Surely, Bill James could take, say, the two most underappreciated players of my youth—Dave Parker and Jim Rice

Exactly how "underappreciated" were seven-time All-Star Dave Parker and eight-time All-Star Jim Rice? By the sound of that, they were roundly appreciated. Perhaps <u>over</u>-appreciated.

All the players of my youth--under as well as over-appreciated--should be in the HoF, if only to honor me and my youth.

I wonder how much would be accomplished by just normalizing all stats, and publishing a nomarlized handbook, of course that assumes everyone did steroids in the steroid era which probably isn't too far from the truth, though they all had access to it.

I know BP does this but when people saw that Bonds had 850 HR's they would be a bit put off by the method... then again with Rice getting the bump to 500 and Ruth to over 1,000 maybe the wouldn't mind so much.

My test to see if this writer belongs in the Hall of Fame:

1. Was he great?
2. Was he great for more than one column?

Somebody fax me the two best columns this guy ever wrote to see if he passes. I sure hope this one ain't one of them. Yes, he has a point, but we don't even want to begin showing how many (maybe 400?) players had 2 or 3 seasons as good as Dave Parker. Let's NOT put all ballplayers with a couple fantatstic seasons in the Hall.

I don't know that I'd vote for him, but Parker isn't the worst candidate in the world. His trophy case is pretty good: 7-time All Star, 1 MVP (3.19 MVP shares, 27th all time), 3 Gold Gloves, and 2 World Series rings. Corner OFs are over-represented, but he wouldn't stand out as particularly unqualified (2,700 hits, dead even with HOF averages on black and gray ink, 41.1% of standards).

I do think it's pretty amusing to see someone argue that Parker should be in the Hall because other people were using drugs.

Somebody fax me the two best columns this guy ever wrote to see if he passes. I sure hope this one ain't one of them. Yes, he has a point, but we don't even want to begin showing how many (maybe 400?) players had 2 or 3 seasons as good as Dave Parker. Let's NOT put all ballplayers with a couple fantatstic seasons in the Hall.

Actually, I don't think its high as you might guess. The 70's and 80's were an unusual time in baseball history, in that the players who had a case for being the best in the game at any one point are generally not considered all time greats. Dave Parker might have been the best player in the game, for a short period of time. In most eras, the guys who would have a reasonable claim to being the best player in the game would be someone like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, etc. There wasn't anyone of that caliber playing in the late 70's, with the possible exception of Schmidt, who wasn't having his best years yet.

I'm not arguing that Dave Parker should be in the Hall of Fame, by the way.

Parker was excellent at dodging the batteries fans threw at him towards the end of his Pirate career, so that should count for something.

The 70's and 80's were an unusual time in baseball history, in that the players who had a case for being the best in the game at any one point are generally not considered all time greats.

Some did, some didn't, which is probably true of all eras. Guys you might be forgetting include Pete Rose, Ryne Sandberg, Steve Carlton, George Brett, Wade Boggs, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Rod Carew, Dave Winfield, Reggie Jackson. Maybe some more that I'm to tired to think of right now.

I think Parker has a case for being in the Hall. He was arguably the best at his position in his league during his peak years of 1975-80 (although Dave Winfield can put up a contrary argument in the second half of that period), on top of which he's probably Top 20 all-time. I'm less certain that he doesn't belong than I am about Bert Blylevyn.

I'd count character issues against him, though.

I do think it's pretty amusing to see someone argue that Parker should be in the Hall because other people were using drugs.

It sure is, though even here on BTF I haven't seen anyone argue that cocaine actually improved Parker's career stats. And in fact it's not that much of a stretch to project that it was cocaine's effects that kept Parker's numbers below HOF levels.

And if Parker had substituted modern steroid training methods a la Bonds for cocaine, it's no stretch at all to imagine that his numbers might have been eminently HOF-worthy. I'm sure glad that he didn't.

Some did, some didn't, which is probably true of all eras. Guys you might be forgetting include Pete Rose, Ryne Sandberg, Steve Carlton, George Brett, Wade Boggs, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Rod Carew, Dave Winfield, Reggie Jackson. Maybe some more that I'm to tired to think of right now.

If you take the 50s and 60s, you get Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Frank Robinson, Al Kaline, Ernie Banks, Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax, etc. The list from the 50's and 60's looks more impressive. Same with any other period I can think of.

