currently active players with a shot at the hall of fame

i know we've argued this before but anyway the biggest contributing factor to keeping catcher WAR (and other counting stats) low is short careers. we're only judging mauer on his 20s because that's basically his career, and it's still enough to put him 18 all-time in WAR. so either you believe that each position should be treated with some equality in HOF voting and a generally similar amount of each should go in, or you don't. i believe that should be the way and that if mauer retired tomorrow he'd deserve to get in. and probably less 1Bs and corner OFs should get in but that's a different thing.

you're talking about WAR, but the author was talking about WAR/162. the latter theoretically should have nothing to do with longevity; in fact shorter careers would be rewarded. that's precisely why mauer looks so good compared to the other catchers he mentioned, when bench was actually a far superior player. through bench's age 30 season he had 63.8 WAR, and 6.33 WAR/162 to mauer's 5.74

if the selection bias i'm talking about is a real thing then there's no reason to believe catchers should be represented as equally as other position players. if someone ever wondered where the all-time great relief pitchers were, you'd tell them that the best pitchers were made to be starters. it's possible a similar phenomenon occurs with catchers, but maybe to a lesser extent.

do you have to be a member to comment on that site?

if the selection bias i'm talking about is a real thing then there's no reason to believe catchers should be represented as equally as other position players.

there is... if you believe there is? this is literally nothing but a preference. the best catchers should get in, regardless of how they stack up against every other position. that's my preference. i don't know how selection bias or really anything else plays into that at all. the author of the article using shitty arguments doesn't really change that.

relief pitchers are a different monster, they accumulate like several standard deviations less value than hitters and there is much less of a reason to separate them from starters. that is not at all comparable to catchers. i don't understand why you're bringing up biggio to make this point when he collected the majority of his WAR from 2B. he was barely a catcher -- so what? why does that change how we view the guys that move from catcher? how is this any different from all the guys who move from SS to 3B/2B or from CF to LF/RF? (one thing you're forgetting is that a lot of guys get moved from C/SS/CF because they're not good there -- talented hitters always try to occupy these spots in high school and college to increase their value on draft day and even though they suck there, teams still wait too long to move them)

and anyway if you're the type of person who thinks mo should be kept out of the HOF bc he's a reliever you might be taking the baseball hall of fame a bit too seriously and i suggest you maybe step outside and take a breather

why does that change how we view the guys that move from catcher

*the guys that don't move from catcher

(xposts) I don't know--appears you haven't posted anything, so maybe you do. Your counter-arguments are good, Kevin; I'm a subscriber, so if you want, I'd be glad to cut-and-paste them in there for you.

idgi, good hitters move from catcher because catcher is a difficult, dangerous position with a short lifespan because it requires much more physical endurance than every other position, why shouldn't the guys that are best at that get in proportionally to other positions

i played catcher once in little league and my legs still hurt

i played catcher for a year in little league and was once pulled aside by an umpire who had to tell me that i couldn't take my mask off before the pitcher had thrown. everyone stole off of me because i didn't have a strong arm, and the catcher's mask was several sizes too big and rattled around a bunch on my head, so i wanted to take it off so i could make an unencumbered throw to 2B for once.

idgi, good hitters move from catcher because catcher is a difficult, dangerous position with a short lifespan because it requires much more physical endurance than every other position, why shouldn't the guys that are best at that get in proportionally to other positions

― linda cardellini (zachlyon), Tuesday, July 22, 2014 3:59 PM (11 minutes ago)

because they aren't actually the best players, they're the best players compared to other catchers. think of the relief pitcher analogy again

I caught too, up till I was 10 or 11. When we were in Florida one year, I got Johnny Bench's autograph and had him sign my catcher's mitt. That was a bright idea--continued to use the glove, autograph faded away.

thanks, clem, could you post this:

the writer commits a really common statistical blunder when he says mauer's candidacy is already extremely strong due to the fact that his WAR/162 is the highest of any catcher in baseball history. mauer's numbers look better compared to bench -- a far superior player: bench's WAR/162 through his age 30 season was 6.33, and this number is actually "hurt" by the fact that he stayed on the field more and therefore had a bigger denominator -- because we're only looking at mauer's twenties and haven't given him time to decline (which he's already doing) and lower that number. i'm sure this was considered, but it wasn't mentioned.

to the point that catchers are historically underappreciated, it may very well be true that WAR fails to account for the difficulty of playing the position, pitch framing, etc; obviously this is a popular view among mainstream sabermetricians. if this is the case, then it's difficult to compare them to other position players using WAR. but leaving that aside, or even assuming that WAR could be tweaked somehow to account for this, there's no way you can adjust WAR for the fact that catchers, on average, play three-quarters of a season. they're not providing value during that time they're resting, and they're not providing value when their careers end sooner than other players. if you want to make this a hall of fame argument, you could argue for lowering the statistical threshold to account for the difficulties of playing catcher, but this has nothing to do with WAR itself

