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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Friday, November 27, 2009
What I really don’t understand is how Rod Carew was actually appreciated when he played. Ichiro plays an exaggerated style of Carew ball, yet he is always criticized. Rod Carew was on the cover of Sports Illustrated numerous times, usually when he was threatening .400 (which happened a lot more than you might think.) On Time Magazine, there he was, laughing in his greatness, heralded as “Baseball’s Best Hitter.” Ted Williams was constantly pestered about him by the media who continually asked, “Is Rod the man to do it?” So Ichiro does hit a lot of singles. But so did Rod Carew. 79 percent of Carew’s hits were singles. Ichiro scores more runs, gets more hits, steals more bases, plays better defense, and has a higher slugging percentage than Carew, who was a first ballot HOFer. Some idiotic people on other blogs are like, “Is Ichiro going to make it to the HOF? I think he has to have at least 10 straight 200 hit seasons for him to be considered.” WWWHHHHHHAAAAAAATTTTTTT? 9 200 hit seasons isn’t enough? Carew had four. Gwynn had five. Where’s the justice?
However, I do appreciate Carew a lot. It is players like Carew, Boggs, Gwynn, and Ichiro who bring back the REAL art of baseball. The Hall of Fame is a place to honor historic players. The aforementioned players help remind everyone that the game does have a history and that what happened 100 years ago can still be effective today. Now if only people viewed Ichiro in this way….
Thanks to tina’s empty phone booth.
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Though in his defense he is only 18 years old.
Boggs had a 130 OPS+ career, led once, and had 5 batting titles and 6 OBP 1sts. Led 3 times in RC.
Gwynn 132 OPS+, 8 BAvg 1sts, once in OBP, led once in RC.
Yes, those three are quite similar. Ichiro- not so much.
That's no defense. I would have guessed 10-12 by the arguments used. A group of High School kids either won or came in very high in Tango's forecasting contest. Can't remember. I just know they beat me.
Superficially but the OBP titles tell the story. Boggs was a superior hitter (and player) to Gwynn and Carew.
Heh.
I had absolutely no clue that Mauer has lead the league in batting 3 times in the last four years.
I thought this was his second one, I didn't realize he won last year. In my defense .328 doesn't usually lead the league. And surprisingly Ichiro only has two titles.
Ichi's career OBP is 378, which is below average for HOF hitters.
Waste of energy to comment more. Being 18 is no excuse. Read, kid.
He's obviously placing way too much value on batting titles, hitting .300, getting 200 hits in a season--basically the main signifiers of Ichiro's hitting ability--which Joe hasn't been as good at as Ichiro has. Basically, he hates Mauer for getting credit as the best hitter in the AL, when he is in fact not Ichiro, and therefore overrated and inferior. Ichiro hits over .300 EVERY YEAR, and since that makes him the best hitter, Joe Mauer is, in fact, not the best hitter, and therefore stole Ichiro's MVP.
He likes Carew because in his time Carew was decidedly Ichiro-like. But if Rod Carew were playing today, he'd likely hate Carew as well, as Carew would be getting recognition for doing Ichiro-like things, but which Ichiro is better at.
1) Batting average was generally taken more seriously when Carew played than it is now.
2) Carew had a higher SLG relative to the league than Ichiro does.
3) Carew played a lot of 2B, whereas Ichiro is a corner OF.
4) Nobody serious thinks that the issue is that Ichiro has 9 200-hit seasons, not 10, or that the issue is "200-hit seasons" at all.
I agree with you. The easiest solution would be move the fences 25-40 feet further back. This would make big power hitters (Dunn, Howard, Reynolds, Pujols, Branyon, etc) more valuable; but at the same time more balls would be hit into play. Nearly every HR would be a jaw-dropper, and I believe the games would be more exciting.
Softening the ball slightly, and requiring thicker bat handles would also do it. There are some parks where it's not possible to move the fences back, and others where the loss of those seats would cost teams serious money. Moving the fences back would have another positive effect, where it's possible, though. It would increase the value of fast outfielders defensively, which would increase the chance that a Dave Roberts type player would be played regularly instead of spending most of his 20's in the minors.