Second, if you look at any one period of time during the seventies and eighties, the list above gets much shorter. In the late 70's, for example, Sandberg and Boggs weren't playing yet, Rose, Bench, and Morgan were on the downside of their careers, Winfield wasn't that good yet, Carlton was hit or miss, and so on. the point is, the number of all time greats playing in their primes was historically small.

I guess you could argue that pitchers were an exception - you did have Seaver, Palmer, Carlton, Ryan and a host of other 300 game winners all pitching near the peak of their careers. But for position players, there's a real shortage. Brett, Schmidt, maybe Rod Carew. Not a lot more.

It sure is, though even here on BTF I haven't seen anyone argue that cocaine actually improved Parker's career stats. And in fact it's not that much of a stretch to project that it was cocaine's effects that kept Parker's numbers below HOF levels.

just for kicks I once replaced Parker's 1980-84 seasons with Brock2 generated seasons
the result was .297-404-1663, 3025 hits .493 slugging, .352 OBP (OPS+ of approx: 130)
versus his real career stats of .290-339-1493 (339/471) (OPS+ of 121)-

Yep that would put him in the hall-

but other players have had U shaped careers without drugs- who's to say he wouldn't have followed that career path any way?

Some did, some didn't, which is probably true of all eras. Guys you might be forgetting include Pete Rose, Ryne Sandberg, Steve Carlton, George Brett, Wade Boggs, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Rod Carew, Dave Winfield, Reggie Jackson.

You know, when I was growing up it was taken for granted that Johnny Bench was hands down the greatest catcher of all time (except for a few old cranks who held out for Bill Dickey). I nver saw anyone (in print anyway) say Yogi Berra was until James came along.


Any way, I'm sure most know that Sandberg's career home/road splits are pretty extreme (which makes Sandberg's recent criticism of certain players having their stats inflated by their home parks all the more absurd)- but Reggie's numbers are similarly extreme- running the other way- either Reggie got murdered by his home parks or for some psych reason he was just better on the road. But Reggie's career road numbers are better than no small number of HOFers who otherwise appear to have better #s- and Reggie played in a low offense era- Reggie has probably managed the neat trick of being incredibly prominant generally acknowleged as "clutch" and simultaneously underrated.

I don't think its that unusual for a player to be considered a star, and possibly even overrated while he was playing, and then be underrated after his career is over.

If you take the 50s and 60s, you get Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, Stan Musial, Frank Robinson, Al Kaline, Ernie Banks, Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax, etc. The list from the 50's and 60's looks more impressive. Same with any other period I can think of.

I suppose so. But I figgered the topic was "possible best player in baseball who is also an all-time great," so I'll stand by my list.

I have seen this "he didn't take steroids!" argument applied to Griffey Jr., Jim Rice, Dale Murphy, and now Parker. The fact that it applies to so many people, is in all probability going to make it an argument that doesn't end up advancing the candidacy of any particular person.

This article is bad in so, so many ways.

Parker on human growth hormone (as opposed to cocaine or one of the other popular substances of his day) would have mashed 50-plus home runs and killed five pitchers per year in the late 1970's.

And leaped tall buildings in a single bound, and saved all the children from hunger, and traveled through time to beat Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston at the same time in 1964!

If there is any good to come from this age of chemical enhancement, it's that Hall-of-Fame voters won't be able to rely so myopically on stats. They'll have to use their eyes and brains, instead, because the numbers don't mean anything anymore.

Because people who use stats never use their eyes and brains! Lots of RBIs rule! Park factors? Era adjustments? Me can't analyzy nuthin! Numbers just truth like Jesus!

1. Was he great, which is to say, utterly dominant?

2. Was he great for more than one year?

3. Would he have been great without chemical enhancement?

George Bell for the Hall of Fame!

Starkey must be almost exactly my age, because there certainly was a period when Jim Rice and Dave Parker were widely regarded as the best baseball players around. But that was a VERY brief period of time - really, pretty much 1978 when I was 10 years old and they both won an MVP award. Looking back, you really can't expand that period much at all before you run into the peaks of guys that were clearly better - Morgan and Carew going backwards; Schmidt, Brett, Murray, etc. going forward. Plus, of course, Parker fell off the cliff there in the early '80s.

