Was there anything better than watching Bernie chase after an uncatchable ball…with his glove outstretched?
Another way to assess Williams candidacy is to determine how many center fielders in the history of the game had clearly better careers. The list is shorter than one might initially think. Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Duke Snider, Mickey Mantle, Ken Griffey Jr., and Jim Edmonds are on the list, but after that it is hard to find a better all around center fielder. Many other players were better with the glove, a few like Dale Murphy were better power hitters and some good leadoff men, like Richie Ashburn played center field, but it is not obvious that any put together better careers than Williams.
...In addition to Murphy, Kirby Puckett, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2001, is viewed by many as a better player than Williams, but the evidence suggests Williams was better. Puckett was a better defender and a comparable hitter, but the illness that cut Puckett’s career short, also meant that Puckett had no real decline phase to his career. Through his first 12 years when he was between 24 and 35 years old, Puckett hit .318.360/.477, but between ages 24-35 Williams was slightly better at .305/.398/.498. Puckett’s career OPS+ of 124 is almost the same as Williams 125, but from ages 24-35, Williams posted a 131 OPS+. Williams also has a slightly higher WAR than Puckett by a margin of 47.3 to 44.8. Murphy at 44.2 is essentially the same as Puckett
Puckett’s membership in the Hall of Fame is not in of itself a sufficient argument for Williams, but it helps. Moreover current Hall of Fame center fielders include several players: Ashburn, Max Carey, Lloyd Waner and Earle Combs who were inferior to Williams. Williams probably will do poorly on the ballot as is somehow fitting for a player who batted cleanup and played center field for the New York Yankees while winning four World Championships and still managing to be often overlooked and underrated. Nonetheless, if I were voting, he would be the only new player on the ballot to get my vote.
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1. The Yankee Clapper Posted: December 06, 2011 at 07:14 PM (#4008264)The case for Bernie might be a bit stronger than I thought.
Those left and right fielders must have gotten exhausted.
The Negro leagues didn't have a set schedule, didn't play the same level of competition day in day out, doesn't have an easily accessible database to get the numbers that is needed to make a fair assessment of the Negro league players. It's perfectly legit to exclude them from the conversation, in which the discussion and bullet points are all about the numbers.
edit: Billy Hamilton for the clearly better list.
It's not at all legit to exclude them from the conversation entirely.
At least offer a short list of those with the best reputations, give a rough sense of where they are seen to stand, and explain that the charts necessarily exclude them because of the way they were designed.
That's not political correctness, it's just common sense.
I also think his post-season numbers deserve consideration. While he was not great he was very good and more importantly he played a lot, almost a full season's worth of post-season games. I think one of the reason that post-season numbers have historically not been a big part of consideration for the Hall is that players did not play enough for the numbers to be impactful. Prior to the Wild Card era no player played even half a season's worth of games so the numbers wouldn't be particularly meaningful. I think in the case of a guy like Williams the extra 545 plate appearances add some bulk to a borderline career case.
Frankly, I still wouldn't vote for him but I think he's an interesting guy to watch how he plays out. I think he is going to do better than most here seem to think. I think he's on the plus side of 20% on the first ballot.
Agreed in general but the piece on the whole is relatively short. It is not an exhaustive study of every centerfielder ever discussed as a Hall of Famer/non-Hall of Famer but more of an anecdotal piece. To the extent there is anything concrete it is based on the numbers and adding in the NL players does not add anything to that aspect of the discussion. There is almost no way to analyze Bernie Williams relative to the Negro Leaguers so they are in effect not relevant to the discussion.
Agreed.
Agreed if I was writing the article, but this guy might have been coming from a different viewpoint in which he wanted to show based upon numbers that we can semi-trust, where Bernie Williams ranks. Part of the unmentioned point is how few centerfielders of any great caliber are in the hof. That you have this truly elite group of guys, and then you have a bunching up of the second tier and even the third tier does well in comparison to the standards set by the hof for centerfielders.
The reason post season numbers aren't considered is not because of the size of the numbers, it's because of the difference in the size of the numbers from one team to another. Basically a Yankee owns every single post season record that is a result of chances. Bagwell is a much better player than Tino but couldn't add anything to his resume by his post season performance. I don't see how Bernie adds any more because of his post season performances, over the long stretch of post season play, he played pretty close to his career norms. I guess it could be argued he had roughly another season of 125 ops+ play for those slighting his peak. I don't think it moves the needle though.