also when the author says "Is it rational, then, that a strong candidate for the title of greatest catcher of all-time has a per-162 game rate that’s so far below the best players at every other position on the diamond? Is it rational to believe that there have been no really great catchers in major league history?" -- i think there might be a failure to account for a sort of selection bias that undoubtedly occurs when clubs decide which position players will play. great-hitting young catchers are routinely moved from behind the plate at a young age because teams want to maximize the value they can contribute. it happened with biggio; it would have happened earlier with mauer, had the twins had their way; it's happened with countless other young catchers: teams want their best young hitters in the lineup every day and to not age in dog years. it's very possible that the talent pool of major league catchers is diluted because of this. a somewhat analogous situation is relief pitchers: the reason relief pitchers in general are lesser pitchers than starters is that managers and front-office people have their best pitchers start games, because that's how they can pitch the most innings and give them the most value. relievers shouldn't -- note shouldn't -- be compared against other relievers, but against other players. but this gets into a long tangent about how JAWS is dumb and how it de-accounts for position, one of the fundamental strengths of WAR

and i explained why that's a bad analogy! the best relief pitcher of all time still has less WAR than joe mauer, and relief pitchers are required to do much less -- contribute much less per season than catchers, master fewer pitches (sometimes only one) -- rather than much more, like what catchers do (destroy lower body). starters move to relief because it's easier to be good in relief. non-catchers do not move to catcher for any reason.

i don't understand why you're bringing up biggio to make this point when he collected the majority of his WAR from 2B. he was barely a catcher -- so what? why does that change how we view the guys that move from catcher? how is this any different from all the guys who move from SS to 3B/2B or from CF to LF/RF? (one thing you're forgetting is that a lot of guys get moved from C/SS/CF because they're not good there -- talented hitters always try to occupy these spots in high school and college to increase their value on draft day and even though they suck there, teams still wait too long to move them)

"selection bias" just means the sample being studied differs systematically from the population at whole. applied to this case, i'm arguing -- with not a whole lot of evidence, i admit, but biggio is an example and he's not alone -- that catchers as a group are lesser players than baseball players as a group, because managers/team builders may be given to moving the best young catchers out of that position to maximize their longevity and production. biggio is the archetype because he's a guy who came up as a catcher but was moved almost immediately after making the majors. had he remained a catcher, he may have gone down as one of the best catchers ever. if this is part of a trend -- and again i'm not providing evidence that it is, just speculating -- then that would explain why the catchers who do stay being catchers are as a group lesser players, and why their being underrepresented among the elite of the elite might be justified.

i totally believe rivera should be a hall of famer btw

i was only using the relievers analogy to illustrate what i meant by the catcher selection bias, i understand it's a different situation.

so catchers are worse than baseball hitters as a whole because a lot of players move from catcher which creates a much smaller sample of catchers to choose from

this is sort of a slippery slope of an argument here

(and why doesn't it extend to shortstops and center fielders?)

shortstops and center fielders are on average worse hitters than baseball players as a whole. this is part of why they get such a nice positional adjustment in WAR. but i'd argue that shortstops and center fielders are generally the best athletes and have a much better pool to choose from than catchers

i mean to use the little league analogy everyone knows the fat kid was the catcher

i mean to take this to a ridiculous extreme you could say the entire population of MLB players is diluted because if there was much more high school/college scouting, if teenagers in podunk montana towns were getting scouted and drafted and given the best coaching in the world, a huge majority of current hall of famers would not be good enough for the hypothetical hall of fame

if cuban players didn't have to risk their lives to become american major leaguers the pool would be bigger too

if every human being on earth played baseball from little league to adulthood and they all qualified for the rule 4 draft maybe it'd only be babe ruth and ted williams

if every player on strds in the 90s kept their strd usage a secret larry walker wouldn't stand a chance

hypotheticals don't make thurman munson any less awesome

eh those aren't valid counters, they're all external to the sample of current major leaguers. what i'm saying is that baseball talent is unevenly distributed among the positions

shortstops and center fielders are on average worse hitters than baseball players as a whole. this is part of why they get such a nice positional adjustment in WAR. but i'd argue that shortstops and center fielders are generally the best athletes and have a much better pool to choose from than catchers

― k3vin k., Tuesday, July 22, 2014 4:44 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean to use the little league analogy everyone knows the fat kid was the catcher

― k3vin k., Tuesday, July 22, 2014 4:45 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is silly and wrong

i'll never understand why being able to hit a baseball good and/or crouching on your knees for 9 innings 5-6 days a wk is considered less "athletic" than running fast and being thin, especially when a lot of SS/CF perceived "athletic" value comes from actually being smart, quick to respond and able to execute -- skills also required for catching. or why this athleticism, if catchers really lack it, should be valued more than the ability to withstand everything catchers withstand.

a lot of SSs and CFs suck at SS and CF but every catcher has to be able to withstand being a catcher

eh those aren't valid counters, they're all external to the sample of current major leaguers. what i'm saying is that baseball talent is unevenly distributed among the positions

― k3vin k., Tuesday, July 22, 2014 4:52 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk man people are always dinging old timers for not having to play against non-wites and that's E2TS (external to the sample, new lingo)

it's just really silly to me to hold a potential sample pool against an actual sample pool

yeah i mean this is all splitting hairs at a certain point but when a dude writes a (pretty good actually) article asking why catchers aren't represented among the game's greats, a reasonable response would be to point out that maybe the best players just don't play catcher

It's ok, catchers get to be in HOF as great managers.

