But in HoF terms, it's just not true. Short career guys have rarely made it. Puckett did in 1995 which was questionable. Before that you have to go back to Kiner in 1975, his 15th year of eligiblity. I think the only other two corner players voted in were Greenberg (an all-time great slugger) and Bill Terry (a reasonably comp for these guys). You've got DiMaggio, Robinson, some old Cs and some old SSs. Aren't Puckett and Dawson and Perez (and Yount and Gwynn and Brett and Fisk and ...) enough from that "lost generation"?

They didn't last. It stinks that they didn't last but they didn't last. Norm Cash didn't last either, neither did Reggie Smith, neither did Juan Gonzalez or Jim Edmonds or Larry Walker.

EDIT: Or Mark McGwire of course.

Ellis Burks....who precisely did NOT gain longevity by taking PEDs

Whoa, whoa...Sorry, but I wouldn't be so sure about that. Also, don't forget about greenies (for the other guys).

I hate it when PEDs make careers longer, like Barry Bonds, and when they make careers shorter, like Mark McGwire.

During 1980-1987, Murphy was the BEST PLAYER IN BASEBALL, I’m pretty sure. I remember thinking that throughout that time, and I don’t believe I was wrong.

I mean, I read that, and thought "1980 to 1987? Isn't that Mike Schmidt's peak?"

And it was. (Well, not really, but, close enough.) Schmidt had 56 WAR in those 8 seasons, to 41 for Murphy.

I hate it when PEDs make careers longer, like Barry Bonds, and when they make careers shorter, like Mark McGwire.

I figure they helped lengthen McGwire's career.

1986-1991 - 135OPS+
1992-2001 - 181OPS+

Also, I’m going to favor the players who were truly great for a time over those who were very good for a long time. I think the HOF is about GREATNESS–about guys who affected every bit of every game they played in their primes. That’s Murphy, to me. Most HRs in the ’80s, by the way. Most RBIs, too.

And this one is just flat untrue--Schmidt outhomered him 313 to 308.

These aren't difficult things to doublecheck.

BB-Ref, most WAR, 1980-1987

1. Rickey Henderson, 57.1
2. Mike Schmidt, 56.0
3. Robin Yount, 45.1
4. Wade Boggs, 43.6
5. Gary Carter, 42.6
6. Keith Hernandez, 41.6
6. Dale Murphy, 41.6
8. Alan Trammell, 41.0
9. Eddie Murray, 40.8
10. George Brett, 38.5
11. Dave Stieb 38.3

He was sixth by WAR in that time frame, with Schmidt and Rickey pretty much running away from the field.

He's also eighth from '82-'85, his best WAR peak. You can get him to third in oWar in that period, to Schmidt and Eddie Murray. dWAR hates him from ages 28-30 and in his early career before he was a CF, thinks he was solidly above average from 31-34, though I guess at that point he'd moved to RF. I was under the impression he had a solid defensive rep in his CF years, but maybe I'm mis-remembering.

I was under the impression he had a solid defensive rep in his CF years, but maybe I'm mis-remembering.

You aren't. Murphy won five Gold Gloves from 1982-1986.

-- MWE

It is kind of funny that we have reached this point where a voter sees the need to spend several paragraphs defending his vote for Dale Murphy, a legit choice (IMO), but doesn't see much need to spend too much time explaining a Jack Morris vote.

Heh.

Also, I’m going to favor the players who were truly great for a time over those who were very good for a long time. I think the HOF is about GREATNESS–about guys who affected every bit of every game they played in their primes. That’s Murphy, to me. Most HRs in the ’80s, by the way. Most RBIs, too.

If Murphy's prime was '80-'87, that's 8 years in which he had 2 significant off years, '81 and '86. You can't extend his prime past that without adding more sub-prime seasons, either. I think a lot of people remember the HOF career in progress that his age 26-29 seasons was and forget that he had one good season from age 30 on.

It is kind of funny that we have reached this point where a voter sees the need to spend 5 'graphs defending his vote for Dale Murphy, a legit choice (IMO)

97 players have 6000+ PAs with 75% of games played in CF/RF. Murphy is 48th among them in WAR. Guys not in the top 30 but ahead of him include Mike Cameron, JD Drew, Brett Butler (and, admittedly, Kirby Puckett), while right behind him are Darryl Strawberry, Andy Van Slyke, Devon White and Steve Finley. Dale Murphy is not a HOFer.

In addition to being wrong about Murphy having the most homers of the 80s (see comment #6) he's also wrong claiming that Murphy had the most RBIs of the 80s. He's tied for second with Schmidt behind Eddie Murray.

I know the Murphy argument he makes is not a very good one, and I don't think Murphy is a HOFer, either, but can we take a second to appreciate that he's a first time voter, and he votes for the four best candidates - Raines, Bagwell, Trammell, and Larkin?