But all players play different number of games. I'm not suggesting "rewarding" players who play frequently in the post-season but I think the numbers should be considered as they are part of his record and accomplishment.
Just to use the examples you gave Jeff Bagwell played 2,183 games in his career, Tino Martinez played 2,122. That Tino played 99 of them in October and Bags just 33 should not invalidate those games. Of course those games are not going to change the fact that Jeff Bagwell was the superior player and deserves to be in but I think the games are worthy of consideration. It seems foolish to me to just pretend those games did not happen.
EDIT: Your last two sentences are important I think. I completely agree that they don't really move the needle but I think we can all think of guys who probably came up a season or two short of the Hall. As we move forward and the post-season changes structure I think those games do deserve inclusion in the discussion.
Griffey 79 WAR
Edmonds 68 WAR
Bernie 47 WAR
That's a mighty big "cut".
He also bypassed Lofton at 65 WAR. That said, Bernie is at 59 oWAR, surprisingly (to me) the same as Edmonds* and 5 ahead of Lofton. While I am confident that both pull ahead of Williams once we account for defense, Bernie's WAR-based HoF case is heavily affected by his defensive ranking.** He's a more viable candidate than I realized.
*Bernie does have 1100 more PA but it's not like Bernie's last 1100 PA added much to his resume. From ages 24-33, Bernie had 52 oWAR; from ages 25-34, Edmonds had 49.
**FWIW, fangraphs has him as even worse defensively than Chone.
...on a side note Johnny Damon has a 51.7 WAR. (not all at CF of course). Mike Cameron has 46.8.
I wouldn't have a problem with adding it into their career totals personally. Outside of a few special examples, I don't think it should be given any added weight. Jack Morris, Lou Brock, Carlos Beltran....I can see giving their post season performances some added weight, but beyond the exceptional, I don't think just having the post season record for hits/homeruns is a legitimate accomplishment to be adding to a players resume/narrative.
A small correction - Williams only played 1,857 games in CF, the rest came in RF or LF.
The above gives Bernie a lot of credit for playing CF for his whole career, even though by most accounts he should have been moved earlier. Interestingly, however, if you look at guys who played >50% of their games in CF and had over 1,700 games played, the list gets longer and bumps Bernie down to #13. The new additions to the list include Dimaggio, Snider who were clearly better than Bernie, Jimmy Wynn who was arguably better although I doubt the voters see him that way, and Fred Lynn and Ellis Burks, who were worse.
doing a pi using 1600 games as a criteria
1 Ty Cobb 159.4
2 Willie Mays 154.7
3 Tris Speaker 133.0
4 Mickey Mantle 120.2
5 Joe DiMaggio 83.6
6 Ken Griffey 78.5
7 Jim Edmonds 67.9
8 Kenny Lofton 65.3
9 Andruw Jones 60.4
10 Richie Ashburn 58.0
11 Willie Davis 57.2
12 Max Carey 50.6
13 Vada Pinson 49.3
14 Bernie Williams 47.3
15 Mike Cameron 46.8
16 Edd Roush 46.5
17 Brett Butler 46.5
18 Devon White 41.3
19 Steve Finley 40.5
20 Amos Otis 40.4
going to 1700 games removes Dimaggio, Vada Pinson, and Max Carey from the list
choosing the arbitrary of 1847 you get
Rk Player WAR/pos
1 Ty Cobb 159.4
2 Willie Mays 154.7
3 Tris Speaker 133.0
4 Ken Griffey 78.5
5 Kenny Lofton 65.3
6 Richie Ashburn 58.0
7 Willie Davis 57.2
8 Bernie Williams 47.3
9 Brett Butler 46.5
10 Steve Finley 40.5
This. I think he's going to do well in the balloting.
List of centerfielders who have posted more than 6.5 war in a season and times they have done it(Ellsbury had 6.8 last season)
1 Willie Mays 14
2 Tris Speaker 11
3 Ty Cobb 10
4 Mickey Mantle 9
5 Joe DiMaggio 6
6 Andruw Jones 5
7 Jim Edmonds 5
8 Ken Griffey 5
9 Andre Dawson 4
10 Duke Snider 4
11 Carlos Beltran 3
12 Jim Wynn 3
13 Kenny Lofton 2
14 Lenny Dykstra 2
15 Kirby Puckett 2
16 Dale Murphy 2
17 Fred Lynn 2
18 Cesar Cedeno 2
19 Bobby Murcer 2
20 Vada Pinson 2
21 Hack Wilson 2
22 Billy Hamilton 2
I think it's pretty obvious if Ellsbury does it 5 more seasons, he's better than Bernie, heck he surpasses Edmonds or Andruw Jones as a candidate, and is only a fleshed out career behind Griffey.