(Apropos of nothing, if two blogs are having a war of words, are they at bloggerheads?)
And nobody but a handful of baseball birthers seriously thinks that there's any real issue of any kind with Ichiro's HoF candidacy that hasn't already been raised and answered.
Apropos of nothing, if two blogs are having a war of words, are they at bloggerheads?
I don't know but I hear them things live to be like 200 years old.
I'm more sorry that the computer viruses were eradicated.
Uh, I do. Unless you just mean that the issues have been raised and discussed; if that's what you mean, sure, I think all relevant issues have probably been brought up. If you mean that the issue of whether he's a legitimate MLB HOFer right now is largely settled in favor of, I hardly think that's the case.
Uh, I do. Unless you just mean that the issues have been raised and discussed; if that's what you mean, sure, I think all relevant issues have probably been brought up. If you mean that the issue of whether he's a legitimate MLB HOFer right now is largely settled in favor of, I hardly think that's the case.
But who, other than Ray and a handful of holdouts in places like this, is raising these "issues"? How many actual HoF voters have you seen who are saying that Ichiro isn't a HoFer, because of these "issues" that Ray has been harping on for the past 57 threads?
That's why I made the allusion to birthers: It's not that there aren't people like who keep raising "issues" about Ichiro's qualifications, just like there are people who "question" Obama's citizenship, it's just that unless you require unanimity to say that these "issues" have been resolved, to the overwhelming majority of the public, they've already been resolved in Ichiro's favor. Whether or not the baseball birthers are convinced is irrelevant.
I think you have a point here. I was looking at Hit Tracker Online today. Eyeballing their stats, it looked like Dunn is the major league leader with no doubt home runs over the past five years. He's also the only one to hit a 500 footer.
How many are saying that he is? He's only got 9 years in. I don't see much talk, except around here, about Ichiro for the HoF at all.
How many are saying that he is? He's only got 9 years in. I don't see much talk, except around here, about Ichiro for the HoF at all.
If you google "Ichiro" + "Hall of Fame" you get 136,000 hits. If you add "Baseball Think Factory" it drops to 3,180. That leaves a mere 132,820 for everyone else. The baseball world doesn't begin and end with BTF.
And if you google Toilet Party Favors, you get 159,000 hits. This obviously means that people are much more obsessed with the fringe activity of toilet partying than they are with discussing Ichiro and the Hall of Fame.
Thus making Ichiro a central figure in the Toilet Partying world.
Well, if the notion of Ichiro not being a HoFer isn't outside the mainstream to an extreme, I doubt if that last sentence would be true, although Ray would probably attribute such a vote to misplaced pity.
But how many of those are inferior Japanese League hits?
Awesome.
These other posts suck as hell.
This is just Andy's usual shtick; actually arguing facts is beyond him, so he just tells you what everyone thinks, as if that's relevant.
Yeah, when I if I really want to note what's "relevant," I should instead be paying attention to what you and Ray and the rest of the baseball birthers think.
-- 10 consecutive 200 hit seasons (record)
-- Over 2,230 hits
-- Career Batting Average over .320
-- Over 1,000 runs scored
-- Over 360 Stolen Bases
-- 2 Batting titles
-- 6 Times leading the league in hits
-- ROY and MVP for team which won 116 games (record)
-- 262 hits in 2004 (record)
-- 9 (probably 10) All Star Game Appearances (8 or 9 starts)
-- 9 (probably 10) Gold Gloves
Even without considering his unique style and colorful personality, which fans and writers both love, and the "pioneer cred" as a Japanese position player, which gives him a great story line, does anybody seriously doubt that the above will get him elected to the MLB Hall of Fame?
Out of curiosty, have David and Ray ever denied that Ichiro is going into the Hall of Fame? From what I recall, their position has never been that he won't get in, but rather that his statistical line (as compiled in MLB) currently doesn't, and is unlikely to at the end of his career, match up to the normal election standards of the BBWAA (as based on the quality of player that they've historically elected).