In my opinion, as long as you vote for those four, I don't really care a whole lot about what else you do with your votes. They are the only four that deserve to be in the HOF on this year's ballot. Murphy's not getting in, anyway, and he'll be off the ballot in a couple of years. Mattingly, too. Whatever.

Let's heap praise on the writers who get these four BBTF favorites correctly on their ballots...

Larry Walker is more deserving of the HoF than Raines.

as long as you vote for those four, I don't really care a whole lot about what else you do with your votes

Ditto. Get those four right and we can talk about the rest later.

97 players have 6000+ PAs with 75% of games played in CF/RF. Murphy is 48th among them in WAR. Guys not in the top 30 but ahead of him include Mike Cameron, JD Drew, Brett Butler (and, admittedly, Kirby Puckett), while right behind him are Darryl Strawberry, Andy Van Slyke, Devon White and Steve Finley. Dale Murphy is not a HOFer.

That's fine if you give a toss about career compiled numbers, which I do not.

re: comment 14-
Agreed, Kawakami does pretty well. I made similar comments regarding the Bloom vote, that it ain't great but he does something right! So kudos to Tim K. for voting for Larkin, Trammell, Bagwell, and Raines.

Larry Walker is more deserving of the HoF than Raines.

I disagree, but if I had to pick a 5th guy to vote for on the ballot, I could be convinced to go for Walker.

In terms of 1980s ballplayers, by the way, we're down to about four guys with any chance of getting in - Trammell, Raines, Smith, and Morris...

How in the world did Kawakami get to vote? He writes some of the most pointless articles, works for a paper in a city that has no MLB team ( yet, anyhow ), and has the journalistic style ( to paraphrase Bill James ) "of a comatose eggplant".
Dale Murphy: His value was over-stated in the past, even by James. MVP's are so idiosyncratic that to use it as a barometer of "greatness" is an exercise in futility. He was a nice player, but Mike Schmidt or Rickey should have been recognized as the best of that generation ( and I am not a Schmidt fan ).
And, any one who votes for Morris should be given a season pass ( and forced to attend each and every game ) to the Oakland AAA's ( or maybe AA's ) this coming season.

you need 10 consecutive years of membership in a BBWAA chapter to get an annual vote....

With regard to Murphy and WAR, total zone's defensive numbers disagree very strongly with the consensus at the time. During the seasons in which Murphy won back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back Gold Gloves, TZ rates him as 43 runs below average in CF, an average of -9 per season.

If Murphy was actually a good CF in that period - say a total of +30, he'd have about 50 WAR for his prime. He wouldn't be the best player in baseball from 1980 to 1987, but a solid bronze medal performance behind the greatest 3B of all time and the third-greatest LF of all time is a perfectly respectable HoF peak.

It's possible that the GG voters were just picking the guy with the most ribbies, but it's also possible that our defensive metrics are very rough. I tend to prefer a mix of contemporary opinion and metrics, and Dale Murphy with just above average CF defense during his peak is a solid lower-tier Hall of Famer.

Does anyone else have a problem with reporters citing awards that are voted on by reporters as a reason for other reporters to vote someone into the HOF?

And this one is just flat untrue--Schmidt outhomered him 313 to 308.

These aren't difficult things to doublecheck.

He may have been defining the 80s as 1981-1990. Murphy did lead that span with 299, by a lot more than I would have guessed, ahead of Eddie Murray (268) and Schmidt (265), who didn't play most of the last two years. Murray led Murphy in RBIs in both the 80-89 and 81-90 decades though.

Eddie Murray had a lot more RBIs than Dale Murphy each year from 1977-1979 and 1991 through the end of Murphy's career in 1993 (and beyond) so the "Most RBIs, too." part doesn't work for any decade-long timeframe, unless he meant NL-only.

He may have been defining the 80s as 1981-1990.

That would be flat out stupid if he did. People who try to make this argument because of the technicality that there was no year zero or whatever come across as sounding really foolish. It's irrelevant. The "80's" is just a nickname referring to all the years that end in "80." 1980 does. 1990 doesn't. There isn't any rational argument otherwise.

1981-1990 is a decade, but only in the same sense that 1987-1996 is.

That would be flat out stupid if he did. People who try to make this argument because of the technicality that there was no year zero or whatever come across as sounding really foolish.

I know. If he'd called it "The 199th Decade" it would have been more accurate, but it still wouldn't be a particularly good argument for Murphy in the Hall. By the way, the only definition for "The 80s" for which Murphy had more RBIs than Murray is "1967-1976."

I figure they helped lengthen McGwire's career.

1986-1991 - 135OPS+
1992-2001 - 181OPS+

Interesting statistical cherry pick.

In 1987 as a rookie McGwire hit 49 HR in only 150 games with a 164 OPS+. Canseco's book can be read that Big Mac didn't use steroids until Jose taught him after this season. And by build, he sure didn't look like he was using steroids that year. So according to Jose, McGwire had 5 straight years of declining OPS+ and overall value once he started on steroids.