And, as Dr. Memory says in #1, Dave Parker and Jim Rice were never "underappreciated" either then or now. They were both very good, but probably not quite great, baseball players who had very short peaks.

Forget Dave Parker, who at least has a case on a few levels. This guy wants to put J.R. Richard in the Hall....based on two seasons...in which he totalled only 36 wins.

I have seen this "he didn't take steroids!" argument applied to Griffey Jr., Jim Rice, Dale Murphy, and now Parker. The fact that it applies to so many people, is in all probability going to make it an argument that doesn't end up advancing the candidacy of any particular person.

And there's no reason that it should. Blackball the known steroid users, and treat the Griffeys and the Murphys the way you'd treat any other candidate. You shouldn't win any special points for staying clean.

And there's no reason that it should. Blackball the known steroid users, and treat the Griffeys and the Murphys the way you'd treat any other candidate. You shouldn't win any special points for staying clean.

"Hey, I didn't take steroids!"

"So you did what you were supposed to do? What, do you want a cookie?"

Since I have not taken performance-enhancing steroids, I would like to propose myself for the Hall of Fame.

but other players have had U shaped careers without drugs- who's to say he wouldn't have followed that career path any way?

Well, other players have had U shaped careers, but Parker's is the Yosemite Valley of U shaped careers. All others pale into insignificance in comparison with its stunning majesty.

And it wasn't just cocaine that screwed Parker up: the guy's weight just ballooned in the early 1980s. He was grotesquely fat and out of shape, and getting hurt all the time because of it.

In fact, I've always wondered just exactly how it was that Parker could have been doing much coke while simultaneously getting and staying obese. That's a Hall of Fame achievement right there.

"Hey, I didn't take steroids!"

"So you did what you were supposed to do? What, do you want a cookie?"

I take care of my kids, and I ain't never been to jail.

Its kind of a freak stat, but I took a glance at the list of the top five OPS+ finishers for every year since 1900, in each league. In many years, the top five in OPS+ is filled with all time greats. In some years, there are some all time greats or at least HOFers mixed with some guys who weren't that good.

In the American League, there were only three years in which none of the top five either made the HOF or are likely to in the future. Two were during the war years, and the other was 1978. In the National League, its only been done twice since 1920 - one of those two times was 1978. The National League has some years in the 1910's in which there were no all time greats. The only other year I could find in the NL was more recent than 1978, by several years. Anyone want to take a guess?

1989?

I guess it wasn't that tough.

Bonds made it easy. '90 was his first MVP year, and he never slipped, save '99, which McGwire's (assuming we call him a "likely" future HOFer) 65 homers and Jones's MVP cover. That cut the range down to '79 through '89, and Schmidt's prime covered virtually that entire period. So that left '87 to '89. Raines and Gwynn were big in '87, so I figured that was covered. It was down to two years, where the best hitters didn't make the Hall because they had coke problems or lacerated kidneys or ate themselves out of the league.

Bonds made it easy. '90 was his first MVP year, and he never slipped, save '99, which McGwire's (assuming we call him a "likely" future HOFer) 65 homers and Jones's MVP cover. That cut the range down to '79 through '89, and Schmidt's prime covered virtually that entire period. So that left '87 to '89.

That's doing it the hard way- I simply immediatley thought, "Kevin Mitchell"

OPS+ works because it's a really good stat, not as good as EQA or BaseRuns etc, but better tha traditional stats, no one is going to make the top 5 unless they were really really good (even if only for a short time) In short, OPS+ pretty much runs off the riff raff

You can have a bad player finish in the top 5 in BA, or Homers or Rbis, but not in OPS+
Even 1989's leader Kevin Mitchell could legitimately hit, but he couldn't do anything else and he got hurt a lot and didn't keep himself in shape, but he could rake.

In fact, I've always wondered just exactly how it was that Parker could have been doing much coke while simultaneously getting and staying obese. That's a Hall of Fame achievement right there.

I always assumed the overreating took place while he was trying to get clean...