While I happen to disagree with them on that current and likely future statistical merit (since AROM's WAR system already has Ichiro being within the lower realms of HOF quality), their position is not insane by any means, as much of it relies on the differences between the values determined by the various fielding evaluation systems. If AROM/Tango's evaluation of his fielding merits are correct, then he's of HoF quality. If Chris Dial's are, then he's probably not. If it's somewhere in between, then it's probably up in the air.
And if you want to have an actual discussion on this, you might want to drop the deliberately inflamatory birther shtick.
Wait till Lou Dobbs has a few months to put his newly found free time to use.
If he gets 500 more hits (which is probable), he might be as close to unanimous as you can be in a HOF election. Not saying he deserves the inner-circle treatment (he obviously doesn't), but I certainly wouldn't bet against him getting 99% of the vote.
Probable? It's almost inconceivable that he doesn't. I think it's actually more likely that he gets 1000 more hits than he gets less than 500 more.
EDIT: But you're right, in that (absent some major scandal) Ichiro is about as big a lock as there is for the Hall of Fame.
No disagreement, Ryan. Just being conservative. :-)
Come on, John. This is no place for being conservative. This is the place for grand pronouncements, non-stop bluster, and knee-jerk reactions.
His defense is definitely the key, since his offense, while quite good, is not really what we're used to for HOF outfielders. If he was indeed an outstanding outfielder, I would say he's a legit HOFer.
(hides his head in shame)
You're citing (made up) public opinion polls, and the general consensus among HOF voters, none of which has anything to do with my position.
I have never argued that Ichiro wouldn't be easily voted in, so, as usual, your comments are utterly irrelevant to anything.
All irrelevant. There was no love involved.
It'll have to be after he serves a term or two as POTUS.
I'm a dude, aren't I?
Out of curiosty, have David and Ray ever denied that Ichiro is going into the Hall of Fame?
No, but my original point was directed against the idea that the "discussion" about Ichiro's candidacy isn't by this time long since resolved. Of course I know that Ray and David aren't claiming that Ichiro won't get in. They may be baseball birthers, but they know that they don't have the votes to overturn the electorate.
From what I recall, their position has never been that he won't get in, but rather that his statistical line (as compiled in MLB) currently doesn't, and is unlikely to at the end of his career, match up to the normal election standards of the BBWAA (as based on the quality of player that they've historically elected).
While I happen to disagree with them on that current and likely future statistical merit (since AROM's WAR system already has Ichiro being within the lower realms of HOF quality), their position is not insane by any means, as much of it relies on the differences between the values determined by the various fielding evaluation systems. If AROM/Tango's evaluation of his fielding merits are correct, then he's of HoF quality. If Chris Dial's are, then he's probably not. If it's somewhere in between, then it's probably up in the air.
Except that this (once again) treats the Hall of Fame as the equivalent of some sort of statistical Hall of Merit, which (once again) it isn't. But as all this has been gone over in the previous 878 Ichiro threads, I don't see any need to re-hash it once more, except to note that those dreaded "intangible" factors play far more of a role in HoF voting than in our beloved HoM.
And if you want to have an actual discussion on this, you might want to drop the deliberately inflammatory birther shtick.
If the shoe fits, wear it. These two birther groups have one thing in common: They can never just let anything go, and they both seem to think that they possess some special insight that the rest of the world is incapable of grasping.
----------------------
Wait till Lou Dobbs has a few months to put his newly found free time to use.
In this 999th hour of the Ichiro "discussion" Lou Dobbs might actually raise the level of the debate. It wouldn't take much.
Yes, they're not exact equivalents. So what?
The Hall of Fame has, and always will have, a strong statistical component to its selections. While it may consider other intangible aspects in their selections, these have not typically been the dominant part of the election of individual players - most players have been elected based on some form of statistical evaluation, with the intangible component being a secondary consideration, usually only considered for more marginal candidates.