I think this paragraph nails it: Does Mauer have to pad his career with numbers tallied at first base for us to appreciate this, or can we appreciate the genius of his career now? If we can appreciate the short-but-brilliant careers of Sandy Koufax or Kirby Puckett, why can’t we do the same for Joe Mauer? If we cut Koufax and Puckett slack for arm injuries and vision problems, why isn’t the same leniency granted to major league catchers?

I realize this is not a paragraph. I'm sorry I called this a paragraph.

anything can be a paragraph if you believe in yourself

mauer's been in the top 10 in WAR once in his career. it's not like he'd be a no-brainer if he retired tomorrow

he's a catcher and plays fewer games, but he's not pujols. there aren't many players who have airtight cases by the time they're 30

Except for billy Hamilton

tru

Sorry, been out all day--I posted your comment, Kevin.

(Took the liberty of capitalizing...old-fashioned that way.)

that must have been exhausting, but thanks!

I definitely believe that WAR isn't very accurate for catchers. The inherent bias where even the best catchers are only capable of playing 120-130 games max per year is only a small part of it.

A big part of Mauer's HOF case is that there was never another catcher like him in the history of baseball -- he won three batting titles, was an OBP machine, and a great defender. He was great *and* possessed a skill set completely different than anyone else who played the position, to me that's a meaningful "intangible" and a big boost to his HOF candidacy.

I'll put this here...Heard Smoltz interviewed last night in conjunction with this weekend. He doesn't think there'll be any more 300-game winners, or anyone hit 3,000 K again. He did throw Kershaw's name out as a possible caveat on the 300 games.

People have been saying this since at least Seaver and Carlton (maybe it goes back even further--did they say it after Spahn and Wynn?), and they're wrong every time. I know Verlander's having a bad season, but he's still in pretty good position, as is Felix (all those screwed-out-of-wins seasons notwithstanding). And Kershaw, yes. And probably someone else who'll step forward in the next few years. One of those guys will win 300.

As far as 3,000 K, that intuitively doesn't make sense. Strikeouts keep going up and up--somebody has to do the striking out. I know the Kimbrels and Chapmans and those guys get their fair share, but if you look at the active K leaderboard, you can easily pick out a few guys who are in good position. (Led by Felix, I'd say: 1,866 at age 28.)

those old players love to think of themselves as being part of the last of a dying breed rather than someone whose accomplishments will invariably be overtaken and overshadowed in the years to come.

strikeouts are up but so are TJs. the medical landscape is just different now. for some reason no one threatens to K 300 a year anymore and the guy who comes closest (yu) always seems a few starts away from a huge injury. i'd peg guys like felix and kershaw as more likely to suffer huge career-screwing injuries than reach 3000, though i'm sure it will happen again for someone.

they just don't build em like they used to

Strikeout thing doesn't make any sense to me. There are plenty of dudes on the active list who are halfway there and could be less than halfway through their careers. Not everyone will fall apart and with medial science some of them might even pitch forever a la Clemens and Johnson.

as with all things pitcher-milestone related, reaching them often has a lot more to do with longevity/health after 30 than greatness before 30

Totally but why would you think ALL of them would break down when not all of previous generation's great did? I mean predicting any single dude gets 3000 is probably foolhardy but ANYONE at all ever when two recent dudes nearly hit 5000 is bizarro.

it's also a lot harder to compile when you're pitching 6+ fewer starts a year with pitch counts

generally that could happen with fewer injuries because weaker arms, which could happen because weaker opposing lineups filled with defensive specialists (also an impt factor)

those things don't exist anymore

RJ was a total freakish outlier and clemens had strds. that's my explanation.

If you studied percentage of starter K's vs. reliever K's, you'd have a clearer picture. I realize reliever K's have gone way up in the past couple of decades, but so have K's themselves. Does the second cancel out the first? Probably not--but is the separation so great that the occasional 3,000-K starter won't slip through? Again, the strikeouts have to go somewhere.

Okay maybe RJ and Clemens are just freaks, but Schmoltz hit 3000, Maddux, Pedro, Schilling. These dudes were not pitching tons of complete games or hitting 40 starts a year. They pitched in the same environment that Kershaw, Hamels, Felix, Lee, et al, are.

And putting aside Clemens and Johnson, the 3,000 list also has Maddux, Pedro, Schilling, and Smoltz, all of whom retired within the past five years. Has the sea-change been that drastic?

(Ha--Alex beat me to the same question.)

i honestly have no idea

smoltz had such a weird career

i do think guys will still hit 3000 but it still has to do with longevity, and that's something that's become really unpredictable.

Sure but saying something is hard to predict is different from saying it's never going to happen again (which is what Smoltz did.)

there isn't much time before the apocalypse/end of human civilization so someone better stay healthy

will it happen before the mainstream realizes that pitcher wins don't mean shit, tho?

mostly talking about Ks here