1 Ty Cobb 159.4
2 Willie Mays 154.7
3 Tris Speaker 133
4 Mickey Mantle 120.2
5 Joe DiMaggio 83.6
6 Ken Griffey 78.5
7 Robin Yount 76.9
8 Billy Hamilton 69.6
9 Jim Edmonds 67.9
10 Duke Snider 67.5
11 Kenny Lofton 65.3
12 Reggie Smith 63.4
13 Carlos Beltran 61
14 Andruw Jones 60.4
15 Jim Wynn 59.8
16 Richie Ashburn 58
17 Willie Davis 57.2
18 Cesar Cedeno 52.2
19 Johnny Damon 51.9
20 Tommy Leach 50.9
21 Max Carey 50.6
22 Chet Lemon 49.9
23 Vada Pinson 49.3
24 Ellis Burks 47.9
25 Fielder Jones 47.8
26 Larry Doby 47.4
27 Bernie Williams 47.3
Bernie is 18th if you exclude defense
Bernie obviously played more CF than some of these guys- but then again Bernie had no business playing CF his last several hundred games there, and a guy like Yount could have played his entire career there with no problem.
Look I can easily think of reasons (many reasonably valid) to move Bernie ahead of some of these guys, but there is no way he's cracking the top ten so to speak.
But the real problem is this- Chet Lemon was criminally underrated while playing- he's not and never will be in the HOF- and he shouldn't be either- there is no noticeable daylight between him and Bernie (in either direction)
Reggie Smith- sure he played 50/50 CF/RF- If they'd stuck him in CF for as long as he was no worse than Bernie out there- well he'd blow Bernie out of the water- Reggie (2) isn't sniffing Cooperstown
Lofton- Raines is seemingly getting stiffed- what do you think is going to hapopen to Lofton?
Bernie was a damn fine ballplayer, just not a HOFer
You don't think that great fielding CF's who were also pretty good hitters in a long career deserve consideration?
Not to nitpick (too much), but Yogi Berra played in 75 World Series games with 295 plate appearances.
Really? His OPS+ (111) isn't spectacular (and probably overrates him, as it's SLG-heavy), but 420 HRs (so far) and ten gold gloves don't merit consideration? The stats seem to back up his sterling defensive reputation. He's not a slam-dunk, but he's a viable candidate, even if he were hit by a bus this afternoon.
I think it's pretty obvious that if randomly pick ANY player and say if X has six year with more than 6.5 WAR- it then logically follows that X is a HOF candidate
Here's everyone who has done that 1961-2011:
Barry Bonds 14
Mike Schmidt 10
Hank Aaron 9
Albert Pujols 9
Willie Mays 8
Alex Rodriguez 8
Rickey Henderson 7
Wade Boggs 6
Roberto Clemente 6
The defensive numbers have been called into question. They may well be inflated by positioning that led to Jones catching chances other fielders would have gotten to easily. I believe it was Chris Dial who did the analysis on this.
BRef WAR shows Jones averaging +24 runs on defense per year over his 10 year peak. Quite frankly, I don't believe it.
For comparison, it has Willie Mays as "only" +13 over his best 10-year fielding period. Jones was 11 runs a year better than Willie in CF? I call BS.
If Jones was "only" as good a CF as Willie Mays, he lose 11 WAR, and his career total falls to 49.4 from 60.4.
If he wasn't as good as Willie, he's not even close to a HoF.
Hitting your career norms in the playoffs is pretty impressive since you're playing the best teams using their best pitchers for almost all of the games. In the regular season, half the games (more or less) are against second division teams, and opposing teams will pitch their 4th and 5th starters (or worse) more than 40% of the games. Not so in postseason.
The way Jones has taken care of himself, I hope the bus isn't hurt too badly.
Bernie will make it eventually, as long as Mel Hall does not control the vote.