If there isn't a strong statistical leaning among the BBWAA voters (even if they're not necessarily the statistics we would prefer), why hasn't the Hall been packed with nothing but "intangibles" and "good quote/story" guys"?
I find it hilarious that anyone on this site is accusing anyone else of this sort of thing.
Yeah, me included, no question about that. The shoe fits here sometimes as well, at least the part about never letting anything go.
But to the substantive issue: While it's true that the HoF has a strong (even dominant) statistical component, it's also screamingly obvious that Ichiro's "intangibles" are as great as anyone's you're likely to find in this day and age, both in the form of statistics (that career [to date] .333 average; all those 200 hit years) and elsewhere (his earlier career; his charisma). And even if you put his statistical accomplishments in the marginal category (which might be a reasonable Hall of Merit position if you exclude his Japanese career entirely), it's also true that it's the marginal candidates for whom these intangibles play an outsized role. It's not as if we're talking about Mark Fidrych or Joe Charboneau, and that Ichiro's main intangible is petting imaginary birds or chewing glass. This is a guy who's been in 8 of 9 All-Star games and has been a Gold Glove every year. You really do have to be a baseball birther to claim that this isn't a legit Hall of Famer.
That word, it does not mean what you think it means. You just laid out the "tangible" statistical case for Ichiro being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Thanks to the couple of reasonable people, who simply note he isn't Mays or Ruth but one of the great players in today's very big world of MLB.
(*) I'm using 'statistical merit' because you used the phrase, but I really mean performance; for instance, his defense will not be evaluated by voters based on statistics per se, but will be a major plus for him.
Beyond "It's the NATIONAL HoF!!!!!", "I haven't looked at Petagine's stats, so I'm just going to bring him up a lot to be an #######!" and "Ichiro is not Jackie Robinson-->?????-->Not HoF!!!!", I can see how if you don't count his time in Japan, there's a statistical case to made (without shouting "He has a low OPS+" over and over again) that he hasn't made it yet.
What always bothered me was the tendency to simply pretend that he didn't play in Japan and everyone who's not an idiot should know that.
It seemed to me that it should be relatively obvious that NPB is a major league and it was not and is still not easy to change one's place of birth. Furthermore, had Ichiro played his first decade in MLB, he would have MORE hits now, not less.
But I respect the arguments to the contrary, just not the way that several of the usual suspects would take up the "7 games! He's only played 7 games! That's not enough to be a HoFer!" schtick and compare him to guys who got fat and old at 31.
That hasn't taken place in this thread, so people should lay off of the anti-Ichiro crowd.
He gets my theoretical vote because I give him extra credit for Japan and for being really fun. I don't think that the pro-Ichiro case is very strong without those two factors.
That word, it does not mean what you think it means. You just laid out the "tangible" statistical case for Ichiro being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Of course I note that when you quoted what I wrote, you omitted the parts about his Japanese career and his charisma, which are key components to his candidacy in the minds of many potential voters, and yet are discarded by the literalminded Primates who deny their relevancy. To these same Primates, Ichiro's nine 200-hit years and .333 aren't enough; they're but a statistical quirk that's overridden by his not getting enough walks to bring his OBP high enough, and his singles are dismissed as being tainted by including too many of the infield variety.
----------------
Except that this (once again) treats the Hall of Fame as the equivalent of some sort of statistical Hall of Merit, which (once again) it isn't.
Once again, it is. The Hall of Fame has always been about "statistical merit." (*) Sometimes very poorly done statistics, but statistical merit nonetheless. "Intangible" factors don't play a discernable role, and you never once managed to find an example of someone about whom the voters said, "He's not qualified, but I'm voting for him anyway because of intangibles."
Of course not, and I've never said that. What does happen, though, is that these intangibles sometimes make the difference on the margins, either helping to put a player in (like Dean) or out (like Allen). Of course there will be writers whose formal justification for their vote will include a statistical fig leaf of an argument, but it's not all that hard to figure out what's really going on. And in some cases they'll lay those intangibles right out front.