And then in 1991 was Mark's famous broken marriage year, where LaRussa sat him at the end of the season to save him the shame of hitting below .200. In interviews he admitted that he never lifted a single weight that entire year. After that awful season he rededicated himself to working out and suddenly his results returned.

It's extremely ironic if Big Mac used steroids to finish his career with a 163 OPS+ after starting off clean at a 164 OPS+. It's also ironic how easily you can spin these statistics to argue that steroids actually HURT Big Mac's performance, which is of course why we can never know how much they helped.

Off topic, I suppose, but this and a couple of concurrent threads have reminded me of the power of time over the human body. McGwire had a great, great year in 1998, his remarkable 70 HR season. Two years later he could only stay in the lineup half the time, and two years after that he was out of baseball. Juan Gonzalez had one of his best years ever at age 31, was never better than average after that, and three years after that terrific season Gonzalez was was out of baseball.

This kind of thing is true for so many players but for some reason it can still surprise me. Anyone else find that to be true for them, surprise at how quickly it can all be over, even for the greats?

Anyone else find that to be true for them, surprise at how quickly it can all be over, even for the greats?

I wouldn't exactly consider Juan Gone one of the greats, but yeah, I know exactly what you mean. After the 2001 season, Gonzalez was still just shy of 32 and already had nearly 400 homers. Coming off a season where he hit .325 with 35 homers and 140 rbi's, 500 homers was a forgone conclusion - he seemed like an almost sure bet to top 600 and 2000 rbi's. Overrated or not (and before the steroid allegations), he sure looked like a future HOFer. But he never had a healthy season again and only hit 37 more homers the rest of his career. Now he'll be luckly if he even stays on the ballot for a third try.

Albert Belle was another that was sailing along so fast one minute and then just disappeared and retired the next. Damn arthritic hip...

Anyone else find that to be true for them, surprise at how quickly it can all be over, even for the greats?

Sure, although I suppose I'm starting to get used to it. I don't think any of us are any good at telling which players are about to lose it and which aren't, so you see a guy who's been solid for the last 10 years, solid the last three years, you figure he's good to go for another 1-2 years at least. Boom.

Works the other way lots too. Lots of folks around here wrote off Giambi, Delgado and Ortiz during various struggles. So, as often as not, I wonder how many of these cliff dives were just terrible luck compounded with the high standards of a formerly great player. DiMaggio had OPS+s of 163, 179, 151, 115 then retired. Now 115 is still pretty good (and he was still playing CF) and it maybe was just a fluke bad year. His BA was 263 which was awful by his standards. But for all we know he'd have put up a 130 the next year. Regardless, in that last year, DiMaggio was still a valuable player (2.7 WAR in under 500 PA) but he didn't feel like he was DIMAGGIO anymore and so off he walked.

In his last season, Greenberg put up a 131 OPS+ with 510 PA and led the league in walks. But I guess if you're used to hitting over 300 and leading the league in HR and RBI that doesn't quite measure up.

We don't see that sort of thing too much anymore (although Mac's last season wasn't as horrible as I suspect he thought it was). Will Clark went out on a tremendous high and I can only assume he wanted it to end that way. Larry Walker had trouble staying healthy but a 130 OPS+ and 2.9 WAR in 367 PA suggests he wasn't quite done yet. (He's another excellent "Garvey comp" by the way :-). I suppose that even when the motherboard starts to fry that Rivera will still be putting up a 140 ERA+.

And who can blame them? Other than the $56 M, I'm sure Adam Dunn wishes he had walked away from the game after 2010.

It's possible that the GG voters were just picking the guy with the most ribbies, but it's also possible that our defensive metrics are very rough. I tend to prefer a mix of contemporary opinion and metrics, and Dale Murphy with just above average CF defense during his peak is a solid lower-tier Hall of Famer.

This really stuck with me, and I wanted to come back to this when I had time. The usefulness of modern PBP fielding metrics is still disputed, and TotalZone during Murphy's career is even more primitive (just an adjusted range factor). This is a guy with speed and a good arm who is evaluated as being 20 runs below average in center field at the same time that's he's winning bunches of Gold Glove awards. If that evaluation is wrong, it substantially changes the height of his peak.

Just to make up some numbers, assume he was in fact a legit GG CF in 1980 (say +12 runs). Also assume he had what would be recognized as a more 'normal' fielding decline (say a progression of +11, +12, +7, +9, +6, +6, +2, 0, factoring in his actual positional adjustments from '80-'87, per BBREF).

His WAR would then go something like this:
7.0
3.2 (adjusting 1981 for schedule)
7.2
8.2
6.8
8.3
3.3
7.2

While he still would have nothing outside that 8 year span, that's a peak I could conceive of getting somebody into the Hall.

Also, what's with BBREF's calculation for 1986? A 121 OPS+ in full time play only translates to 10 batting runs above average? Out of curiosity I looked at DanR's numbers and he credits Murphy with more than twice as many batting runs that year.