Mel Hall's tiebreaking vote gave Roman Polanski the Best Director Oscar.
75 is less than half of 154 (not by much!) but yeah, in reality that probably qualifies as over half.
Andruw Jones deserves serious consideration. His defense was mythic, then he fleshed it with impressive offense(even if it's not as good as it appeared due to low obp) but a centerfielder playing elite level defense, who never misses a game(158 game average from 1998-2006) and averages an ops+ of 118 over a 8 year period is a great start to a hof career. He just never added to it.
He should never be in the conversation with Mays or Cobb or whatever, but he's not that far off from Griffey or Edmonds when you include the durability factor. If he could have had a couple of more seasons at 125 ops+ he's probably a mortal lock. As it stands he's in Dale Murphy range right now.
That's damning stuff, right there.
Someone wrote a smart, pithy post in the Kaat thread, that someone's career is going to be clearly just under the HOF line, and Kaat's, for a pitcher, is it. I'd say the same for Bernie for a CFer. Not quite enough peak, not quite a long enough actual peak, not quite enough of a respectable decline phase. Not enough defense to overcome any of the preceeding. He clearly--to me--just misses in every aspect.
Ken Griffey
Jim Edmonds
Andruw Jones
Carlos Beltran
Kenny Lofton
Ellis Burks
Bernie Williams
Mike Cameron
Johnny Damon
Devon White
Ray Lankford
Grady Sizemore
Steve Finely
Eric Davis
Curtis Granderson
Chili Davis
Brady Anderson
Lance Johnson
Darin Erstad
Torii Hunter
The next 26 are behind the paywall. Though I will treat you all to a freebie...Doug Glanville is #42
I'm all sabermetrically inclined, strongly in fact, but I haven't really payed close attention to the cutting edge stuff since, I guess, the mid 1990s. So, for example, when I hear about WAR and so forth, I have a vague "that sounds cool" reaction, but I don't really look at it too closely. It sounds neat, and I have some vague level of trust in it based simply on the fact that other statheads who (presumably) have been paying more attention than I have for the past decade or so seem to believe in it, but I just don't have enough interest anymore to investigate it for myself.
However, one thing that I gather (about WAR in particular) is that it can give a great deal of weight to a position player's defense. Now, that's cool and all, if it's real, but back when I was actually paying attention to this stuff, accurate defensive valuations were essentially the Holy Grail of the stathead world, where everybody was looking for it, everybody was hoping for it, and everybody kind of doubted that it actually existed.
But today, statheads throw around WAR numbers and seemingly give as much confidence to its defensive portion as they do to its offensive portion. So, my question is, are people really convinced that the defensive portion is accurate, to nearly the degree that the offensive portion is? Or is it just that the level of stathead comfort with well-maybe-it's-not-great-but-it's-the-best-we've-got defensive stats just increased since I last payed close attention?
The reason I'm asking in this thread, obviously, is because particularly in a case like Bernie's, if WAR's defensive component is not accurate, that could be playing total havoc with some of the claims being made about his total value relative to other center fielders.
I understand he was a bad fielder late in his career, and probably was an overrated one earlier, but that in and of itself doesn't mean that the exact level of severity with which WAR treats his defense can necessarily be taken as gospel. And if it can't, then his HOF worthiness might seem significantly better than it does if you treat it that way, even if you agree that he wasn't a good fielder.
You're assuming a constant league defensive baseline across eras, and I'm not at all convinced that's true.
Particularly since so much of Mays's career took place in the offensive context of the '60s, when there weren't as many runs to save.
Jones had a longer career, but Erstad was better when he played CF.
And if they don't, doesn't that make WAR a whole lot less usable?
I have the same qualms.
Many players have similar defensive reputations to their "modern fielding metrics," so I'm comfortable bumping them up or down accordingly. But I don't buy that the defensive analytics can match what we know about batting.
Only if they're being used for things that you maybe shouldn't be using them for.
Roles of positions change with time. Think about how 3B used to be for your second-best infield glove and 2B was where you hid a bat with shaky leather. How can you intelligently compare a 2B from the '20s to one from today?
However, one thing that I gather (about WAR in particular) is that it can give a great deal of weight to a position player's defense. Now, that's cool and all, if it's real, but back when I was actually paying attention to this stuff, accurate defensive valuations were essentially the Holy Grail of the stathead world, where everybody was looking for it, everybody was hoping for it, and everybody kind of doubted that it actually existed.