Or to take the two examples I've cited: Give Dick Allen and all his personal baggage the career stats of Dizzy Dean. And then see how far those statistics get him.
But then it's beyond your limited comprehension to imagine that the human factor ever goes into any human decision, so this is like arguing with a brick wall.
He gets my theoretical vote because I give him extra credit for Japan and for being really fun. I don't think that the pro-Ichiro case is very strong without those two factors.
But according to Nieporent, no HoF voter would ever think like that. People like you get stripped of your voting credentials before you ever get a chance to cast your tainted ballot.
The stats aren't an end to themselves, but a means of measuring baseball performance. It is not the Hall of Stats, sure. But it's not the Hall of Good Character. You have to at least be really, really good at baseball to get into the conversation.
Yes, because there are scores of corner OF in the HOF with .298 EqAs in 1400 games.
You haven't established that they're "key components." Most writers I have seen have talked about hits, batting average, steals, and defense - not "charisma."
His singles are not "dismised," but, rather, are counted as singles rather than as doubles or home runs.
He doesn't hit for power relative to elite corner OFs.
And citing batting average and "200-hit years" is not serious analysis. You've not seen me ever tout a player based on his batting average and raw hits totals, so I've not been inconsistent here in the least. I've not treated Ichiro differently from any other player... And perhaps that's the real "problem" that many in the pro-Ichiro crowd have with me. I don't give him special consideration, as they do.
Shockingly, I don't think games played in Japan are games played in MLB.
I don't think your arguments are ridiculous regarding Ichiro, Ray, even if I think your energy would be better served in a more winnable battle; but I do think you're splitting hairs and being semantic regarding "charisma". I'm sure he means popularity, which is and has been a prominent factor in the voting. Puckett, et al.
To the extent that it translates into things like All-Star game appearances (10 for Puckett, 9 for Ichiro) and awards (6 GG, 7 top 7 MVP votes for Kirby, 9 GG, 4 top 10 MVPs for Ichiro). Really, Dave nails it in his footnote to #63: Hall-of-Fame voting is based on baseball performance. Dick Allen is hurt because his issues led to a short career and many of his issues negatively affected the performance of his teams (mid-season retirement, etc.). Dizzy Dean is in the HOF, not HOM, because HOF voters viewed his statistical record more favorably than HOM voters did.
Puckett was a .320 hitter with power who played a key defensive position, was on two WS winners, and who suffered a career-ending injury on the field while still playing at a top level. That is why he is now a HOFer.
His doctors repeatedly indicated that the eye problems that ended his career were unrelated to the beaning.
However, you are correct, in that the sudden end to his career meant that he went out while still playing at a top level.
"Intangible" factors don't play a discernible role, and you never once managed to find an example of someone about whom the voters said, "He's not qualified, but I'm voting for him anyway because of intangibles." If Ichiro gets in, it will be because of his on-field performance, not intangibles. That doesn't mean the assessment of his performance will be correct, but there's a big difference between making a mistake and voting based on "intangibles."
The point isn't that someone's election is BASED on intangibles, but that it is and has been affected - and for the close cases, significantly - by such extra-statistical factors. Isn't Rice the perfect example of this? His statistical merit is inferior, but the intangibles affected the writers so much they did indeed let it affect their votes and overcome the statistical deficiencies. If Morris makes it, the same thing would be true, the intangibles will have played a big part in that.
...[Puckett] was on two WS winners
This is as bad an argument as the ones you can't stand in favor of Ichiro.
Yes, you're right; I had misremembered that and thought he got beaned near the eye.
No, I'm making a statement about why he's a HOFer, not why I'd have voted for him.
You're not the first one to do that. I'm always surprised that, even with the doctors saying the beaning had nothing to do with the glaucoma, Dennis Martinez didn't get blamed for ending Puckett's career.
Nice to see that someone else gets it. Maybe by about 2020 Ray and David will, too, though I doubt it. And I'd still love to see a marginal case get in if he had Dick Allen's personality.
