of a half.
There's some truth to that Srul, but there's more to it than that. Unlike those other sports, even the one that has passed it in most popularity measurements, we care about baseball. We care about it's history and its participants and its records in a way we never have cared about any of the rest, including the oblong game. It was evident in the steroids mess and in the home run chases and in dozens of other ways.
The people who play the game, and played the game, matter to us, while the football guys are anonymous, helmeted drones. Hell, the NFL is contemplating expanding its regular season schedule despite growing evidence of just how dangerous the sport is to its participants longterm health. But no one cares, because these guys are simply, utterly disposable pawns providing us with our weekly dose of wagerable violence.
This is a good point. It is also the case that baseball players are linked to their statistics far more so than in any other sport, mostly because baseball at its core is a series of individual matchups (batter vs. pitcher; fielder vs. ball). Obviously the statistics are dependent on outside factors such as defense and other teammates on the field, but not so much that players can't be largely characterized by their performance records.
For all the whining that has been done over the years about "stat geeks," the silliness of it all is that *every* fan who takes more than a passing interest in the game also takes an interest in the statistics. Every fan who claims to know something about how to tell a good player from a bad one bases that conclusion to some extent on statistics. The fight has always been over _which_ statistics to use, and yet the fight was incorrectly characterized by the flat earthers as almost being over whether to use statistics at all.
Now we know your real name, Ray. Good to have you on board, Mike Martz.
and
Bingo, and that is my only issue with the HOM -- the requirement that X number be voted in every year, even if it is an extremely weak year.
I would have preferred to see certain absolute minimum vote required, so that if, say, only 2 of 3 received the minimum in year X, then you would have 4 slots, instead of 3, open the next year. This might create a bit of a crowed ballot some years, but I think that as the leagues expanded, you would make it up, and it would get rid of some of the truly weak selections.
That aside -- and I can see how you might feel differently -- the HOM is a fantastic enterprise.
The more you say that, the more nervous I get.
Me too! Of course, that was over 25 years ago.
Interesting turn of phrase. Origin?
You play in a northern city, when the weather turns cold and lousy, and with the way the wind whipped around the Meadowlands, you better be able to run the ball.
I agree with this. The real problem with Aikman is that there's nothing statistically amazing about him, at a position where most HOF players have at least something remarkable in the statistics. He was a very good QB and a near-perfect fit for that particular team.
I think Emmitt Smith might be overrated in the sense that he's closer to the 5th-6th best RB in football history than the 2nd. Still an obvious HOFer. But we can see things like "most all-time career rushing attempts and TDs" and "most career yards rushing." He's got obvious HOF credentials.
I, of course, think that an all-air strategy will work in all kinds of weather.
The "elements" (football announcers love that word) make it more difficult on both sides of the ball.
MY take on the run and shoot teams is that they scored a remarkable # of points considering their personnel- they also tended to give up a lot of points- which some attributed to having their offenses on the field for too short time periods...
I think run and shoot works, but its generally only been tried by bad teams who are desperate-
Derail power activate!
Interesting turn of phrase. Origin?
Variant of the punch line of a classic joke / story about the nature of reality, often told by the late Morris Raphael Cohen of CCNY, and related by Irving Howe in World of Our Fathers. I've probably worn it out by overuse by now, but its appropriateness seems to pop up in an infinite number of situations.
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