But today, statheads throw around WAR numbers and seemingly give as much confidence to its defensive portion as they do to its offensive portion. So, my question is, are people really convinced that the defensive portion is accurate, to nearly the degree that the offensive portion is? Or is it just that the level of stathead comfort with well-maybe-it's-not-great-but-it's-the-best-we've-got defensive stats just increased since I last payed close attention?
Well said, as I've wondered the exact same thing. I like WAR, but as I've said in other threads, it's just another useful number to HELP evaluate performance, not a definitive stat that renders all others meaningless. Now, everyone here will tell you that they never said it was, but often its the ONLY stat anyone brings up anymore. HOF debates have always been my favorite threads on this site, but lately they're getting a bit boring because they're nothing more than lists of WAR that someone posts. I think it's kinda lazy, actually.
But anyway, all that would be fine and good, except that pretty much everyone admits the defensive side of WAR is a bit questionable, enough so that they're quick to discredit it whenever the numbers don't seem to pass the smell test (like with Jones). How can WAR be so dependable and so easy to shrug off at the same time?
1. What we're comparing is alot different than that - we're comparing CFs from eras they were used similarly.
2. What you're saying would show up in the position adjustment part of WAR (and it looks like it is a little different for CFs in the '60s and '00s, by about 3 runs, though that could be because of the hitting ability of those particular populations of CFs); however, I'm talking about the "runs above average" part. A CF from the 60's is likely to look alot different than a CF today by the metrics we use simply from fewer opportunities, which won't be reflected anywhere in WAR. In other words, if Willie Mays is picking his butt or can't make an out for 24 outs a game, makes routine plays on 2 and a great play on 1 while Andruw Jones' numbers look like 21/4/2, Jones will "save" more runs (and have a higher WAR) on an absolute basis but is likely as good of a fielder.
We're not talking about 10 runs better than any active CF, we're talking 10 runs per season better than Willie Freakin' Mays. Consensus greatest CF of all time.
You're assuming a constant league defensive baseline across eras, and I'm not at all convinced that's true.
Particularly since so much of Mays's career took place in the offensive context of the '60s, when there weren't as many runs to save.
For Mays' defensive peak ('57-'66) the NL averaged 4.23 R/G, for Jones' peak ('97-'06) it was 4.68 R/G. A 10% difference in offense isn't going to move the needle that much.
Not really, we are talking about 10 runs better than average than willie mays was relative above average.(assuming I'm reading this right) We are most definately not talking about 10 runs above Willie Mays.
As Cowboy Popup (I think) has argued, the certainty of the stats exist on the pbp stats, but that regression to the mean has hurt players prior to 1996(or whenever it was).
We are pretty confident about Andruw Jones's performance relative to his peers, we are less so when it comes to Willie Mays, who also played during a golden era of centerfielders, it's very likely the average centerfielder was defensively better than the average centerfielder in today's age. We are talking about an era that employed Mays, Mantle, and Snider at the same time, wasn't far removed from Dimaggio's and has Ashburn playing. The average was a lot better than the average today or in Jones's day.
So what? The defensive metrics are an unbiased, systematic evaluation -- that's the whole point of sabermetrics. There are significant error bars on the defensive metrics, but that doesn't mean we get to just adjust them away when they don't fit preconceptions.
If we can ignore the defensive metrics, fine. Then Bernie is a gold glover and get points for defense; add in the ringzz, and he's a fine candidate. We're back to the looking at the gold glove voting for defense.
I'm an acknowledged big hall guy, so I'd vote for him - but he'd probably be at the bottom of my list and given the next couple ballots, likely to drop off next year.
Mays, 2.68 RF/9 to lg avg of 2.55
Jones, 2.76 RF/9 to lg avg of 2.58
Using this crude estimate, that is .05 catches per game or 8 catches per season to Jones advantage. I'm not certain, but I'm guessing that the Maddux, Glavine, Smoltz Braves allowed fewer fly ball outs than normal over that time period as well. Also the Polo Grounds allowed next to no home runs to CF which certainly bumped up Mays' PO total. Factoring those in we may get pretty close to ten runs a season.
I'm certain the error bars are significant around the fielding numbers on B-R, but they are very sophisticated and all of the obvious causes for bias have been factored in. Rally's work is really tight, IMO.
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