Jim Rice got elected despite being both marginal (to be generous about it) and having a pretty damn unpleasant personality.
Let Dick Allen be a valued member of the Phillies organization for about 15 years and maybe he'll get elected, too. And let the Phillies cultivate a rabid fan base whose biggest minor league affiliate organizes a big campaign to get him in. Otherwise let's not compare apples and oranges.
Jim Rice is a marginal case with a negative points on "personality" who got in.
No, he didn't have Allen's personality, but Allen was rather unique, as I'm sure you know.
No, as Ryan and Ray suggest, Jim Rice is NOT the perfect example of this. Jim Rice is the perfect example of how BBWAA voters use poor statistical measures - overvaluing RBIs, failing to account for park factors. But Jim Rice was elected because HOF voters BELIEVED that Jim Rice was one of the best hitters of his generation.
DB
But Dick Allen wasn't marginal by a standard Hall of Fame case. For a 1B, he had the basic numbers of 1099/341/1119 with a 0.292 BA and only 1848 career hits. By BBWAA standards, that's nowhere close.
Andy: Such-and-such is true because of A, B, C, D, and E.
Reply: No, B and D aren't even accurate, and E doesn't help your argument.
Andy: You ignored what I said about A and C!
Whether or not Ichiro gets credit for Japan, that's not an intangible either. (The only way it's "intangible" is if he's getting credit for being a "pioneer," which I don't think any voter is doing, which is good because he wasn't one. Rather, I think they're either giving him credit for his play, or they're simply excusing his shortened MLB career. Neither one of those, contra Andy, somehow distinguishes the HOF from the HOM.)
-------------------
No, as Ryan and Ray suggest, Jim Rice is NOT the perfect example of this. Jim Rice is the perfect example of how BBWAA voters use poor statistical measures - overvaluing RBIs, failing to account for park factors. But Jim Rice was elected because HOF voters BELIEVED that Jim Rice was one of the best hitters of his generation.
But funny that they didn't seem to "BELIEVE" that for 14 years. And funnier still that over the past decade and a half we've seen a growing appreciation for the sort of statistical measurements that by logic should only work against Rice, not for him. Rice was known as a "feared" hitter almost from the first time he swung a bat for the Red Sox, but that wasn't good enough until 10 months ago to get him into the Hall.
What's really changed over the past few years is that Rice has been seen more as a member of Red Sox Nation than as a sullen loner. It's not that he's changed into Ernie Banks, but he's mellowed enough with the media that he's now seen as a non-threatening old school curmudgeon rather than someone you'd always want to avoid in the locker room. He's worked with minor leaguers and has been with NESN---do you count this sort of networking as "tangible"? Does it show up in a statistic? And has Dick Allen done anything remotely like this in order to ingratiate himself with anyone who has an ounce of influence in baseball?
I swear that some of you people are as thick as a fucking brick. First you repeatedly bewail the narrowminded stupidity of writers who ignore your pet statistics. Then you cry about their various irrational biases and prejudices. And then you say that these same writers would never, ever consider anything but statistics when choosing Hall of Famers! You say that those coldly objective folks may "misinterpret" a few stats now and then, but they never let their judgment of personalities cloud their spreadsheets---perish the thought.
And when someone mocks you for that sort of inanity, you turn around and claim (falsely, of course) that we're claiming that intangibles are the ONLY thing that's important. As if we haven't said repeatedly that they only come into play in the case of the marginal candidate with pronounced positive or negative personality or charisma issues.
Writers always make their case on statistical grounds -- maybe not always the best statistics, and sometimes silly ones and grouped in a silly fashion -- and never say "there is no statistical case for him but I'm voting on intangibles."
For Andy to have any case, he'd need to find someone who did much better/worse than his statistics -- his traditional statistics, not his sabermetric ones -- would indicate. (And to actually demonstrate his thesis, he'd need to find more than just one someone.)