That's doing it the hard way- I simply immediatley thought, "Kevin Mitchell"

Well, that whole paragraph didn't play out in my head. Eliminating the Bonds period wasn't even a conscious thought, like, "Hey, when did Bonds win his first MVP? '90? Okay, everything after that is out," it was more like a quick burst of images of Bonds (and Piazza, to a much lesser extent) ran through my head, and I reflexivey eliminated "the '90s," with complete disregard for whether there might've been some obvious event that didn't occur to me in that instant.

So I'd pinpointed '89 with the vague idea that I would work my way backward through the MVPs until I got to...I'm not sure. The point at which things stopped being "several years" more recent than 1978, I guess. The thought really hadn't even fully formed before I was thinking of Mitchell, Clark and Davis. None of them are going to the Hall of Fame, and no one else stood out, so I assumed that must be the answer. It probably happened about as quickly as thinking "Kevin Mitchell." I just felt compelled to examine and articulate it.

It probably goes without saying, but Parker should be tremendously proud of successfully kicking his drug habit. Sad stories like Gooden and Strawberry and Howe all show just how hard it is to overcome addiction.

Well, that whole paragraph didn't play out in my head. Eliminating the Bonds period wasn't even a conscious thought, like, "Hey, when did Bonds win his first MVP? '90? Okay, everything after that is out," it was more like a quick burst of images of Bonds (and Piazza, to a much lesser extent) ran through my head, and I reflexivey eliminated "the '90s," with complete disregard for whether there might've been some obvious event that didn't occur to me in that instant.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I always assumed the overreating took place while he was trying to get clean...

Well, whatever the deal was (and however much coke he actually snorted), he got fat in 1980-81, and stayed that way for several years.

It probably goes without saying, but Parker should be tremendously proud of successfully kicking his drug habit.

I agree. He deserves a lot of credit for this. He's not a baseball Hall-of-Famer but he certainly has done an admirable job of making a success of himself in life.

Exactly how "underappreciated" were seven-time All-Star Dave Parker and eight-time All-Star Jim Rice? By the sound of that, they were roundly appreciated. Perhaps over-appreciated.

Rice was a top 5 MVP 6 times, Parker 5. That's hardly underappreciated. By comparison:

Mike Piazza - 4
Wade Boggs - 1
Rickey Henderson - 4
George Brett - 4
Manny Ramirez - 3
Tony gwynn - 1
Mike Schmidt - 5
Ken Griffey Jr. - 5

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

I have no idea what this means.

Parker is a guy I always bring up whenever people are arguing for Jim Rice to be in the Hall. I don't think either of them really belong, but they are part of a pretty close group of good but not great outfielders from the late 70s - early 80s. Dwight Evans, Reggie Smith and Fred Lynn are also easily comparable.

just for kicks I once replaced Parker's 1980-84 seasons with Brock2 generated seasons
the result was .297-404-1663, 3025 hits .493 slugging, .352 OBP (OPS+ of approx: 130)
versus his real career stats of .290-339-1493 (339/471) (OPS+ of 121)-

Yep that would put him in the hall-

but other players have had U shaped careers without drugs- who's to say he wouldn't have followed that career path any way?

I just took a second look at Parker's stats and in retrospect what really stands out from the above post is the fact that his career OPS+ was 121. It really stands out because in the last 12 years of his career Parker had an OPS+ of at least 121 exactly once, in 1985 (an excellent 148). His next best 3 marks were 118, 117 and 116 - good, but hardly exceptional for a corner OFer. When you consider that in the five years from 75-79 his lowest OPS+ was 132 and he averaged well over 140 it seems pretty obvious that his career wasn't U shaped at all - he did almost all of his damage in a very well defined 5 year peak with a single season spike 6 years later in 1985. Now that I think of it, other than that spike in 1985 his career looks an awful lot like a somewhat more moderate version of Dale Murphy's - Parker's peak is a bit shorter and a bit less impressive, while his decline phase is more respectable (drug years and all) ... but both average out to roughly the same: an OPS+ of 121.

BTW, I was surprised by a few stats: I remember Parker of the cannon arm (26 assists in 1977!) - but at the time I didn't realize that he had such a high error rate - he made an error as often as he threw somebody out over his career. Also, I remember him as a fast big man who could steal bases pretty well, but in real life he had a horrible lifetime success rate of only 57% in over 250 attempts (fun fact of the day: Pete Rose had the same success rate in almost 350 attempts).