As to Rice, see above; as to Morris, (1) his hypothetical election obviously can't prove anything until it becomes non-hypothetical; (2) I don't hear voters pushing him for intangible reasons, as opposed to performance-related reasons. ("Most wins of the 80s.") As to the underlying claim, as with all of Andy's arguments, once you add in all the caveats and exceptions needed to make it true, it becomes trivial. Of course an election might be "affected" by intangibles; given two statistically identical candidates, it's very possible that the more charismatic player will get more votes. That's a fair descriptive statement, even if it has not actually been proven.
But that's not Andy's claim about Ichiro. The debate about Ichiro isn't whether he will go in, but whether he should go in. In other words, Andy isn't claiming that Ichiro will likely do better than a statistically equivalent player; he's claiming that Ichiro should do better than a statistically equivalent player. He has repeatedly set up a false dichotomy between the HOF (which in his view does and should take into account intangibles) and the HOM (which in his view doesn't and shouldn't). But the HOM voters are humans, not computers, too; "intangibles" can "affect" their elections too. Showing that voters may be "affected" by intangibles doesn't distinguish these two Halls.
Andy has never understood the difference between a descriptive claim and a normative one.
In any case, your entire little rant here misses the point. If his sullenness kept him out, that was wrong; if his mellowing got him in, that was wrong. And if it was wrong, it provides no useful argument regarding Ichiro.
Says the guy who brings up a 30-year-old speech that Reagan made in Philadelphia, MS at every possible opportunity. I'd be shocked if you don't bring it up when a restaurant overcooks your steak.
I see Ryan thought of the Rice example as well... and I see that Andy, as usual, refuses to acknowledge that the example is on point.
I don't understand this at all in relation to what I said, and I do think Ryan bringing up Rice's personality threw everything off. I didn't say anything about personality, my point was simply that "intangibles" will have an effect. Rice had "THE FEAR", and that was an intangible. People, writers, the BBWAA think he was walked intentionally with the bases loaded. Without that intangible, he doesn't make it in on his fifteenth try. Morris will be argued to have these intangibles, as you certainly can't measure the statistical reason why he belongs.
How nice Dick Allen was or how nice Jim Rice wasn't has nothing to do with my point about intangibles and the fact that they affect the vote. I really did mean BASEBALL intangibles. I think Nieporent was right about intangibles being negligible, but only personality intangibles are. The BBWAA takes baseball intangibles and turns them in their mind into statistical greatness.
As a descriptive claim of what may have happened, that's unobjectionable. But it obviously wouldn't justify a vote for Dale Murphy now. The fact that a voter let race subconsciously affect his vote in the past doesn't mean that it makes sense for that voter (or a different one) to say, "Murphy's below the line statistically, but I'm going to consciously give him a boost because he's white." If it subconsciously affects his vote for Murphy, well, there's nothing we can do about that -- but we shouldn't validate it by endorsing him taking it into consideration now.
EDIT: Just want to add that Andy might protest that obviously taking race into account is bad, but that doesn't mean that all intangibles are. But look at the things he's talking about in #89 -- Rice "worked with minor leaguers and has been with NESN" and Allen not having done so. Maybe those aren't morally equivalent to racism, but they're pretty damn stupid reasons to put someone into the HOF.
This reminds me of the political arguments against granting "special rights" to gays and lesbians. As if it would be bizarre to partially excuse the relatively short career of some alternate-reality Cuban Ichiro who'd been able to defect only late in his career.
Ichiro's fame certainly outweighs his performance--he's not an inner-circle guy--and there's a case to be made that he might not be a qualified Hall of Famer, but you can't make it while you're wearing these blinders. "We must pretend that all players didn't exist before they set foot on an MLB field! It's intellectually dishonest to use any other evidence!" Hooey.
Forget the .333 BA, 9 Gold Gloves, 9 100-run seasons, 9 200-hit seasons, 341 steals, etc. There's a three-digit metric that says Ichiro is teh suck! I found another one: LOL, Ichiro, your peers are Matt Stairs, Gary Matthews, Nick Swisher, and Ron Fairly! Welcome to the Hall of Fame - the Hall of Fame of FAIL!
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